Less and less CDs on the databasr

[Ian Hayes]

Less and less of the CDs I rip on my B2 devices are being found on the database. This means hours of tedious manual input.

It seems to apply to CDs that are old or new, obscure or popular. I have updated monthly.

Do others experience this? Any suggestions?

[Davywhizz]

I switched to ripping on my laptop using dBpoweramp software. It's not free, but I had a 21 day free trial then paid not very much. It's very easy to use and searches for the track listings across a number of databases so very rarely fails. Regardless of that, I prefer it for compilations as it adds the artist for each track by default. It will also tell you if a rip is accurate or not. If I need to search for album art I do it there and then on-line and add it pre-rip. dBpoweramp can rip straight to FLAC so there's no compression phase at the B2 end and it's also good for converting file types: I used it to convert some high resolution files I had to the FLAC level the B2 can play back. I put the ripped albums onto a memory stick then import maybe 30 at a time to the B2.

[Les Stanley]

Yes I've noticed the same problem more and more of late. Sometimes a workaround is to manually enter the album name and artist and then use the Amazon lookup feature to get the track names but this doesn't always work.

The previous answer is an excellent solution but it shouldn't be needed.

[Rearwing]

Hi Lee, could you explain what you mean by this shouldn't be needed?

[PMB]

Hi Ian and Les,

Please try doing a Web Upgrade - does this help?

Paul

Brennan Support.

[Les Stanley]

I just mean the B2 database should work more efficiently.

[Rearwing]

You are aware that the database is not provided by Brennan? 

[Davywhizz]

I should maybe add another reason I gradually moved to the laptop: I had a small proportion of CDs that wouldn't complete a rip on the B2 internal CD drive, even if the CDs were recognised. I had fewer of these fails when I added an external CD drive to the B2 but, so far, none on dBpoweramp. However, and this is important, I've had to remove individual tracks where the rip completed but dBp flagged a warning against them. I'm guessing these are CDs the B2 would have rejected but with no way of giving me a reason. So any fault is with the CD, not the B2. My B2 sailed through ripping my mainly single artist CDs, then progress slowed when I got to my wife's more esoteric collection. I'm being diplomatic here, some would say obscure. I also remember she'd managed to reverse over them in her car in a house move before we got together. Back to the database issue: no database in the world could be expected to find all of our CDs so dBp has an advantage in looking more widely (Turkish chart hits anyone?). I've still had to enter a couple of track lists manually and look for about a dozen album covers

[Rearwing]

I also use dBpoweramp, it is a fantastic programme and well worth the money. It is especially useful for making sure that tags are correct.

[Daniel Taylor]

I've been using dBpoweramp CD Ripper for quite awhile now, and it's great.  I have yet to figure out how to get artwork with dBpoweramp.

Today, I just downloaded the latest version of Exact Audio Copy (EAC).  This program is also excellent, and it's free.  I'd been using a very early version.  The new version has to ability to rip to FLAC, it populates the tagging info, and it downloads artwork automatically.

[Rearwing]

Hi Daniel, at the bottom right of the ripping screen is a box with three dots in a box below it, if you click on the box it will ask you about which source you want to use for retrieving artwork.

[Daniel Taylor]

Thanks, Rearwing.  Ha!  Those three dots are hiding down there at the very bottom - easy to miss.  I've got it searching for art for an album now.  It failed the first search.  That was for an album that EAC found the artwork like instantaneously.  I like both programs.  It may take me awhile to decide which I like better.  Probably I'll use both of them, but at different times for different things.  EAC seems to be a bit slower to rip a good clean album, but dBpoweramp can take forever for a problem disc.

[Rearwing]

Hi Daniel, i moved from EAC to dBpoweramp, but you are correct that it doesn't always handle some CD's well. What i find useful is to go into preferences and change to defective by design for CD's that are proving very troublesome.

[Daniel Taylor]

 Hi Rearwing,

I've gone into CD Ripper Options and I can't find a setting for anything that looks like "defective by design."  Could you please be more specific about what I'm looking for?  Thanks.

[Rearwing]

Hi Daniel,

Apologies for the delay, if you click on dBpoweramp music converter the drop down menu will have a line for preferences, clicking on this will bring up a dialogue box, at the top will be three options: burst, secure, defective by design.

[Daniel Taylor]

RW,

I found it.  The idea that some CDs have data that has "intentioal errors within [the] audio" and that the data must be interpolated seems very strange to me.

I will give it a try with that setting.

Thanks a lot.

[Daniel Taylor]

I apologize for steering the thread off course.  I received a private comment from a new poster asking for ideas about how to deal with albums that do not get results with the lookup to MusicBrainz.

MusicBrainz may not be as comprehensive and accurate as many would like it to be.  That is not Brennan's fault, and there's little (nothing?) Brennan can do about it.  There is something that each user could do, if MusicBrainz does not fulfill your needs.  Rip on your PC, edit the information as you see fit, and then Import the songs onto your B2.  Songs can also be copied via NAS.  If you only do that for the albums that cannot be found on MusicBrainz, then it won't cost you much time, and it might be faster than manually editing those albums on the B2

We've recommended two great programs that do a fine job:  dBpoweramp CD Ripper and Exact Audio Copy.  And I'm sure there are others, as well.

[Mark Fishman]

> The idea that some CDs have data that has "intentional errors within [the] audio" and that the data must be interpolated seems very strange to me.

It is done by the CD manufacturer as a form of copy-prevention. It doesn't work very well, and it increases the likelihood that the CD will eventually become unreadable due to the accumulation of (other) errors.

Audio-CD *players* -- you remember those stand-alone things that people used to attach to audio systems? -- (as opposed to computer CD drives) do two different forms of "repair" to an audio stream during playback (which is NOT the same as ripping): error correction, and error concealment.

Error correction uses some additional information encoded into the disc, over and above the actual audio data, to reconstruct the original bit stream exactly. When that fails, because enough errors have accumulated that the original bits cannot be computed, the player will interpolate data by averaging adjacent information and attempting to construct a smooth waveform according to some specified algorithm. The result is supposed to be an inaudible repair, but it is NOT the original data. Computer drives might do error concealment when used as players, but they certainly do NOT do it when used for ripping.

"Ripping" is an attempt to treat an audio CD as if it were a data CD, and you would not want your computer interpolating stuff in programs and other files just because it had an error: you'd want to know about it, and you'd want the drive to retry the read until all the error-checks were satisfied.

[Daniel Taylor]

Thanks, Mark.  I understand all that.  I was just surprised that a CD manufacturer would go to such lengths to prevent copying.  They are depending on every CD player to be able to "repair" the data correctly so that the listener will hear the proper music.  I think that's a big ask, and that a lot of those CDs could be returned as defective, which they are, really.  Strange.