Information for PC Based Music

[jrhymeammo]

There has been alot of questions and posts on PC based audio.
I find below link to be helpful, and hope it'll help some others.

http://www.empiricalaudio.com/computer-audio/

I've been ripping everything at WAV in case of possible future upgrades. Bye Bye Lossless.

JRA

[harley .guy07]

Good info. And this really helps me since I am wanting to get a separate computer and make a dedicated music server with it and need to know what to do and what programs to use to make the most of it. I have been using flac files for most of my music saving now after a few guys on here told me that there is virtually no difference between flac and wav except that wave only takes up half the hard drive space. I have not tried upsampling yet but it is on my list of things to do.

[Feanor]

There has been alot of questions and posts on PC based audio.
I find below link to be helpful, and hope it'll help some others.

http://www.empiricalaudio.com/computer-audio/

I've been ripping everything at WAV in case of possible future upgrades. Bye Bye Lossless.

JRA
Thanks, JRA. The advice there is mostly excellent and up to date. I endorse their sofware choices in particular. I use Foobar2000 for its flexibility; dBpoweramp Reference is an outstanding program for ripping and conversion.

On my dedicated music machine which has minimal resident programs and services running, I hear no noticable difference between WAV and FLAC/ALAC ... but that could be just me. However "possible future upgrades" are not a reason to rip to WAV. If there were ever a compelling reason to go to WAV, FLAC or ALAC can be converted to perfect WAV versions.

Upsampling might be worth a try if your DAC will handle high rez. I suggest 176.4 kHz from CD, which is an even multiple of CD's 44.1 kHz. Adobe Audition is a pretty expensive product, though. If you use Foobar, try the free SoX real-time resampler plugin: look for it HERE (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=67373).

[jrhymeammo]

Thanks, JRA. The advice there is mostly excellent and up to date. I endorse their sofware choices in particular. I use Foobar2000 for its flexibility; dBpoweramp Reference is an outstanding program for ripping and conversion.

On my dedicated music machine which has minimal resident programs and services running, I hear no noticable difference between WAV and FLAC/ALAC ... but that could be just me. However "possible future upgrades" are not a reason to rip to WAV. If there were ever a compelling reason to go to WAV, FLAC or ALAC can be converted to perfect WAV versions.

Upsampling might be worth a try if your DAC will handle high rez. I suggest 176.4 kHz from CD, which is an even multiple of CD's 44.1 kHz. Adobe Audition is a pretty expensive product, though. If you use Foobar, try the free SoX real-time resampler plugin: look for it HERE (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=67373).

Thanks for the info, Bill.

One questions. I, too, use Foobar200 at times, but it seems I cannot upload more than 680 songs. Have I just not looked into it more? If you can give me a hint, I will fool around a bit more.

Can I tell the difference between Lossless and WAV?
No, I just wanted to have a perfect digital copy, but I will look into FLAC and ALAC.

Thanks,
JRA

[02audionoob]

Has anyone here had any success with a FLAC plug-in for Windows Media Center in Vista?

[harley .guy07]

Has anyone here had any success with a FLAC plug-in for Windows Media Center in Vista?

There is a windows media codec pac that is available for free that does allow you to play flac files but that is it. You still can not burn them to cd or any thing else like that and media player does not work with flac as smoothly with flac as with wav or their own format.

But I would look into other programs if flac interests you like the programs listed above because WMP is not a very good program for audio. I just recently gave up trying to make it work for my audio and have went to other programs to do this.

[Feanor]

Thanks for the info, Bill.

One questions. I, too, use Foobar200 at times, but it seems I cannot upload more than 680 songs. Have I just not looked into it more? If you can give me a hint, I will fool around a bit more.

Can I tell the difference between Lossless and WAV?
No, I just wanted to have a perfect digital copy, but I will look into FLAC and ALAC.

Thanks,
JRA
JRA, are you saying that you can get Foobar to recognize more than 680 songs?!? Or just what do you mean by "upload" in your sentance above?

I just checked and Foobar recognizes over a 1000 albums, probably well over 10,000 songs. As far as I know there is no limitation.

[jrhymeammo]

Sorry Feanor,

I've ripped alot of albums via iTunes so I had to import music files from iTunes folder to Foobar2000. For some reason, I cannot import more than 680 songs...
And yes, I have more than 680 songs in my iTunes folder. Perhaps I need to look into the ripper you had suggested?

Thanks,

[02audionoob]

There is a windows media codec pac that is available for free that does allow you to play flac files but that is it. You still can not burn them to cd or any thing else like that and media player does not work with flac as smoothly with flac as with wav or their own format.

But I would look into other programs if flac interests you like the programs listed above because WMP is not a very good program for audio. I just recently gave up trying to make it work for my audio and have went to other programs to do this.

I use an application called iCoolPlayer for FLAC because the plug-in I downloaded doesn't seem to work in Vista, but I'm otherwise very happy with Windows Media Center for music, video and television on the PC. If there's a shortcoming in the audio quality of Windows Media Center it won't matter to me. My computer audio system just isn't that good.

The main thing for me is being able to use my Microsoft remote control and my Logitech Wireless DJ. The Microsoft remote operates Media Center and the Wireless DJ plays my Media Player library.

[Feanor]

Sorry Feanor,

I've ripped alot of albums via iTunes so I had to import music files from iTunes folder to Foobar2000. For some reason, I cannot import more than 680 songs...
And yes, I have more than 680 songs in my iTunes folder. Perhaps I need to look into the ripper you had suggested?

Thanks,
Forgive me, I'm having a senior moment here. What do you mean by "import from iTunes folder to Foobar"?

Before migrating to Foobar I ripped thosands of songs in iTunes to Apple; I always used Apple Lossless (aka ALAC) format. To play them in Foobar, I needed to do two things:

Obtain he ALAC decoder component (addin), to be found HERE (http://www.foobar2000.org/components/view/foo_input_alac), and place it in the 'Components' subdirectory of Foobar's program directory;
Include the iTunes music directory Foobar's Media Library. In Foobar, go File > Preferences > Media Libary, and add the iTune path.That's all I needed to do to "import" all iTunes files (thousands) into Foobar. (Everything there still works fine in iTunes). Foobar, (recent versions), has the huge advantage that it will automatically track any additions or changes to any of the directories made known to Foobar as described above.

Foobar natively plays 'AAC' which is iTunes default, lossy format; (the file extension is M4A, same as for ALAC). I don't have any AAC files, but I don't doubt that Foobar would will play them just fine. Foobar also plays any MP3 file with no trouble.

However, since you ask, I strongly recommed dBpoweramp, especially the 'Reference' version, for ripping and file conversion: see HERE (http://www.dbpoweramp.com/).

[jrhymeammo]

Hey Feanor,

I'd tried this again, but this time I couldn't have more than 996 songs.
I think I will just stick with iTunes instead, but I really do appreciate your help.

Thanks again,
JRA

[poppachubby]

JRA, I have been enjoying Media Monkey. An excellent "audiophile" media center. It plays, rips and converts FLAC and can be used for burning CDs or syncing a portable. It will also organize podcasts for you. There's also a ton of add ons for iPhone, and other devices from Apple. The sound from the player is tremendous...

http://www.mediamonkey.com/download/

[rakeford]

I downloaded Foobar2000, but it does not install on Windows 2000.


Is there a version of Foobar that runs on Windows 2000?

[jrhymeammo]

Problem is that Foobar2000 sounds ALOT better than thru iTunes.
I have no idea why that is, but my ears confirm it everytime.

Thanks for the link, but I think I will stick with the iTunes for now.
I'm sure I'll get the urge to try something different in a near future...

JRA

[Feanor]

Hey Feanor,

I'd tried this again, but this time I couldn't have more than 996 songs.
I think I will just stick with iTunes instead, but I really do appreciate your help.

Thanks again,
JRA
That's wacky, JRA. Makes no sense at all. My Foobar album list at this moment comprises over 12,224 tracks!

[jrhymeammo]

I know. Another problem is that half of the files don't even recognize the Album/Artist titles. They are just replaced with "?".

[Feanor]

I know. Another problem is that half of the files don't even recognize the Album/Artist titles. They are just replaced with "?".
Possibly this is because iTunes didn't writer complete tags to the music files. iTunes keeps a lot of data in its own, iTunes Music Library.xml file rather than writing the information to the music files themselves. And/or iTunes sometimes writes eccentrically name tags since there isn't a rigid standard for tag labels.

In Foobar in the Album List, right click on a file and select Properties; this will list the tag labels and values. When you see a label in capital letters between brackets like this, "<<TAGLABEL>>", it indicates the Foobar considers it a non-standard tag label. What you can do with some work is to configure Foobar to use the non-standard tag instead of as well as the standard tag. Not to go into a lot of deal, but I use a clause like this, "$if(%writer%,%writer%,%composer%)", to tell Foobar to use the tag, "writer" if that is available otherwise "composer", to find the datum for the 'Composer' field in Album List.

And Foobar will also retrieve tags from Freedb. Highlight one or more files, right click and select Tagging > Get tags from Freedb. But note if you do this iTunes won't automatically recognize the changes and update its iTunes Music Library.xml file. However I believe you can force it to do so by right clicking one or more selected songs in iTunes, right clicking and selecting 'Get Info'.

[rakeford]

Yeah baby! I got Stevie Ray V. playing on PC.

PC Win2K HD -> Winamp -> OEM sound card -> Rat Shack 1/8" mini to RCA phono (Gold Plated) -> MD/Tape In on Yamaha RX-797 << Monster M SERIES bi-wire >> Klipsch RF-7.

It sounds great.

Goals
A. Load lot of music on a server so I can set up play lists and listen to my music all day- hands free.
B. High def recording of vinyl.
C. Make CD, cassettes, and/or other media copies.

So far, I have spent no money to get this far.

This is 1st sound test for my PC music server. I gotta ways to go yet to optimize.

1. The PC fan is way noisy.
2. High end sound card. (maybe digital out)
3. TeraByte hard drives.
4. Need to load lots more music on HD.
5. What not? What else?
6. Need more thinking on what I want to do.