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 Post subject: Editing file property metadata on lossless audio rips--Why can't this be done?
PostPosted: Thu Jan 01, 2015 4:30 am 
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Proud enemy of the United States--again!

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Three hours into the new year, and my big project for the year 2015 has already hit a snag: I got my hands on one of those little external drives and decided that I was going to use it to store selected compact discs in my collection using a lossless format.

Here's the problem: I stuck disc #1 in the drive, selected all of the best quality settings using Windows Media Player, plugged in the drive, ripped the disc, everything seems easy--except for one thing:

In searching whatever databases determine which CD I had inserted, Media Player found the right title, but the wrong tracklisting. I tried to see if I could download a more accurate tracklisting, but Microsoft apparently does not allow much in the way of editing track info beyond the track title, as does I-tunes. Not a huge problem--or so I thought. The problem is that after one rips a CD to a lossless format, for some reason, one apparently cannot edit any of the file properties at all--including the title of the album. Since, to me, the biggest advantage of ripping songs from CD to a hard drive is the ability to edit and sort individual songs by various track information categories, this problem appears to be something of a dealbreaker as far as my whole 2015 file project is concerned--if I can only organize my songs by the folder/album titles that Windows permanently assigns...what's the point?

I might go ahead and try to see what I might be able to accomplish using I-tunes, although frankly, I have not updated I-tunes at all since they got rid of Cover Flow, and have no idea how much longer the older versions will be able to do much of anything.

But more to the point: Why can't I go in and perform seemingly fundamental edits to a lossless file, such as adding a recording date? It's just not a technological limitation I expected to encounter.

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 Post subject: Editing file property metadata on lossless audio rips--Why can't this be done?
PostPosted: Thu Jan 01, 2015 12:16 pm 
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What format are you ripping to? FLAC? I wouldn't suggest using WMP to rip. There are far better alternatives. I use MusicBee, which is free and rips CDs to FLAC files, which you can edit the metadata of with any program, although MusicBee itself has that functionality as well, so I just stay there in the program. MusicBee: http://getmusicbee.com/


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 Post subject: Editing file property metadata on lossless audio rips--Why can't this be done?
PostPosted: Thu Jan 01, 2015 1:27 pm 
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OCD CD COLLECTOR

Joined: 01 Dec 2006
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Spend a few bucks and download dbPoweramp. You can try it free for 30 days. It can rip to any format, has many plug-ins and has full metadata editing. It also uses multiple databases (Freedb, etc.) for song titles. It is as about as good as it gets for secure ripping. I have tried many programs for ripping and archiving and IMHO it is the best. I would also consider ripping to ALAC .m4a files as they seem to be the most widely used lossless file container. Flac is not decodeable on many players.


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 Post subject: Editing file property metadata on lossless audio rips--Why can't this be done?
PostPosted: Thu Jan 01, 2015 10:24 pm 
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Are you using the WAV file format? WAV has limited tag support. I suggest ALAC or FLAC.


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 Post subject: Editing file property metadata on lossless audio rips--Why can't this be done?
PostPosted: Fri Jan 02, 2015 1:26 am 
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I love Music & hate brickwalled audio

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I agree with most of above the above, +:

1. IMO, EAC is the best ripper

2. There are several freeware tagging programs for those with the patience to enter the data.

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 Post subject: Editing file property metadata on lossless audio rips--Why can't this be done?
PostPosted: Fri Jan 02, 2015 8:26 pm 
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Proud enemy of the United States--again!

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Well, I downloaded MusicBee, and so far, it seems to be a much more flexible application. For starters, once I put a disc in, it often gives me the option to select the correct edition, and I can also go in and edit info--including the disc title--BEFORE I rip. Out of an initial batch of about 30 discs, there was one Japanese disc for which there apparently was no database match, but even entering the track titles for that one disc was relatively simple compared to Windows Media Player, which wouldn't let me do squat (including correcting the info AFTER ripping).

Anyway, I appreciate all the input. I suppose I'll post here again if some other issue comes up. It would be nice if there was an FLAC player (probably not free) with an interface as friendly as I-tunes used to be (artwork, ability to sort/create playlists, and ability to edit track info) but I'll worry about that later.

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 Post subject: Editing file property metadata on lossless audio rips--Why can't this be done?
PostPosted: Fri Jan 02, 2015 9:09 pm 
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MusicBee is also a player (and supports FLAC) with a library, you know. :)


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