Batch CD ripping on macOS

[William_Allbrook]

Hi, I use a Mac and an attached Superdrive (I think you can still get them). I use iTunes to burn my CD to ALAC (Apple Lossless and now open sourced) format. I moved my iTunes library on to my Roon Nucleus so this is where Roon gets its data. This also means I can copy my library over to my iPhone for playing when I am out and about. ARC does not work for me as the mobile signal around here is so poor.

As I buy new CDs I simply plug in the Superdrive and save to my iTunes (on the Nucleus) library. Roon instantly recognises it.

[gTunes]

Hi, @Mark_Sealey.

The advice already given is outstanding. You’re on the right track.

My recollection is that it is possible, at least on Windows, to launch dBpoweramp multiple times and have the instances rip in parallel. I’m pretty sure that’s what I did the last (and final) time I swept through my CD collection, though that was years ago.

I started ripping to low-bitrate MP3s in the 90s. By 2001, I was ripping everything to FLAC. I did a couple of additional passes to take advantage of improvements in FLACs compression algorithm and to improve metadata including embedded album art. When drive speed was slow, you’d spend time waiting for ripping to complete. As drive speed increased, the downtime in between rips got smaller.

I bet that if you had two drives going at the same time, with two copies of dBpoweramp running, you’d find that the rips are happening almost as fast (or even faster) than you’re able to correct and edit metadata to your satisfaction.

My approach is to create a local “Staging” directory, into which CDs are ripped. When a rip completes, the disc ejects and I stick another in. I think you can configure dBpoweramp to automatically start ripping. I let dBpoweramp apply metadata from its metadata source, but I don’t spend any time trying to correct it, I let it apply what it’s found.

When a rip is done, I use a metadata editor to update and correct everything. I’m very detail oriented and metadata is usually full of errors or choices that I don’t like. So I fix it.

My current editor is MusicBrainz but I’ve used plenty of others. I make sure to use an editor that is capable of renaming files if I change track names in the editor itself. I don’t want inconsistencies between file system names and metadata.

I embed artwork in the files instead of having a file in the file system. Years ago, I’d advocate for doing it the other way around but that was driven by concerns about storage space which shouldn’t be an issue today.

Once I’m done with a disc (or multi-disc collection), I move or copy from Staging into my music folder. It doesn’t get near my music folder until it’s done.

By this point, the next disc has typically been ripped, or is close to being ripped, and I can move on to working on its metadata. If I’m doing many CDs at a time, I put a stack on my desk work through them this way.

Maybe there’s something in here that helps. The most important point I’m trying to make is that working on metadata takes a while and I don’t think you really want or need a batch ripping system that can fly through your CDs at a rate that’s much faster than your ability to work on metadata.

Hope you have fun with this project!

[DDPS]

@gTunes

The most important point I’m trying to make is that working on metadata takes a while and I don’t think you really want or need a batch ripping system that can fly through your CDs at a rate that’s much faster than your ability to work on metadata.

This is well-said, and I think that is why so many people who are cheering @Mark_Sealey’s initiative are making these tough suggestions to him…it’s all out of love.

@Mark_Sealey - in the science of “Lean” there is a philosophy about touching things as few times as possible, and that work actually gets done faster this way, even though it is completely, 100% counterintuitive. In other words, this pattern:

• Insert Disc
• Have dBpoweramp (or XLD, or whatever) load its suggested metadata
• Interact with/correct that metadata
• Perform rip

…is actually going to get your work done faster than this pattern:

• Insert Disc(s)
• Interact lightly with dBpoweramp (or XLD, or whatever) to just make the rip(s)
• Lunch metadata software
• Load an album that you think needs fixing
• Review metadata, fix it, and save it

In the latter, you are touching each album twice, and the time rather insidiously adds up.

I think I just broke my promise to shut up. I am sorry. I will truly stop now. @Mark_Sealey we are rooting for you!

[Mark_Sealey]

Thank you so much, @Jayson_Chung, for that clear and comprehensive description of what, I’d say, really amounts to making ‘virtual CD sets’

@Jayson_Chung

by altering the track and disc values in your tag editor to create your virtual CD set, being as fastidious as you can be so you don’t leave behind anomalous values, and making sure your file & folder structure match up with your desired outcome.

I could certainly do the first part of that - track tagging.

I could also change the distribution across the original folders which correspond to the CDs as sold/supplied.

But that does represent a decisive departure from the ‘raw’ sequence, doesn’t it.

I note the need to remember to set back for non-multi-disk items!

The key is to properly configure Roon’s Import settings before you import your virtual CDs. You want Roon to obey your tag values rather than whatever it has in its database. Here’s what I would suggest.

Got it. Thanks. I compared your settings with mine, which - as you would expect - mostly prefer Roon. It’s the last three (‘Track’s title’, ‘Track number’) in particular which would make your process work, isn’t it.

What is meant by ‘Media number’, BTW, please?

Thanks again for this set of instructions. Noted

[Mark_Sealey]

Thanks, Stephen,

@Stephen_Salisbury

…Just noticed in my settings there is a “~” in the Path that you don’t have. Not sure if this is relevant.…

I suspect that denotes the ‘Home’ directory - for anyone accessing the database remotely as a guest user.

Your screen grab appreciated. I’ll keep trying. But I have a feeling that I’m better off making a separate sub-task of tagging. Yate works really well.

[Mark_Sealey]

Thanks for describing that process, William!

@William_Allbrook

…Superdrive…iTunes…burn…ALAC…moved…iTunes library…to…Roon

[Mark_Sealey]

Thank you, @gTunes,

@gTunes

…launch dBpoweramp multiple times

That is surely what I should investigate next. IOW I now need to make a straight decision between XLD and dBpoweramp. I have found the former a little slow.

…“Staging” directory, into which CDs are ripped…configure dBpoweramp to automatically start ripping…let dBpoweramp apply metadata from its metadata source

Again, I need to confirm that the Mac version will work that way; I actually have four drives that I could use - in sequence!

…I use a metadata editor to update and correct everything. I’m very detail oriented and metadata is usually full of errors…

Same here. As everyone else has said in this thread, the time goes to the tagging, not the ripping.

My current editor is MusicBrainz but I’ve used plenty of others.

It seems as though MusicBrainz is the most reliable for classical too. Again, I think I need to settle on one and get used to it for the foreseeable future.

I embed artwork in the files instead of having a file in the file system.

I hadn’t identified that as an issue. Thanks.

By this point…

I see how that contributes to streamlining the task; the multitask.

Maybe there’s something in here that helps

Certainly! Thanks. I can see that the ‘batch’ aspect is really an illusion; as everyone else here has said.

[Mark_Sealey]

Thanks, @DDPS!

@DDPS

This is well-said, and I think that is why so many people who are cheering @Mark_Sealey’s initiative are making these tough suggestions to him…it’s all out of love.

which is exactly how I take it. Appreciated

…the science of “Lean” there is a philosophy about touching things as few times as possible…In other words, this pattern… the time rather insidiously adds up.

Got it. Something that could easily be proved with a stopwatch!

I think I just broke my promise to shut up. I am sorry…

No! Glad you did. Thanks for so doing, @DDPS .

[Jayson_Chung (Che-sun)]

@DDPS

@Jayson_Chung

(Of course, you have to remember to set them back to what you prefer for your regular imports.)

I have come to appreciate that this feature is misunderstood. This screen affects every rescan of one’s library; it is probably misleadingly labeled.

I think the approach one could take to achieve what you’ve just outlined is to use “Metadata preference” for the album in question, scroll down to the section that is “Set preference for tracks of 1 album” (which

Hi, DDPS – If you’re saying that upon the next rescan these Library Import settings apply those metadata preferences to the entire library, then, yes, I’d have to agree that the feature is mislabeled. May I ask how you came to understand this was what was happening? I haven’t noticed any ill effects from doing this and am not sure I see where they would come from. Any album or track tag preferences you’ve set yourself are not going to be overwritten by a rescan, AFAIK.

As for using “Metadata preference” at the album level and then rescanning, yes, that’s a good idea. Once, I wanted Roon to show a 3-CD set as three, distinct, separate albums. I found that nothing less than the full monty approach I described worked. Anything else, including relying on the metadata preference switches, did not produce the results I wanted. However, “simply” rearranging tracks within an album—including moving a track from one disc to another and even putting tracks on a new disc that doesn’t exist in the actual release—should work just using those switches. Thanks for bringing this up. And, again, if you know about specific downsides to using the library import settings approach, please let me know.

That said, I think Roon can be a little unpredictable when it comes to trying to restructure or reorganize albums. So, it’s good to have an escalation path.

In any case, despite the caveat I gave in my first message, I’m sure what OP would like to do—get all the movements of a long symphony that is spread across two CDs onto one virtual disc in Roon—can be done.

[William_Allbrook]

By the way, it took a while to rip them all…about two months. Then I had around 300 CDs and now I have 500 or so. They say patience is a virtue!

[DDPS]

@Jayson_Chung

Hi, DDPS – If you’re saying that upon the next rescan these Library Import settings apply those metadata preferences to the entire library, then, yes, I’d have to agree that the feature is mislabeled. May I ask how you came to understand this was what was happening? I haven’t noticed any ill effects from doing this and am not sure I see where they would come from. Any album or track tag preferences you’ve set yourself are not going to be overwritten by a rescan, AFAIK.

I came to understand this when I first ran Roon and was experimenting with my album artwork and metadata vs. the Roon-supplied equivalents. I had been OCD about metadata for years before I used Roon, during which period I primarily used Synology Audio Station (and, secondarily, an Auralic box, which I never truly loved). Upon my first import, I was terribly disappointed at the album artwork quality that Roon displayed, and I wanted to use my own meticulously-curated artwork, so I switched the setting and re-scanned, and within minutes, I was much happier. So that’s how I discovered that.

You are correct; if you set album or track preferences, they will not be overwritten by a rescan.

@Jayson_Chung

As for using “Metadata preference” at the album level and then rescanning, yes, that’s a good idea. Once, I wanted Roon to show a 3-CD set as three, distinct, separate albums. I found that nothing less than the full monty approach I described worked. Anything else, including relying on the metadata preference switches, did not produce the results I wanted. However, “simply” rearranging tracks within an album—including moving a track from one disc to another and even putting tracks on a new disc that doesn’t exist in the actual release—should work just using those switches. Thanks for bringing this up. And, again, if you know about specific downsides to using the library import settings approach, please let me know.

If you want to convert, say, a 2 CD set to two distinct albums, there are three approaches:

1. If you are doing an import for the first time, set all the metadata right for each of the two discs on a work computer with a metadata editor, put them in the right folder structure, and then move them to your Roon watched folders. Done.

2. If you have already imported a 2 CD set and want to convert it into two separate albums, the easiest thing to do is what you have outlined. That is:

   a) remove the albums from your library;

   b) rescan;

   c) use the “Clean up library” function; and

   d) go to step 1 above as if you were importing anew.

   The disadvantage of this - and some may consider it quite minor - is that you will lose all play history for that music.

3. If you want to keep the play count & history, however, you can do this, which is cumbersome, but it truly does work (I just did this about a week ago with a Bert Kaempfert album, BTW):

   a) Copy your existing 2 CD set from your Roon music source to your work computer to make your metadata and folder structure changes that you desire to make it into two distinct albums;

   b) In your Roon music source, delete the old bundled set, then copy the new individual albums to wherever they need to be.

   c) Do NOT clean up your library, but DO perform a force rescan. The old album will still look like it is there, which will be frustrating. This is because Roon uses a certain fingerprinting technique when importing your music, and the old library metadata that you did not clear out will make the new files look like the previously deleted ones.

   d) When looking in Roon at that old album, select “…” in white circle

   e) In first screen, under “Missing or extra tracks,” select “Fix Track Grouping”

   f) It will give you an error noting duplicate track numbers or names, which I don’t specifically recall, but it’s OK to do what it suggests

   g) At the top of the left column, select “Edit Discs”

   h) Deselect all but disc 1

   i) Make sure that you only have tracks for disc 1 selected in the right column.

   j) At the bottom right, select “Create Album” (1 disc, X tracks or whatever is right)

   k) After this, if anything is left on the left hand side, “Remove” it.

   l) Then exit the interface, and go back to the underlying album as if you were going to listen to it

   m) The album may be “Unidentified” - go back in and identify it (select “…” in white circle, identify album, as usual)

   n) The second album should now be separate, and it may need to be identified, too

So there are three other options. But - and I may be wrong - I don’t think that these are really the issues that @Mark_Sealey was facing?

[Mark_Sealey]

@DDPS

@DDPS

…So there are three other options. But - and I may be wrong - I don’t think that these are really the issues that @Mark_Sealey was facing?…

No; but very useful all the same. Noted

[Mark_Sealey]

Geoff,

Have just spent almost all day ‘normalizing’ my multi-album imports.

Seemed to go well except for two things:

1. that the BackGround audio analysis speed stalls, and
2. I have found that if I edit the album (in Album Editor), scroll to the bottom and select the second of the three options in ‘MULTI-PART COMPOSITION GROUPING’, NAMELY ‘xxx tracks, yyy recordings’ I appear to be able to achieve the same thing. Is this safe, please?

TIA!

[Geoff_Coupe]

If it’s always the same album that it gets stuck on, then I would try re-ripping the album.

For your second question, I think that you are getting confused between the numbering convention for multidisc box sets and multi-part composition grouping. The latter is to do with grouping, for example, the movements of a symphony into a single composition, e.g. Beethoven’s 5th. If you choose the “Prefer file data” option, then you need to use the WORK and PART tags in your file metadata. This is covered in the “File tag best practice” article in the Knowledge Base.

[Mark_Sealey]

Thanks, Geoff,

@Geoff_Coupe

If it’s always the same album that it gets stuck on, then I would try re-ripping the album.

I don’t think it is, actually; not sure that I can find out. Are there user-accessible log files which I could consult to find out, please? I’ve seen reference to them but don’t want to go poking around where I don’t know what I’m doing.

…you are getting confused…

Very possible But not for long!

The latter is to do with grouping…

Understood. I’d like to think that I’ve got that under control. Yate has an excellent regex-based script (an Action in its parlance) which splits TITLE (while also retaining it in its entirety, of course) into WORK and PART for import into Roon. I think that’s working well.

I guess I could ask, please, when would I use

the second of the three options in ‘MULTI-PART COMPOSITION GROUPING’

?

[Geoff_Coupe]

You would use it if Roon has not correctly identified a work and its parts for local files, and you have added the WORK and PART tags to the files.

[Mark_Sealey]

Great. Thanks. Understood!

[DDPS]

Following up…I clarified the “2-in-1” separation process in a separate tip post this morning:

Tip: How to separate 2-in-1 albums while keeping play counts and history

Once in a while, we have a multi-album set in our music collection that is imported as a single collection (most commonly, a “2 in 1” disc set), but we might want to separate the albums so that Roon can show us the editorial content for each album, and so we have the (proper) 2 separate albums and covers in our collection. One approach to accomplishing this, of course, is to copy the original “2 in 1” set to a work computer, separate the albums into their respective folders, update metadata, et…

[Mark_Sealey]

Thanks for those two tips, @DDPS.

I usually have 0 files to ‘clean’ in the Library. And I’m not too worried about play counts, though it is nice to have them, of course.

Your detailed instructions help me also by providing guidance as to what can and cannot, should and should not be done to files in and outside of Roon.

All noted.

[Jayson_Chung (Che-sun)]

@DDPS

I came to understand this when I first ran Roon and was experimenting with my album artwork and metadata vs. the Roon-supplied equivalents. I had been OCD about metadata for years before I used Roon, during which period I primarily used Synology Audio Station (and, secondarily, an Auralic box, which I never truly loved). Upon my first import, I was terribly disappointed at the album artwork quality that Roon displayed, and I wanted to use my own meticulously-curated artwork, so I switched the setting and re-scanned, and within minutes, I was much happier. So that’s how I discovered that.

Thanks for relating that. I had thought maybe you had run into some unanticipated headaches from using this procedure.

@DDPS

• The disadvantage of this - and some may consider it quite minor - is that you will lose all play history for that music.

3. If you want to keep the play count & history, however, you can do this, which is cumbersome, but it truly does work (I just did this about a week ago with a Bert Kaempfert album , BTW):

I wanted to avoid the complexity of using the track grouping tool, but I hadn’t thought about losing the play count and history. I don’t care much about those, but it’s a good point. The clean, illustrated write-up you posted separately is wonderful. Cheers.