More > JRiver Media Center 21 for Windows
Feature request: "rip as single file"
lendall:
The digital world is really not set up for classical music. Everything is a "song," and "songs" you download have names like "1 Allegro" and "2 Adagio." Unless I renamed tracks I would have several hundred of each of these, and it would be impossible to tell them apart. One problem is that most online databases use the "Artist" field for the composer, although this is not consistent. So, where do the performers go? The other, and perhaps larger, issue is that the majority of classical pieces have multiple movements, the origin of the "1 Allegro" problem. Even worse is that long works without movements are often broken up into very small chunks with names along the lines of "Five measures after Number 53." When I first started ripping CDs I did not let this bother me; the scrambling of movements was kind of fun, or so I pretended. But when the movements were forty seconds long, or when "Five measures after Number 53" began and ended in medias res with cymbal crashes, the novelty wore thin. I tried using the cue track function to join tracks, but honestly, this is not ideal.
After a while I developed a system: I would rip CDs in Media Center temporarily, load them into Audacity to "splice" them, then export them from Audacity in whatever format I wanted (FLAC or OGG). Then I would import these into MC, remembering to re-do the analysis function since the analysis that was correct for one movement would not be correct for the entire piece. Finally I would delete the individual movements from my computer. A rather time-intensive process.
Then I started using Any Video Converter software for various DVD functions (e..g., subtitling), and discovered that this software has a "rip as one file" function for CDs. I started using this, and it seems to work more or less okay, and one has many options as to codec and bitrate. I suspect that the quality may not be as good as on MC, one reason being that Any Video Converter rips and encodes all at once. I also wonder if their codecs are up to date. (This on top of other concerns I have about that company and its software which I will not go into here.)
This is all to say that in my opinion a sophisticated, high-end "rip as one file" function (as opposed to the current cue track function) would be a very valuable addition to MC21, particularly for those of us who listen primarily to classical music.
adamt:
Have you tried?
[Options > CD, DVD, & BD > File Management > Rip to a single file with cue rather than separate files]
Does this work, or am I misunderstanding the request?
blgentry:
If you are the kind of listener that likes the categorization of classical music, you should do some reading on how JRiver can be used to organize classical music. There isn't a single answer for doing this correctly as far as I know. But the beauty is that JRiver can store LOTS of information about each song. For example, by default, the Library has fields for Composer, Conductor, Orchestra, and Soloists. You can fill those fields out for the songs to add data to them that makes it much easier to search and sort the way you want to.
Because JRiver's library is easily customizable, you can also add your own fields. For example you could add Work, Movement, Period, or any other data field you wanted.
I've read several forum postings and articles on doing this. It seems like a lot of work to do it. But, once it's done, you gain some really nice flexibility for sorting and searching classical music. Look at the screen shot here of what one member has done:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=86996.msg595484#msg595484
Here's the wiki entry on classical music that has links to some relevant threads:
http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Tagging_Classical_Music
I don't have any concrete advice to offer, but maybe this will give you some good ideas.
Brian.
leezer3:
--- Quote from: adamt on July 27, 2015, 03:06:58 pm ---Have you tried?
[Options > CD, DVD, & BD > File Management > Rip to a single file with cue rather than separate files]
Does this work, or am I misunderstanding the request?
--- End quote ---
As I understand the OP, yes and no :)
The track information on the CD is *useless* to him, as these disks are in effect one continuous track, with arbitrary points added into them for the track boundaries.
Using this option will produce a single audio file, but the CUE will still contain the incorrect (unwanted) track information.
To get to the desired endpoint therefore, you'd need to rip using this option, and *then* delete the CUE file before importing the FLAC into the library.
IMHO it shouldn't be hard to add an option to rip to a single file and not create the CUE sheet to go with it :)
I also very much see the attraction- I've got much the same problem with audiobooks, although I just tend to ignore the proliferation of files.
-Leezer-
BillT:
--- Quote from: lendall on July 27, 2015, 02:43:30 pm ---The digital world is really not set up for classical music.
--- End quote ---
That is very true.
As a long time user of JRiver, listening to classical music 99% of the time, I think you should use the glory of JRiver, its' database.
Tagging the files suitably and making views to suit your usage will let you get the result you want without having to bolt all tracks into one unwieldy lump. See bigentrys links for some ideas. JRiver gapless playback allows you to play a continuous work that has internal track markers as intended, without a break.
I have tags for Composer, Work, Key, Opus no, Orchestra, Soloists and 2 extra sub genres. These let me set up various views, so I can easily select pieces in many ways. The original CD, using a tree structure made with genres. If I want a specific work I have a Composer/Work view which lets me quickly get to any piece I want to play,
It's a lot of work initially, but probably not much more than your system and is much more versatlile.
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