Manually creating a folder for a ripped CD - 'discid' and 'toc' files

[Nigel White]

Apologies if this has already been discussed before, but I couldn't find the answer.

On occasion when ripping a double CD even though the B2 identifies the two discs as CD1 & CD2, the title is so long it becomes truncated and the CD1 and CD2 designation is lost.  This results in all tracks appearing in the same folder, with two tracks 01, two 02 etc.

Rather than manually typing in the track names, it's easy enough using NAS to create a new folder for the second disc and transfer the relevant tracks and cover art. Once you've asked the B2 to do a scan, everything appears and seems to be as it should.

However, I notice that each CD folder also contains two files 'discid' and 'toc'.  What do these do and does it matter that they are not copied to the manually created folder?

[Daniel Taylor]

AFAIK, the discid and toc files are not needed, and I don't know why the Brennan units save them - they just take up space.

When ripping multi-disc sets, after ripping one disc, you can rename the album folder.  Then the next disc will not be saved in the same folder.

[Nigel White]

Thanks.

I realise you can rename - the problem is that because the B2 displays the full title on the rolling screen, it's only when I later look at the UI having ripped several discs at a go, do I discover that some have had their names truncated and thus two discs become one.  I could rip again, but it seems simpler just to create a new folder.

[JFBUK]

Hi Nigel,

out of interest what were the CD title names that caused you grief ?

Thanks

John

[Nigel White]

On the most recent occasion, it was was a double CD of Aaron Copland works (Decca compilation by a variety of performers). The problem being that the CD look-up listed in the title all 10 works followed by CD1 or CD2, but while the B2 could display it in full on its rolling screen, the stored folder name was cut-off part way through, thus missing the CD1 or CD2 resulting in both discs being copied to the same folder.

[JFBUK]

Hi Nigel,

is it this one

As the MusicBrainz database that the B2 uses is in large part populated by public submissions it can be prone to "errors"

In this case it looks like someone has uploaded this long title for some reason

If its an option for you could try ripping troublesome CDs on a computer and then uploading to the B2.

A lot of us use dbPoweramp but there are other ripping software options depending on your computer platform. It will give you more control over naming at rip time.

John

[Nigel White]

Yes that's it.  It's not a major problem - my original query was really about the 'discid' and 'toc' files which are created after a rip, and whether I could safely leave them out when creating a folder manually.

[Daniel Taylor]

You can definitely leave out the discid and toc files.  I don't think I have any at all on my B2, and it works fine.

[Ray Dion]

In my course of scanning and reading the forum for the past few weeks I have come across some information. I have only owned the B2 for a month. The toc file is table of contents and it has to do with the technical contents of the CD addressing the start of each track. This information is used to help generate ID numbers and identify the specific CD. I read in one place that the discid file contains on the first line the Musicbrainz ID number and the second line is the FreeDB database ID number.

Neither is needed to play the files. 

I would appreciate if anyone could confirm the two files and also how if they are database ID numbers how I might add them to the tag information on the flac and mp3 files. I can add the coverart with dBpoweramp.

[JFBUK]

Hi,

as regards adding tags, you can certainly do this with Mp3Tag and I'm guessing you may be able to do it with the DSP effect (ID Tag Processing) in dBpoweramp when running the convert function.

In Mp3Tag navigate to the album directory you want to edit.

Select all tracks in the album directory.

You can simply store the album IDs and TOC in the 'Comment' tag by cutting pasting them in from your B2 files

or if you right mouse click on the selected tracks you will get a new menu and can choose 'Extended tags' from that menu and a new dialogue window will be displayed

If you click on the little icon with a star you will get a further dialogue window to add new tags

The entry field has a drop down of the tags you can add and populate with data which includes some specifically named MusicBrainz named ones

though in theory you can use any of the tags to store textual data

None of these of these more esoteric tags are used by Brennan currently and not by most music playing software to my knowledge.

I've also tested a similar process to add tags with the Musicbrainz Picard software.

John

[Ray Dion]

Mahalo for that (Thank You in Hawaiian).

I understand how to do it manually. With what is now 900 CDs I want to do is automate the process. If the discid file exists, take line 1 and put it in MUSICBRAINZ_DISCID, Line 2 in FREEDB_DISKID. Any error checking like character length of the ID would be a plus, better if it was checked on line that it was valid.

The dBpoweramp was able to do this with the external coverart file. That feature however was built into the process and you could change the file name used, I have seen it called folder.jpg as well.

The best I could figure out so far is that you have to do some kind of external script either before or after the processing. It would greatly surprise me if somewhere this was not already done. I have googled but can't locate anything sufficient for me to create the tags. 

[JFBUK]

Hi Ray,

I did some more testing with Picard and although its not exactly what you want, it does at least automate adding all the available tags held on the MusicBrainz database.

What I document here is a bit of a sledgehammer as its all data or none at all that you add but you could potentially refine things using Picard scripts if you felt so inclined.

I do strongly recommend executing this process against copies of your files stored on your computer not accessing the B2 as NAS in case of issues and to test it on small batches first

1. This is a view of some ripped CDs (6 x CD)  in my collection using Mp3tag and looking at the extended tags for one track

2. You will need to download and install Picard

https://picard.musicbrainz.org/downloads/

3. Start Picard and load the folder container the releases you want to update

4. You will get a list of all tracks for all releases in that folder Highlight them all and click 'Scan'

4. Picard will locate the releases in its database and list them in the top right hand pane

Highlight all the releases and click 'Save'

This will update your ripped files with all the tag information that MusicBrainz has in its database for those releases

5. Going back to Mp3tag and looking at the same track it has lots more tags !

Hope this gives you some ideas :)

John

[JFBUK]

Update on my previous post.

My process does not work so well with compilation albums of various artists and greatest hits compilations.

When you 'Scan' in Picard it looks for an AcousticID match (their proprietary soundalike technology) and it will probably find a match on the original album not for 

the compilation. This really only matters in regard to the tags which are unique to the album release e.g. Music Brainz Release ID

You can tell Picard not to overwrite certain tags and 'keep' the existing values in the configuration options

John