Maintaining a Digital Music Collection

I thought the problem of having stuff on your ipod that isn't on your HDD would be moot now that HDDs are so big and ipods still (relatively) small

has anyone used Twonkymedia or some other DLNA thing?

This expanded "Convert higher bit rate songs to 128 Kbps AAC" functionality in iTunes 9.1 is the missing link for my archive strategy! Just going to finally rip all my cd's to apple lossless for archive/iMac/airtunes/ps3(via medialink) and do the 128 aac for my iphone/shuffle. Perfect.

No better or worse than the headphone jack on the machine that's serving it.

― caek,

Why would these be related? The signal is transmitted wirelessly and undergoes d/a conversion in the AirPort, which has its own 1/8" jack.. And if the electronic noise of the computer is an issue if stated here, stands to reason it would be less in the AirPort. On the other hand, the device isn't that expensive so the d/a converter can only be so good I imagine.

yeah I don't know how the DAC chip is inside the airport. they may be using the cheapest possible off the shelf chip. but the airport does do optical out...

I use a personal set of genre tags instead of playlists in itunes. They're mostly nonsensical genres -like 'Tropical Daze', 'Bamboojazz', 'California Sketch', 'Black Devil Disco'...- but they help me keep my music library organized by an array of similar sounds and moods instead of a simple genre. Best thing is information doesn't get lost from one computer to the other (a problem I had to learn the hard way with itunes playlists) and that whenever I am in the mood to listen to a particular playlist I just type in the genre and listen away. Makes the eventual cleanup of unloved songs easier too.

How so?

Well instead of listening through a library of +7,000 songs I only listen through these playlists of 300/400 songs. Makes it easier to differentiate the songs which I really love from the ones I downloaded in the spur of the moment. Also mood is very important to me, if I listened through a genre like say 'black devil disco' (which is where I keep all the kosmiche + house music) on a random rainy day chances are I'll be erasing a good chunk of it. I only do cleanups when I am in the mood for a particular 'genre'.

http://lifehacker.com/5511473/start-to-finish-guide-to-whipping-your-musics-metadata-into-shape

I end up retagging almost every field of everything I import.

Likewise. Best to fix it immediately!

I'm pretty lazy about retagging. To the point that I end up with the same artist being listed twice under slightly different spellings. However, I usually at least try to make sure that the artist/album/title information is correct.

i'm less & less concerned w/ any of this tagging/importing/etc. stuff. i just want to listen to music

Well yeah but you gotta find it to listen to it?

I'd rather work on metadata than listen to the music.

i'd rather work on metadata than read a blog about Animal Collective

i'm less & less concerned w/ any of this tagging/importing/etc. stuff. i just want to listen to music

didn't you start this thread though?

I've been sharing occasional albums in flac, especially ones that are out of print or pricey imports. I've been having an ongoing argument with a guy in Australia who is pissed off that I don't download his .cue and .log files! He said he went through all that hard work, he wants me to keep them. I try to explain that they're useless to me. I used dbPoweramp to rip my CDs to flac in order to listen to them, not to be able to burn CDs with identical spacing between songs. My goal is not to distribute them to anal retentive freaks to make bootleg CDs. My tags already show that they were ripped perfectly, complete with an AccurateRip Disc ID, so no need for .log. If that's not good enough for some people they can fuck right off. Am I wrong?

I don't understand anything you just said.

i leave the .log files in because occasionally people ask for them but i have zero use for them myself. why would anyone care whether you download their log files? i doubt most people who d/l from me even re-share what they've leeched

ripping/bootlegging communities have some of the most anal retentive, insufferable people on the internet, IME. wouldn't get far without them, though.

Moka, what bands are filed under Bamboojazz?

Sung Tongs

Thinking about using the iTunes 9.1 feature of converting stuff to 128kps AAC to the iPod (vast majority of my collection is 200-256 kbps MP3). Is there going to be a noticeable quality difference? I mean, clearly there's an enormous gap from 128 to 200+ MP3 that I could tell even on shitty jogging headphones, but I don't have many AAC files to compare.

try it. pick something representative and transcode it (from lossless if possible) to various formats and pick the best (what qualifies as best depends on your priorities)

i did this and ended up just using the default settings - there was no discernible difference (to me, but then i do most of my listening with added traffic noise) and using the defaults was less typing 8)

(and these were oggs, so default is 112kbps variable)

Thinking about using the iTunes 9.1 feature of converting stuff to 128kps AAC to the iPod (vast majority of my collection is 200-256 kbps MP3). Is there going to be a noticeable quality difference? I mean, clearly there's an enormous gap from 128 to 200+ MP3 that I could tell even on shitty jogging headphones, but I don't have many AAC files to compare.

I use 128 AAC and it sounds decent enough for me!

Moka, what bands are filed under Bamboojazz?

― fuckin' raggett... how does that work? (Whiney G. Weingarten)

I created bamboojazz almost with the sole purpose of drinking piña coladas and margaritas on late summer evenings. Last year a couple of friends were obsessed with margaritas so this was sort of our pre-party soundtrack before the night took over. It's mostly comprised of afro-latin jazz with a laidback spirit.

Here are a few of the artists and songs:

Yusef Lateef - The Plum Blossom
Nina Simone - See-line Woman
Kenny Burrell - Moon and Sand
Dorothy Ashby - Lonely girl
Fortin-Léveillé - Soleil
Jorge Ben -Oba la vem ela
Coleman Hawkins & Ben Webster - La rosita
Smokey & Miho - Consolação
Dexter Gordon - Love for Sale
Stanley Turrentine - Wave
Caetano Veloso - Manhata
Gato Barbieri - Tupac Amaru
Herbie Mann - Coming Home Baby
Coralie Clément - Samba de Mon Coeur Qui Bat
Paul Desmond - Samba Cantina
Cannonball Adderley & the Bossa Rio Sextet - O Amor Em Paz
Maria Rita - Dos Gardenias
Horace Silver - Qué Pasa
Sara Tavares - Lisboa Kuya
Amancio D’Silva - A Street in Bombay
Faruq Z. Bey with Northwoods Improvisers - Oncala
Yo La Tengo - Let’s Be Still

Just bought 3 CD's.

/inyoface

CDs are digital music :)

I believe that "Convert higher bit rate songs to 128 Kbps AAC" is VBR. Should sound good on portable devices, especially if you're converting from Lossless. Even a transcode (from say 192 Kbps .mp3) should be ok for most users/uses.

i'd recommend keeping it at least 192kbps

What I meant is that I have physical copies.

/inyodoubleface

I had an audio CD that someone had burned for me from ITunes, and I tried to rip it to MP3, and it did not sound good - the new MP3s sounded notably inferior to the burned CD. I wonder if going from lossy format to lossy format is worse than going from lossless to lossy and vice versa. Like the bits that get left out become more noticeable or something.

Yeah for AAC I like 192, though AAC 128 sounds good for most things except stuff like symphonic recordings with v wide dynamic range.

Kind of want to hear that Bamboojazz playlist now.

FWIW, when I talk about 128 AAC, I'm only talking about iphone/ipod, and only for storage sake. I'm currently backing up everything in Apple Lossless for archive and around the house listening.

I may have mentioned this upthread, but I've gone 256 AAC or 320 MP3 across the board. Space is cheap.

I had an audio CD that someone had burned for me from ITunes, and I tried to rip it to MP3, and it did not sound good - the new MP3s sounded notably inferior to the burned CD. I wonder if going from lossy format to lossy format is worse than going from lossless to lossy and vice versa. Like the bits that get left out become more noticeable or something.

― o. nate, Saturday, April 10, 2010 5:01 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark

this is the equivalent of crossing the streams

DON'T DO THIS

Yeah, transcoding is generally bad and will give you generational defects. I wish there were more settings than just the one for the iPod transfer/transcode, because I'm skittish about deleting 14 gigs off the iPod, having iTunes do all the conversion and upload which I'm sure will take hours, then being unhappy with it and having to wipe/resync it all again.

There are no good options for upgrading my current setup - you can get a custom 240gb iPod with Rockbox but there's no way to sync playstats back and that's critical for me. For small, microSD expandable players, they all seem to have an 8000 track limit. What's a music obsessive to do? Thin the heard!

Off with all the Billy Bragg bonus discs, replace The Jam box set with just "Snap!", remove the Go-Beteeens 2CD reissues and listen to "1978-1990" (which I always kinda preferred), bye-bye to various live shows and radio session compilations. Hey, now I've got room for lots more stuff, starting with the Dead Can Dance box (instead of all the individual albums). Ah, the compromises one must make...

You can always kidnap your favourite artist and then store them in the basement and threaten to put powdered glass in their dogfood unless they perform yr favourite numbers to at least flac standard.

worst topic ever

So you're saying you regret ever starting it?

nah, i was just trolling

tbh, a year later, all i care about now is waiting for iTunes or Google to start up a compelling cloud music service \(^o^)/

i'm more or less of the mind that either buying a record or streaming is the way to go, especially since CD prices are pretty loooooooooool right now

Yeah, I hear you. The next cellphone I get will be an Android phone and I'm gonna try streaming my collection but I worry about the sound quality. I'm trying to embrace the less-is-more philosophy but it goes against my nature!

cloud storage will never really do it for me since i still get a lot of use of my offline ipod outside, and internet connections will always have some degree of unreliability, even at home. it's a fantastic option so you don't have to backup all your music, as long as you could download your own copies as well (RIP lala)

have pretty much gone over to buying mp3 albums now after years of reticence - only maybe 1/4th or less of my album purchases are still on CD, since the competition out there now means lot of albums go on sale often now via amazon, itunes, 7digital, etc. - especially when they're below the $5 mark they start to get more irresistible

cloud storage will not mean you're streaming everything and constantly need an internet connection

when done correctly, it will let you temporarily put the music on your device so you can access it even without a connection, then release those files back to the cloud to free up space

I believe Spotify already lets you copy stuff from the cloud, but someone who's actually used the service would be a more reliable source to talk to about that

My biggest concern re: flac is for iTunes' awful support of it.

I'm considering buying a huge hard drive soon and either replacing my MP3 collection or just starting with lossless from now on.

Thing is, how do FLAC users play in iTunes? I'm on a Mac so foobar/etc won't work. What about FLAC on your iPhone/iPod. I'm not using FLAC just to keep the original copies I want to play from it. Is there a plugin or something that solves all these issues?

I use Fluke

http://code.google.com/p/flukeformac/

another option would be to switch to Apple Lossless (however that locks you in to their proprietary format).

all that said, are you sure you can accurately pick apart the differences between high quality mp3s and lossless?