Art Watson Posted October 23, 2015 Share Posted October 23, 2015 Hi all I need to rip approx 900 CDs (all standard Redbook) on a Mac Mini Server running Yosemite OSX. I intend to rip to FLAC. Interested to hear from Mac users about what ripping and tagging software they use. I was leaning towards dbpoweramp but the artwork, metadata and accuracy-check app - PerfectTunes - is Windows only. Is this a deal-breaker? What are my other options? Opinions on XLD? Playback might deserve its own thread but if you want to share opinions there too I'm all ears. Keen to give iTunes a miss (because FLAC). Audirvana Plus? Sorry if these questions have been asked before - I did search the forum first, but please feel free to direct me to older topics. Cheers, Dylan/Art Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tubularbells Posted October 23, 2015 Share Posted October 23, 2015 XLD.....close thread! Does everything you need 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hydrology Posted October 23, 2015 Share Posted October 23, 2015 Gotta agree with the post above. I know you can specify where you want to send the output files, but can anyone tell me how to set up XLD so it rips the CD (I'm doing WAV) and outputs it in its own folder rather than a generic folder? I have to manually create a folder for each album I rip in the output location. Time consuming when you have 1200 CDs to do! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
a.dent Posted October 23, 2015 Share Posted October 23, 2015 XLD. Can't argue with that. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scratcher Posted October 23, 2015 Share Posted October 23, 2015 (edited) Looks like xld is the one Edited October 23, 2015 by Conch Blowa Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
a.dent Posted October 23, 2015 Share Posted October 23, 2015 Gotta agree with the post above. I know you can specify where you want to send the output files, but can anyone tell me how to set up XLD so it rips the CD (I'm doing WAV) and outputs it in its own folder rather than a generic folder? I have to manually create a folder for each album I rip in the output location. Time consuming when you have 1200 CDs to do! I'm not sure what you mean. I've never had to do that. It should send to the output directory and name the file from the metadata. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hydrology Posted October 23, 2015 Share Posted October 23, 2015 I'm not sure what you mean. I've never had to do that. It should send to the output directory and name the file from the metadata. I can choose the destination folder, but I want each album I rip to be in its own folder (a subfolder if you will) within this main folder. However it just tags the songs and dumps in whatever folder you choose. I want the structure a little like iTunes where each artist has his own sub-folder, and then another sub-folder for each album. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
keyse1 Posted October 23, 2015 Share Posted October 23, 2015 I read these sort of threads and realise how little I know about anything even though I use a computer for playing songs I hope I can ask here Why not use iTunes for burning CDs and playing them Art? What does xld do that iTunes doesn't in terms of track information Does it operate separately to iTunes? Ie 1 or the other? Does it add more information about tracks or albums? Does xld just take over iTunes and display different screen styles of artwork? Is tagging and metadata computer jargon for track and album information? Thanks in advance for any explanations Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
a.dent Posted October 23, 2015 Share Posted October 23, 2015 I just did a test rip to WAV and got the same result as you. I have never ripped to WAV before (always ALAC) so maybe the settings need to be changed or try ripping to FLAC or ALAC. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
a.dent Posted October 24, 2015 Share Posted October 24, 2015 I read these sort of threads and realise how little I know about anything even though I use a computer for playing songs I hope I can ask here Why not use iTunes for burning CDs and playing them Art? What does xld do that iTunes doesn't in terms of track information Does it operate separately to iTunes? Ie 1 or the other? Does it add more information about tracks or albums? Does xld just take over iTunes and display different screen styles of artwork? Is tagging and metadata computer jargon for track and album information? Thanks in advance for any explanations iTunes will burn CDs perfectly well. The advantage of XLD is that it uses Accurarerip to compare the ripped CD against a database of previously ripped CDs. If there is a ripping error XLD tells you. (Usually) XLD also gives you more choices of pre gap, Replay Gain and output directory among other things. You can use it to batch convert from one format to another and when ripping you can output as more than one file type at the same time. It's a really powerful software compared with iTunes. Having said all that in most cases iTunes will rip a CD perfectly well. Of course not to FLAC or WAV. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
keyse1 Posted October 24, 2015 Share Posted October 24, 2015 thanks i think i understand about the different formats but was worried that there was a heap of track information i was missing out on i am not a blind supporter of itunes but it is very easy to use if you don't know about computers 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hydrology Posted October 24, 2015 Share Posted October 24, 2015 Having said all that in most cases iTunes will rip a CD perfectly well. Of course not to FLAC or WAV. Actually iTunes will rip to WAV. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
a.dent Posted October 24, 2015 Share Posted October 24, 2015 (edited) Whoops. 😱 Edited October 24, 2015 by a.dent Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cruncher Posted November 7, 2015 Share Posted November 7, 2015 I use XLD and I am happy with it. I use it to rip my CDs into FLAC format. For playback I use Audirvana Plus in 'Integrated' mode with iTunes as I find this the best of both worlds ( Sound Quality and Ease of use). I also found when XLD rips a CD it creates a file for each music track in the output directory and does not create a sub directory with the name of the CD, which is pain. What I ended up doing was when the CD finished ripping it created a log file “Title of CD.logâ€. I copied the title of CD from the log file nam. Then using Finder highlighted all the ripped files and created a new folder. Finder gave the option “New Folder with Selection (9 items)†it then created a new folder moving the 9 FLAC files into, I then pasted the name into the new folder. For a handful of CD it is ok, but if I had 900 you may want to see if you can write a script. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mmv Posted November 7, 2015 Share Posted November 7, 2015 You can set XLD to automagically create folders for you based on any of the metadata parameters that have been inputted. In preferences go to 'file naming' and under 'format of filename' choose custom. If you hover over the box it will tell you what all the different commands mean. For example mine looks like this - %a/%T/%n - %t So in the output folder 'music' wound create '/Artistname/Album Title/Tracknumber - Trackname'. Is that what you meant? 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Demondes Posted November 8, 2015 Share Posted November 8, 2015 (edited) XLD is great and free, but i'd also recommend DBpoweramp (previously Windows only). This option is not free but has much better metadata tagging than XLD. Hence the recommendation. Both use accurate/securerip Edited November 8, 2015 by Demondes 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kylevuong19 Posted November 8, 2015 Share Posted November 8, 2015 I use MAX: http://sbooth.org/Max/ Does the job very well, convert straight to iTunes library. If you want to rip from CD, use iTunes to change the setting to AIFF or ALAC output will do the job. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jventer Posted November 8, 2015 Share Posted November 8, 2015 dbpoweramp Bargain for the price Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrRogers Posted July 12, 2016 Share Posted July 12, 2016 dbpoweramp Bargain for the price Price? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davewantsmoore Posted July 12, 2016 Share Posted July 12, 2016 I use XLD + Picard Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrRogers Posted July 12, 2016 Share Posted July 12, 2016 Is Picard for Mac? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davewantsmoore Posted July 12, 2016 Share Posted July 12, 2016 https://picard.musicbrainz.org/downloads/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrRogers Posted July 12, 2016 Share Posted July 12, 2016 Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Sherriff Posted July 12, 2016 Share Posted July 12, 2016 I use Phile Audio, seems to do a decent job and although I can't recall what it cost I don't remember it being terribly expensive... one of the things I found helpful was that it could rip from multiple drives simultaneously - I managed to borrow a couple of USB CD drives, those along with the internal SuperDrive meant I got through several hundred CDs reasonably quickly. Sent from my SM-T705 using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrRogers Posted July 12, 2016 Share Posted July 12, 2016 Is Phile Audio for Mac? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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