Thanks all for your feedback. I made a few changes in the network configurations between the client and the server (which probably amounted to nothing!) and set up a local library on the stand-alone MC machine and allowed it to populate with those tracks I've ripped. I also enabled auto-import with the appropriate audio folders and settings. I then ripped 10 CD's never before seen to my library. The rips were all performed in secure mode and encoded to FLAC with recommended compression. The second round of rips were performed with the latest version of dBpowerAmp CD Ripper (V16.6). Aside from the physical testing of both rippers and ripping methods, I make no claims to the technical details of either piece of software; and my wish list items are strictly my own based on my work flow process. Here are my results:
Pro's: The stand-alone MC successfully ripped all 10 CD's even two discs that were horribly scratched. With the exception of the three unreadable tracks, everything was successfully ripped. The tracks were then imported successfully with the following tag data intact (Track Name, Track Genre, Track #, Album, Artist, Duration, Date). Using the library tool “Rename, Move & Copy Files” provided a straight forward method to move the files from the “rip” folder into the database folder.
Con's: MC tagging options made use of less source material; while dBpoweramp used Discogs, freedb, MusicBrains and GD3. I Can't say that the additional sources made much of a difference in the quality of metadata returned, but one curious thing that did make the eventual cataloging of the media easier was the inclusion of the catalog # which MC did not populate.
Impressions: I can see why dBpoweramp is so popular, it does one thing only and nothing else. You don't need to worry about the status of your library, or whether auto-import is set up; or if there is some check box you forgot to check to ensure the tags are written to the file. Don't get me wrong, those settings and features on MC have an important role and with great power comes great responsibility to learn how to use that power constructively. However, for the user who just wants to rip their discs quickly and efficiently, dBpoweramp wins. I’m not sure if there is a clear solution to this issue with regards to MC, it comes down to the user becoming knowledgeable of how to wield the power that MC brings to the table
The metadata options through dBpoweramp are copious; although I’m not sure if this is much of a benefit unless your ripping obscure discs. The inclusion of a MusicBrains ID tag makes metadata lookup from Music Brains easy but the inclusion of the Catalog # is what allows the lookup links within MC to shine. I was able to find the exact release in Discogs much quicker. I usually only had to drill down through the media format (CD, Album) and the Country and I was at the correct page. The Allmusic searches were often better in that I usually hit the artist and album in a list with the correct target at the top of the list.
On the two damaged discs, MC was able to recover the complete disc on one and 9 out of 12 tracks on the other. I let dBpoweramp run for over an hour and it never completed the first scratched disk; the second disc failed with three unrecoverable tracks (9/12). While not necessarily a deal breaker, I'm not waiting more than 5-10 minutes to rip a disc and then I'm moving on. I feel that MC respects my time to a greater extent by admitting when a disc is a lost cause, and moving on. As far a file size, the completed rips were within 5% of each other before I added them to the MC library.
In this scenario where I rip at a different location (different computer) the winner in my mind is to use dBpoweramp to rip the discs to a central location on a network drive, then move to the Server version of MC and import the files, flesh out the rest of the tags then move the physical files into the library portion of the disk. Using this method, I can rip from virtually any computer with a minimum of setup. Using MC required a little more installation and setup to get it right, plus the missing Catalog # slowed down the Discogs and Allmusic metadata searches.
The real downside of this is by ripping with an MC that is not connected to the shared database is that none of the custom tags that are part of the shared DB can be populated prior to ripping (AMG Album ID, Discogs Release ID). This moves 100% of the metadata scraping to the import process. Not a big deal but it’s my preference to populate the two ID fields during the rip and not during the import.
My Wishlist:
- Add the catalog # field to the metadata lookup fields
- Allow MC to rip from client machines
- Allow MC to make use of MusicBrains, Discogs, freedb, GD3 when scraping metadata. Perhaps treat each metadata source as a plug in. As more and more plug-ins are added, more metadata becomes available.
- Configure the metadata plug-in to custom select what tags to scrape
- If you scrape metadata from Discogs, Allmusic or MusicBrains, store the ID key as a tag
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Topic: Questions on Library Import (Read 2374 times)