How much do you archive/rip your music?

I guess what I really am curious about...for those who rip their physical discs to a hard drive...how much of a release are you ripping?

Particularly, for some of these Steven Wilson mixes, are you just ripping the multi-channel portion, or do you going for the hi-rez stereo...and what about alternate versions of songs?

Normally, I only go for the multi-channel portion. Though, depending on how much I like the release/band, I may go after ALL the material on the discs...which takes considerably more time, more space, more work to get it all tagged in a useful manner.

I only rip the multichannel songs, and only the songs that I like and want to hear again (I leave out the "stinkers"!)

Well, I've only been doing the archive/rip thing for three weeks, but so far I'm only ripping the multichannel portion, including bonus tracks and such that are also in multichannel. I don't know if I'll ever rip the stereo bonus tracks, demos, etc., unless I'm an über fan of the artist.

I'm debating if, when I get to re-ripping all my CDs into lossless flac, if I should bother ripping the ones I already have in multichannel. I'm thinking I will, simply because eventually I'll have it set up for remote access and my iPhone doesn't have five speakers and a sub.

dr. simple said:

Well, I've only been doing the archive/rip thing for three weeks, but so far I'm only ripping the multichannel portion, including bonus tracks and such that are also in multichannel. I don't know if I'll ever rip the stereo bonus tracks, demos, etc., unless I'm an über fan of the artist.

I'm debating if, when I get to re-ripping all my CDs into lossless flac, if I should bother ripping the ones I already have in multichannel. I'm thinking I will, simply because eventually I'll have it set up for remote access and my iPhone doesn't have five speakers and a sub.

Click to expand...

Yeah - once spring/summer hits here, I will be itching to see what I can do with all the music that I will have on my NAS. Yeah, majority is multi-channel...so I'm debating getting a network receiver or a cheapo laptop that I can have in my garage. With another laptop, I could again load Foobar, and go that route. I just don't know what all my options might be...that won't break the bank.

Oh, man...I have ripped many SACDs thru Logic Pro , the OLD fashioned way... SIX BIG FILES at 96/24.... and I LOVE it.....especially the Tomita ones...you just have to be PATIENT!!!! (hey, what can I say???? I graduated from Berklee waaaay back when the "standard" was 2" 24 track.....

GOS said:

Yeah - once spring/summer hits here, I will be itching to see what I can do with all the music that I will have on my NAS. Yeah, majority is multi-channel...so I'm debating getting a network receiver or a cheapo laptop that I can have in my garage. With another laptop, I could again load Foobar, and go that route. I just don't know what all my options might be...that won't break the bank.

Click to expand...

I have all kinds of extra speakers laying around the house, so speakers won't be a problem in the garage...

GOS said:

I guess what I really am curious about...for those who rip their physical discs to a hard drive...how much of a release are you ripping?

Particularly, for some of these Steven Wilson mixes, are you just ripping the multi-channel portion, or do you going for the hi-rez stereo...and what about alternate versions of songs?

Normally, I only go for the multi-channel portion. Though, depending on how much I like the release/band, I may go after ALL the material on the discs...which takes considerably more time, more space, more work to get it all tagged in a useful manner.

Click to expand...

For the SW 5.1 remixes I've only been ripping the 5.1 mix into my library. I guess I considered the new stereo remix a "calling card" for the 5.1 remix.
Then the original HD stereo mix of course (where it exists) and usually the bonus track collection. More interested in live and unreleased bonus stuff than demo or alternate mixes but sometimes there are gems there too.
I skip needle drops (I'm not interested in spending more time studying and critiquing generation loss artifacts!). Any portable reductions included are a moot point (CD, etc).

For the Yes remixes, I skip the instrumental remixes (which are in shockingly bad taste IMHO).
I often skip remixes (especially those awful intern delivered 5.1 mixes from the early 2000's found on many DVDA discs). Most remixes I've heard from after the period tend to be awful simpleton work with only a few exceptions. Steve Wilson is one of the shining anomalies who can pick up where the original team left off. I've never before heard anything like this happen at this level of excellence. My goal is always the best seats for the cleanest most original copy of the original mix.

I downsample any 192k program to 96k with the SOX algorithm to save space.
(I tested this for loss and decided I'm good with 96k. IMHO 192k is useful for certain processing - especially restoration work - but 96k can contain a complete HD recording with no loss. I made a cumulative back and forth conversion between 192k and 96k for 100 iterations starting with a 192k recording. The final conversion back to 192k nulled with the original. Repeated for 3 or 4 trials - was not a mistake or fluke. Case closed!)

Audio gets saved as FLAC.
Audio + video gets saved as MKV.

Any DSD program that comes along gets converted to 24-88.2k and saved as FLAC. I refuse to invest in DSD converters! I hope this format dies soon. It's just as good as PCM 24-96 and has no reason to exist.

Some really good advice:
I have lost 3 of my prized discs due to -well just age I guess. I lost my "Love" dvd a it simply stopped working, then my 'Morph the Kat" and now a sampler I got with my JVC deck years ago.:worthy:worthy:worthy
These effing discs do not hold up like our beloved vinyl. They go bad! Inferior materials or what ever, now is the time to copy these things. Some are just not replaceable. And I'm not ready to buy my house again to replace a favorite disc. Even the damn memory is fallible. What say about records now?

leevitalone1 said:

Some really good advice:
I have lost 3 of my prized discs due to -well just age I guess. I lost my "Love" dvd a it simply stopped working, then my 'Morph the Kat" and now a sampler I got with my
JVC deck years ago.

Click to expand...

You just helped me decide which two to rip next. Disc rot or whatever-the-F is the #1 reason I started ripping.

leevitalone1 said:

Some really good advice:
I have lost 3 of my prized discs due to -well just age I guess. I lost my "Love" dvd a it simply stopped working, then my 'Morph the Kat" and now a sampler I got with my JVC deck years ago.:worthy:worthy:worthy
These effing discs do not hold up like our beloved vinyl. They go bad! Inferior materials or what ever, now is the time to copy these things. Some are just not replaceable. And I'm not ready to buy my house again to replace a favorite disc. Even the damn memory is fallible. What say about records now?

Click to expand...

Yep. I have a love/hate relationship with vinyl. Loved it when everyone did their best job and it turned out to be a stunningly accurate copy of the master tape! Felt ripped off the other 85% of the time.

But the vinyl albums just might be around 1000 years from now while the digital files turn to dust and/or the meaning of the patterns of ones and zeros is lost.

This is a golden age of audio with pristine digital delivery of HD audio (including surround of course) but you're completely left to your own devices as a consumer to manage your archive and you have to know to treat discs as a temporary delivery format.

Backups backups backups!

It also doesn't help that there are greedy bastards (like the iTunes store) taking advantage of the complexity/difficulty as an opportunity to lure you into practices that end with you losing your stuff and having to purchase it multiple times instead of offering solutions.

dr. simple said:

You just helped me decide which two to rip next. Disc rot or whatever-the-F is the #1 reason I started ripping.

Click to expand...

I once read inferior materials are used and this leads to early failure. Then my tenant who knows computers a heck of a lot more than me, tells me they are not a permanent thing, and, neither is the memory storage.

Interesting theory; I haven't LOST any DVD/A's or SACD's to ROT, but I've had 2 or 3 DVD videos that went bad, & the Mfr. actually REPLACED them, FREE of charge!
Guess nothing lasts forever; lol

CPR said:

Interesting theory; I haven't LOST any DVD/A's or SACD's to ROT, but I've had 2 or 3 DVD videos that went bad, & the Mfr. actually REPLACED them, FREE of charge!
Guess nothing lasts forever; lol

Click to expand...

Good 4 You! I approached the manufacturer of the Love disc who just gave me a rub off. Just gave up on the other two. Then folks wonder why a dude will loose it now and then! :howl

This is interesting from a “How do you do it?” part to why we do it. I have been working to digitize things for a while but it is a never ending process. That’s not a bad thing though. My digitizing did not start as a concern of the disc media failing but more for the wonderful, on the whim, access to it all. Once technology allowed us to capture high resolution with multi-channel and then also inexpensive (Foobar for free is my choice) and well organized media players, it just made sense to me. I started with the multi-channel music and finally decided there is a lot of stereo material I love and will most likely never get in multi-channel. I could rip DVD-A’s but I had to record the SACDs in realtime. Same goes for vinyl. I just ordered an Oppo BDP-103 to hopefully allow ripping of SACD’s but where is the program to electronically pull the music files directly out of vinyl? Long post and I’ll end with the fact that I back up my music files at least once a week and that includes to a second back up drive(s) (3 copies total). Movies seem too big and pretty much accessible by other means. I do keep movies on one drive but I don’t back it up figuring I WILL lose that drive sometime and not cry (too much).

OldAsMono said:

This is interesting from a “How do you do it?” part to why we do it. I have been working to digitize things for a while but it is a never ending process. That’s not a bad thing though. My digitizing did not start as a concern of the disc media failing but more for the wonderful, on the whim, access to it all. Once technology allowed us to capture high resolution with multi-channel and then also inexpensive (Foobar for free is my choice) and well organized media players, it just made sense to me. I started with the multi-channel music and finally decided there is a lot of stereo material I love and will most likely never get in multi-channel. I could rip DVD-A’s but I had to record the SACDs in realtime. Same goes for vinyl. I just ordered an Oppo BDP-103 to hopefully allow ripping of SACD’s but where is the program to electronically pull the music files directly out of vinyl? Long post and I’ll end with the fact that I back up my music files at least once a week and that includes to a second back up drive(s) (3 copies total). Movies seem too big and pretty much accessible by other means. I do keep movies on one drive but I don’t back it up figuring I WILL lose that drive sometime and not cry (too much).

Click to expand...

Appreciate your post. Ripping vinyl is so much more cumbersome - I have a USB turntable, so I can do it. But, it's SO cumbersome, unless someone can show me otherwise. I have some precious vinyl that I'd love a FLAC copy of, but too much time and difficult. Even with my USB TT. I'm a couple months from 54 years old - I guess this whole thing takes a lot of patience and time. I've made decent progress, but so much more to rip.

Yeah, ripping vinyl takes ages.

jimfisheye said:

I refuse to invest in DSD converters! I hope this format dies soon. It's just as good as PCM 24-96.

Click to expand...

Depends on your audio equipment and converters. DSD is sounding much better than PCM 24/96 here.

Needle dropping vinyl is easy. It's all the post production work to clean up the sound that's a chore. I've stopped trying to remove every single click and pop on a needle drop unless it's something only available on vinyl. If I'm doing a ND for my personal use, I'll remove the largest pops and clicks, but the less than annoying ones will stay.

arnold_layne said:

Needle dropping vinyl is easy. It's all the post production work to clean up the sound that's a chore. I've stopped trying to remove every single click and pop on a needle drop unless it's something only available on vinyl. If I'm doing a ND for my personal use, I'll remove the largest pops and clicks, but the less than annoying ones will stay.

Click to expand...

Yes, it's easy - still, IMO, cumbersome. The whole process. What about tagging the songs? I find it a pain in the rear in Audacity. Is there an easier way?

I totally agree ripping vinyl takes time I have about 1000 LP`s I want to do I`ve done so far over 300 & I scan the album cover as well....@:
Bill..

Mike the Fish said:

Yeah, ripping vinyl takes ages.

Click to expand...