Hi fi question - which computer music player software (fubar2000, musicbee, summat else) ?

[Profpointy]

After rebuilding my PC (after blowing up the motherboard by installing a sound card with the power on) I think it's best to totally re-rip all my CDs. After the rebuild, I think one of the discs is a bit iffy, and despite my having backups, the library seems to all over the place rather than easily cleaned up.

Also itunes is shyte for classical music (90% of my CDs), where the important info is "composer" (Beerhoven, Stravinsky etc), "Artist" being LSO or Berlin Phil is of minor importance when searching. You also end up with"Album" being "Symphony no 3 " which is bog all use when searching as I'm sure I have 50 composers' third symphonies in my collection.

So, I want an Itunes replacement, using a non-proprietary lossless storage format, with some control where it is storing everything so I can do easier backups. Ideally some means of controlling via an iphone app.

My studio quality soundcard works fine, may buy another disc, or might use one of my USB discs for storage. Intend to make the disc, or at least a part thereof visible on the local LAN so we can share the library in different rooms

Apparently foobar2000 and musicbee are both considered very good, and are free. Anyone using either / both, or have other suggestions, particularly anyone with an interest in classical music.

 

[PedallingNowhereSlowly]

I've no idea about foobar2000 or musicbee.

I have a file storage server on which our music collection sits. That is available on a read only network share, I have a virtual server running JellyFin (probably also available as a container and a Windows application) and that makes the music accessible via the web browser, by app and also via DLNA so most network players can use it as a source. It seems to work fairly well.

 

[Profpointy]

I've no idea about foobar2000 or musicbee.

I have a file storage server on which our music collection sits. That is available on a read only network share, I have a virtual server running JellyFin (probably also available as a container and a Windows application) and that makes the music accessible via the web browser, by app and also via DLNA so most network players can use it as a source. It seems to work fairly well.

Thanks, useful info. What do you use for the actual playing music ?

 

[Dadam]

I think it's best to totally re-rip all my CDs

Why? Are there issues with the ripped audio quality or is it just the tagging? I imagine just tidying up the tags would improve the library management, regardless of player software. I've used mp3tag successfully for this in the past. It's not just for mp3.

I'm not up on PC based audio playing these days, not really since WinAmp in the early 2000s! It's about five years since I used iTunes, and then only to load music onto my phone and iPad and it's about ten since I did any serious ripping. Back then I used Exact Audio Copy (EAC) for ripping and LAME for encoding to mp3. I did encode some albums to FLAC lossless but gave up my plan to re-rip the lot when I couldn't tell the difference between that and 256kbsp VBR MP3! Thought it was a waste of bytes.

But, any music software that does ripping and automatic tagging for you, is likely to be quite opinionated about how things are organised. You may or may not like its choices. It might have enough configurability to meet your requirements, but why take the chance? I'd fix the metadata first.

 

[markemark]

 

[Profpointy]

Why? Are there issues with the ripped audio quality or is it just the tagging? I imagine just tidying up the tags would improve the library management, regardless of player software. I've used mp3tag successfully for this in the past. It's not just for mp3.

I'm not up on PC based audio playing these days, not really since WinAmp in the early 2000s! It's about five years since I used iTunes, and then only to load music onto my phone and iPad and it's about ten since I did any serious ripping. Back then I used Exact Audio Copy (EAC) for ripping and LAME for encoding to mp3. I did encode some albums to FLAC lossless but gave up my plan to re-rip the lot when I couldn't tell the difference between that and 256kbsp VBR MP3! Thought it was a waste of bytes.

But, any music software that does ripping and automatic tagging for you, is likely to be quite opinionated about how things are organised. You may or may not like its choices. It might have enough configurability to meet your requirements, but why take the chance? I'd fix the metadata first.

To be fair my metadata is now OK(ish) as I had to retype every album in my own format of Beethoven symphony number x and renumber all the tracks. The real issue, possibly solvable, is the music seems scattered about rather than in a sensible place. My reinstall of itunes seems to have only found half my content. Possibly it's all on the backup disc more coherhenty but it does seem a bit of a shambles Another motivation is to ditch the apple lossless proprietary format.

I know it will take me ages to re-rip it all, but it'll help me get it all "neat and tidy" ( sorry Grommit) and the time spent is undemanding and will give me a chance to revisit all my music. I've also bought a lot of CDs since the last time, but not kept track of what's ripped and what's not. Having had to totally re allocate the "albums" due to Itunes' un
-usability for classical I'll risk ending up in even more of a mess. I concede it could be donr

 

[si_c]

I've always used winamp for audio playback but it's very niche these days. I'd probably end up using FooBar2000 though if starting now.

For ripping CDs I've always used Exact Audio Copy - it's a pretty quick ripping tool and you can easily set rules that mean your ripped library follows a consistent pattern for file names and folder structure. Use FLAC for file format - it's open and reliably supported and if you ever need to transcode it later you keep the best quality.

 

[si_c]

Also wanted to add, I store everything on a NAS on my network - it can use DLNA or SMB to serve files around to all the devices I want to use, although I've actually been using Plex for video serving to all my devices and you could use it for Audio as well.

 

[Dadam]

I've played with the idea of a NAS and a music server but I can't be arsed. I just stream everything from Apple Music (much of which seems to be lossless these days).

 

[Profpointy]

Also wanted to add, I store everything on a NAS on my network - it can use DLNA or SMB to serve files around to all the devices I want to use, although I've actually been using Plex for video serving to all my devices and you could use it for Audio as well.

I did look into a NAS a few years back, but despite the redundancy it seems they all use proprietary formats for the discs, so when the box itself dies (as opposed to the disc) you need another identical unit to recover your data. To cater for everything you'd need two boxes plus at least four discs. I may have misunderstood, but it seemed to be expensive and complex for my domestic needs.

Rightly or wrongly a couple of USB backup discs done manually seemed easier

I'm also I'm planning is to make the disc in (or attached to) the PC (or a partition thereof) visible on my LAN so I can share a music library elsewhere in the house, though to be honest this is a bit of a minor thing as I only have one proper stereo at present

 

[si_c]

I did look into a NAS a few years back, but despite the redundancy it seems they all use proprietary formats for the discs, so when the box itself dies (as opposed to the disc) you need another identical unit to recover your data. To cater for everything you'd need two boxes plus at least four discs. I may have misunderstood, but it seemed to be expensive and complex for my domestic needs.

Rightly or wrongly a couple of USB backup discs done manually seemed easier

I'm also I'm planning is to make the disc in (or attached to) the PC (or a partition thereof) visible on my LAN so I can share a music library elsewhere in the house, though to be honest this is a bit of a minor thing as I only have one proper stereo at present

The issue with disks really depends on the mode you use the NAS in - if using a redundant mode (i.e. the disks are mirrors so you get half the nominal capacity, but if one disk fails then you can just swap in another with no lost data) then they tend to use a common format - Western Digital use exFAT which is readable by windows, Synology let you select the format but all are readable using a common PC.

I'm using a WD cloud EX2 nas unit at the moment just for storing media, but without redundancy. Much easier to access over the network than using a USB backup drive.

The trick is to use whatever works best for you, there is no "correct" solution for the home.

 

[Profpointy]

The issue with disks really depends on the mode you use the NAS in - if using a redundant mode (i.e. the disks are mirrors so you get half the nominal capacity, but if one disk fails then you can just swap in another with no lost data) then they tend to use a common format - Western Digital use exFAT which is readable by windows, Synology let you select the format but all are readable using a common PC.

I'm using a WD cloud EX2 nas unit at the moment just for storing media, but without redundancy. Much easier to access over the network than using a USB backup drive.

The trick is to use whatever works best for you, there is no "correct" solution for the home.

That's useful info and makes the NAS solution rather more relevant to what I'm trying to do, even if just sticking disc in my PC is cheaper

Whilst I did 40 years in IT I didn't much get involved in the PC or infrastructure side of things

 

[mistyoptic]

I use Jriver. Powerful tagging options and cataloguing. Handles and converts many formats/bitrates.

 

[LonesomeWanderer]

The issue with disks really depends on the mode you use the NAS in - if using a redundant mode (i.e. the disks are mirrors so you get half the nominal capacity, but if one disk fails then you can just swap in another with no lost data) then they tend to use a common format - Western Digital use exFAT which is readable by windows, Synology let you select the format but all are readable using a common PC.

I'm using a WD cloud EX2 nas unit at the moment just for storing media, but without redundancy. Much easier to access over the network than using a USB backup drive.

The trick is to use whatever works best for you, there is no "correct" solution for the home.

I use a NAS so my files are available but periodically backup to an external USB just in case...

I've been using MusicBee for a few years, the interface is very customisable and the built-in tagging tools make it easy to tidy up the meta data/tags.

As for ripping, most software will be using the ffmpeg library behind the scenes. I try to rip to FLAC if possible...