I’ve got a pretty sizable CD collection (10K+) and have been tossing around the idea of ripping the lot for years now and nearly got someone willing to do the legwork for me (in exchange for a copy of everything) until they realized that it would take a year or more LOL.
SO I’ve got a macbook and a few hard drives but I’m wondering about recommendations for CD drives, software rippers, best practices for organization, storage, metadata etc. Thought others might be interested as well?
I almost desperately want access to my collection in the same way I use my digital-only music so this is longterm happiness goals for me! Getting some advice will hopefully help me get started as well.
No personal experience of it though. Guess depends if it can rip quicker than your mac and use the CD database to get track names etc like the Mac can.
I have a NAS server with all my music (rips from CD’s, MP3’s etc), plays to my Mac and Sonos system. I have a separate more ‘Audiophile’ system for serious listening with CD player, decks etc.
You’ll need a NAS drive I’m guessing to access your music on a network so your current HD’s may not work for that purpose.
Other than that not much help
The main thing I’m guessing is the ripping which is going to be a right royal pita whichever way you go.
CD Drives - avoid cheapo non-branded. Hitachi LG Asus should be ok. You can use more than one at a time but remember most have more than one Usb cable these days so you’ll run out of ports.
Organisation and storage depends how you want it to fit in with what you’ve already got, player you use, quality you want etc. Avoid wavs as you’ll lose metadata.
Get double the storage you need for backup unless putting it in the cloud. Most storage drives should be ok but avoid cheapo ones again as they can tend to skip.
It’s a painful job - if you can find someone to do it for you then go for it, as long as you can trust them to do it right - especially re-ripping after errors and getting the right metadata.
Great post - bookmarking for future use. I had ripped my ~5K CD collection to lossless files incrementally over the years and stored on a series of external hard drives and it worked well for the occasional laptop DJ gig. 2019 we had upgraded to a nicer HD and last year it crashed and was rendered unusable. We even paid for a service to see if the data could be retrieved but it would have taken thousands of dollars and a clean room. I’m hoping the technology improves because I’m not looking forward to going through the process again…
mp3tag is really good for the metadata - I can rip a CD and then paste in a Discogs link for the exact edition of a release and it will add the correct info and images.
