Maintaining a Digital Music Collection

There's a crazy number of streaming options now, from TV's with DLNA access to Sonos (who's much more reasonably priced now) to AV receivers that offer streaming options.

Sonos rules.

I hope Logitech goes out of business quickly so somebody competent can buy the rights to the Squeezebox product line and codebase.

I've been eyeing up this as my squeezebox radio replacement

http://www.robertsradio.co.uk/Products/Internet_radios/STREAM83i/index.htm

specifically as a kitchen radio, where I want podcasts and internet radio in a small box that lives on the microwave.

I never use the music streaming of the squeezebox radio, but i do use the spotify app.

I'm gonna miss that.

Had one of those Stream 83i's for a couple of years. Love it. Sounds great. Only complaint is it doesn't cope with displaying times when streaming FLAC's from our PC, but that could be a software issue (currently using Serviio). Recently got hold of some free software that allowed me to stream Spotify to it, need to check if that's been broken by recent Spotify changes I just read about here.

so. I had a hard drive with my MP3 library on it die. I bought a new drive, and successfully copied all of the files from my iPod onto it. However, a huge chunk of the files apparently have no artist/songtitle/albumtitle info associated with them if I view the files in Windows Explorer (some did, and I spent a good chunk of yesterday organizing them into folders etc.) Sure, if I open any of these files up in iTunes they come up with titles etc. there, but for purposes of archiving and sharing files with others, it would be ideal if I could actually see this info in fucking Windows Explorer. I was super-diligent about keeping all this info straight before I put anything on my iPod, so I know this info is in there somewhere... but if I have to open every file individually, figure out what it is, and re-enter that info I am going to go insane.

any suggestions?

basically all these files have four letter names (XXXR.mp3, etc.) and the "Artist", "Title", and "Album Title" are blank in Windows Explorer.

What did you extract them from the iPod with? I used SharePod which did a rly good job of getting out all the folder structures etc.

Also-- are you seeing the non-info'd tracks with their ipod file names (like ERVQ or CIHD or NKSO or whatever) or with their song title file names?

oh xpost ok

try SharePod, it has a 'back up iPod' command that backs up the whole thing incl playlists to whatever directory you spec

I just went in to "view hidden files" in Windows Explorer and copied everything over (I think I got instructions on how to do this from Wired.com awhile ago...?)

I guess I could try this Sharepod thing and start over

well that didn't work

System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
at SharePodLib.IPod..ctor(DeviceFileSystem A_0, IPodLoadAction A_1)
at SharePodLib.IPod.GetConnectedIPod(IPodLoadAction action)
at o.a()

that's exactly the trajectory I had. Did the view hidden files thing, got too many inscrutable four-letter filenames, looked up other options. There might be several that do a good job, but I can personally attest to SharePod.

xpost now that's above my head :(

http://spotify.com

fuck spotify

I don't like their economic model, I don't like the limits of their library, I don't like not actually owning copies of things if/when their service tanks etc

My apologies if this already has been covered (I've not read the entire thread), but what external HDD do you guys recommend?

I have three internal hard drives, ~3TB of data (music and film). I am really scared to move to external HDDs, but the problem is I honestly do not have any more space and I need space very badly. My limited space has now forced me to move on to streaming music, so I signed up for Spotify, but I don't see this as a long-term solution.

Basically, I want something that is reliable and won't die on me or is that not possible? Ideally, a 2TB HDD, but I will most likely need to buy two of them. Also, it'd be nice if it was fast, as sin 7200 RPM. Obviously, not solid state, because I don't want to spend an arm and a leg.

Any suggestions? It seems like all external HDDs have problems.

xp. i don't quite understand the problem. if the files are in itunes you can always have itunes organize the directory structure and file names (in settings - advanced or something like that). maybe the itunes library files can be of use as well: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1660

I'm perfectly happy with my 3 TB Seagate external, it's been going strong for over a year. Of course, I have on-site and off-site backups as well.

http://bit.ly/XXKfdW

i remember when makers had something to say but that was a long time ago...

― Bee OK, Wednesday, April 3, 2013 7:34 PM (2 days ago)

if the files are in itunes you can always have itunes organize the directory structure and file names (in settings - advanced or something like that).

hmmm yeah I haven't tried this because the library is too big to fit on my hard drive, so I've got it sitting in a folder on the external drive labelled "iTunes" and I've been a little hesitant to trust what it's going to do...

That was going to be my other suggestion, just drag the whole mass into itunes and let it folderize them.

But hmmm i wonder why SharePod did not work...

yeah the iTunes "organize library" function organizes the iTunes folder that's on your hard drive. which is empty at the moment. because I can't fit my entire library on my laptop's hard drive. we're talking 130GB of stuff here and I have a 5yo laptop.

warning: if you have various artists comps, the "organize music collection" option will put EACH SONG in its own folder. So annoying.

Like, each song will get its own artist folder instead of one folder that says "tighten up vol 2" or whatever.

i've pretty much given up on any intelligible organization of my digital music collection. it all pretty much goes into one folder and then i back that up every week onto a 2TB external HD.

xpost Shakey, I believe you can set itunes prefs to create that folderized library in any directory you specify? Even an external HD?

I'm okay with it being disorganized as long as I can tell what the fucking files are by looking at their file attributes. I like to share stuff.

xp

ah yes thx Jon, I see I have to change the default iTunes Media Folder location...

and away we go

let's see how long this takes...

hmm that... sort of worked

what external HDD do you guys recommend? .....it'd be nice if it was fast, as sin 7200 RPM..... ― c21m50nh3x460n

This thread is all the reminder I need that I love CDs.

but scik do you not see that you, too, are maintaining a digital music collection? aaaaaahhh... /lee&herring

^^^^^ otm ...

earlier this evening, my external hd locked up playing an mp3.
i reset the laptop and kicked off a check disc process.
it will take hours and hours to scan the 500Gb disc.
tis for this reason i will always prefer to have the cd over digital only.

xpost.

I've finally hit the fuck it stage and am digitizing and/or otherwise divesting off all my physical media. It feels like chewing off my own arm.

warning: if you have various artists comps, the "organize music collection" option will put EACH SONG in its own folder. So annoying.

― brimstead, Friday, April 5, 2013 2:19 PM (55 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Like, each song will get its own artist folder instead of one folder that says "tighten up vol 2" or whatever.

― brimstead, Friday, April 5, 2013 2:20 PM (54 minutes ago)

Mine are grouped together in a folder called Compilations with subfolders by the album title. I'm not sure exactly where the setting for this is, but itunes def did it for me.

Correction -- i posted 2 HD sizes just above; should have been listed as TB and not GB.

I was gonna say!

I've finally hit the fuck it stage and am digitizing and/or otherwise divesting off all my physical media. It feels like chewing off my own arm.

So why did it? What pushed you over the edge?

xp sofatruck I'll bet it's the "compilation" button being checked in the file info/tag dialogue. Did not occur to me.

I've finally hit the fuck it stage and am digitizing and/or otherwise divesting off all my physical media. It feels like chewing off my own arm.

Yeah this hit me too a few months ago, until then I have rarely sold off any CDs I've bought since I got my first CD player in 1991 unless I really hated them. What did it for me was the increasing number of CDs I've got that are starting to fail - some are visibly brown round the edges but others don't have a mark on them and still skip or fail to rip to WAV/MP3. I hate letting go of any of them, it's almost like a miniature version of hoarding.

As for how to maintain a digital collection I'm not really sure yet, I have everything burnt to DVD-R but I know that's probably not very reliable, I have a NAS with 2 mirrored drives in which is pretty good, I had one drive fail but put a new one fine without any problems, I should probably have something offsite though, one of my friends got burgled recently and one of the things they took was his external hard drive so he lost everything that wasn't on his PC (which he got back, the cops caught them burgling another house the same night - for some reason he never got the drive back).

I'll bet it's the "compilation" button being checked in the file info/tag dialogue.

yes it is this. also having the "album artist" set to something generic like "various artists" iirc

I always unclick "part of a compilation album" and always blank out the "album artist" field

As for how to maintain a digital collection I'm not really sure yet,

Main storage drive + 2 backups... one kept in the same place, and another offsite, like at a friend's or your office. I update the local backup every time I add a couple dozen new albums, and the offsite backup every couple of months. Eventually cloud backups will be feasible even for large collections, but if you have 2-3TB of FLACs, it's not really an option at the moment.

Getting to the point now where the idea of jettisoning the physical CDs is very tempting. They take up a ton of space and my apartment is very small. Vinyl too.

wait so are you doing your backup policy now, because if so good for you (seriously)

xpost The fact that I can barely sell them for peanuts lends weight to their perceived worthlessness. It just clicked that eventually not only will they be antiquated and pointless - they're just a different form of digital, one that is heavy and takes up a lot of space - but in the very near future I literally won't have any place for them to go. If I can't sell them, where do they go? The trash?