Maintaining a Digital Music Collection

Thinking about Sonos vs Squeezebox. Sounds like Squeezebox has better sound quality and cheaper, but Sonos doesn't need a computer running all the time, and is easier to set up. What to do what to do.

I love my squeezebox.

I love mine too.

I'm not very familiar with Sonos, but judging from their web site, it's quite similar to Squeezebox. If you want to listen to your own digital music collection, you'll still need to have a computer running somewhere.

actually: "Computer-free access to your Music Library
- even if your computer is turned off, your Sonos will still be able to play your favorite music. Never worry about your music stopping because a computer shut off or went to sleep."

https://sonos.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/sonos.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=79

that is a big plus for me, taking notes here.

nice feature but you need an NAS for that.

nasty NAS

Jeez, "genre" tags are such a headache. Has anyone found a way to master these?

Broad genres, limit the amount of them.

hate the "genre" tag. put record labels there instead.

Really wish iTunes would allow multiple genres.

hate the "genre" tag. put record labels there instead.

this

wish there was something akin to delicious tags that did not involve filling up the comment area e.g. belle and sebastian - glasgow/scotland/uk/jeepster/matador/stuffed animals on cover/etc

i put record labels in the copyright field

Actually labels would be a v good idea! I'm in the process of going through dozens of gigs of music on four or six separate hard drives and consolidating them all onto one. Going to rename/tag-update all of them with either mp3tag or TagScanner (do either of these programs have options to delete multiple instances? I have so much overlap here), not sure what to do about genres. Only one I really use is "Ambient"

i can see labels being useful if it's 'Creation' or 'Sarah' or something. but less useful when it's 'EMI'.

you can search amazon by genre. their POP list is 3M tracks long... 50 per page...

ogg and flac will let you add any tags you like, including multiples, but i doubt anything will bother reading them other than metaflac or ogginfo command line tools.

foobar2000 allows for multiple genre tags. That and its ability to automatically update the file library closed the deal for me. Just separate each genre tag using semi-colons. The autofill function is also much loved for when the genre naming gets a bit convoluted ("dream rock / noise pop"; progressive rock grouped by country, etc.)

Really if you're on a PC, Mediamonkey can take care of all your sorting, tagging, moving, deleting needs.

I've been using Instinctiv as an alternative to iTunes (on a fairly limited basis). Doesn't seem to handle podcasts which is a bit of a pain but the simple user interface looks great. Initially uses a lot of cpu when it's grabbing artwork off've the net but seems pretty light otherwise (mac only).

http://www.instinctiv.com/

Does the free version of Mediamonkey auto-update the library? It didn't when I tried it about six months ago. Otherwise, I remember liking the UI well enough.

no that's 'file monitor' feature i think. for 20 bucks for life (so far) it's been very good to me

Is there anything that can plug into a USB drive and scan the file directory, show the results on a screen and then output at decent quality on Phono?

This way I can keep my files on their drives and not have to boot up a PC every time I want to play something on my stereo.

I'd buy an Ipod, but my collection is FLAC and I like having drives that I can swap across different systems.

just something hard wired to my stereo that has good D>A converters and isn't a dick about formats.

seems a load of high end CD players can take a digital signal and convert it, but still need to computer to browse the files.

There are programs that will downsample your library as needed, so you could retain the FLAC source and have an iPod filled with high-quality MP3 or AAC.

FLAC isnt a problem with current media players, 'WD TV live!' f.e.
but since you want to show the results on a screen, you will need either a turned on tv
or a media player that has his own display. output at decent quality on Phono should not
be the problem since some players have optical out.

crossposting this from the Apple thread

http://apple.com

I finally found something called a squeezebox touch that seems to do the job. but I wasnt too sure about how stable it is. so I bought a squeezebox radio and am testing that...

so far I can stream FLACS to the kitchen, which suits my washing up duteis down tot he ground.

now thinking about setting up a music server on a plug computer for the flat.

I have the old first generation squeezebox from before they were bought by logitech and it's still great. It's how I listen to music in the living room.

original post :(3) I need a life in general.

fix'd

My media organizer software, J River Media Center, has slowly turned into a great media server, which requires almost no effort to set up. I'm ready to stream my library all over my house - what have other people used for receiving devices? I'd like to get a wifi DLNA-compliant device, which JRMC can recognize, and ideally it'd have a display to show the artist/track playing. Any suggestions?

logitech squeezebox is what I use. a little pricey but I really do love it.

Any links to good articles about this topic, from an organizational perspective or a practical usage view?

appletv was a completely realistic and cheap solution to this for me. yeah I know no flac but I just use apple lossless if I want lossless on something.

i'm thinking about getting an appletv pretty soon. can you describe how you use it as a media server. i am also contemplating a 3 piece sonos system. just wondering how you use the appletv aside from watching netflix etc.

So a big ol' thinkpiece from Pareles in the NYT today:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/26/arts/music/new-online-services-offer-hope-to-music-fans.html

Does capture a certain state of things, though I do find it interesting he hasn't just simply let go of all that extra stuff yet; then again I think this is in large part a function of generations and time. Part of my recent move involved me making good on my long promised plan to donate the bulk of my CD collection to my old radio station; that was done a couple of weeks back. It was intriguing to feel no sense of loss in doing so as I packaged up the many boxes' worth of the collection, instead enjoying the empty sense of clarity that resulted and which has carried over to my new place. What rump of the collection I have consists of two medium sized racks tucked away in a closet and a spillover rack in my office area, and I couldn't be happier -- wouldn't be surprised if I chose to further winnow all that in the near future too.

damn, this thread is almost two years old!

unless a CD's hiding around the house, i ended up getting rid of literally every CD i own

2000 jpgs and many hours later I have tagged my collection of flac folders... around 750 from LP or tape, 1200 or so from CDR. Now it is really a pleasure to just be able to throw whatever I want onto the portable player for my workday listening. If I hear something that stumps me, I can just tap on the screen and immediately see the art & tags. Now I just need a 3 TB external stored elsewhere for one more layer of redundancy.

I'm about to buy a passport harddrive to store my music on, but I keep putting it off because of the extremely daunting task of tagging and organizing my MP3s. How do you guys organize? I have lots of single tracks so I'm thinking of doing it by genre, but yeah... going through every single mp3 on my computer is going to be a nightmare.

I have a big digital 'colection' but I still buy CDs and vinyl all the time, I like having the physical object for some reason... and I have a bunch of LPs that I need to rip to my computer. I'm just going to devote an entire day to re-organizing.

Tagging albums is pretty easy—several programs out there that do a really good, easy job. What I'd like to see is one that lets you right-click a loose mp3 and automatically download the tagging info/art for it. Anyone know of anything like that?

Without physical CDs, how will I go over to your house and judge you immediately based on your music collection?!

Sniff the stink cloud

OK, now we're getting somewhere... 6TB disk array with Thunderbolt connection. Expensive as hell now, but it'll drop in price.

I heartily approve.

I got my backup drives but I have been so damn busy I haven't even opened one of them yet. The other is done, I need to get it over to my friend's house for safekeeping. Now I can start ripping my CD collection (I am on "Bevis Frond" right now).

oh hi Ned xp

Also, do not make my mistake and buy a Seagate drive. It's slowly dying. I am a WD convert as of two weeks ago when I did a bunch of research on externals.

Hi there!

Sleeve, how long have you had your Seagate hd? And at what point did it start dying?

had it since January 2010, so a year and a half? It frequently makes this loud repetitive clicking/knocking sound that I read was a symptom of a slowly dying drive. It's the PCB controller board to the drive that's the problem, not anything mechanical.

lol redundant "board" in that sentence, sorry. PCB = printed circuit board fyi.

Also, do not make my mistake and buy a Seagate drive. It's slowly dying. I am a WD convert as of two weeks ago when I did a bunch of research on externals.

Conflict! I've been a Seagate convert ever since I had 2 WD models fail on me.

About the HDs that fail, do you keep them plugged in all the time, or do you only plug them in when you do a backup? I've had a Seagate for about a year and half now, and I haven't had any problems yet. I also don't keep it plugged in -- only when I do a backup.