Full CD Collection Ripping Workflow

Back in 2003-2004 I ripped ever CD I owned to 192kbps AAC, a very good sounding format which was cost effective to store on disks of the time. This was a great achievement, and for the last 12 years I’ve enjoyed having all of my music in a central digital format. Now that storage is cheaper and I have some time, and before data rot sets in, I wanted to re-rip the collection to archival-quality Apple Lossless format. (This format was chosen for compatibility with my currently preferred software and hardware players, and being lossless can easily be transcoded to other formats as needed.)

My previous ripping operation was performed with a dual CPU PowerMac G5 and iTunes. While iTunes’ eject-after-import feature facilitates disc swapping, the workflow was selecting a stack of CDs, inserting them one at a time, then manually validating tags and artwork. At the time CD metadata providers didn’t have many of the discs, so a great deal of manual cleanup was needed. This was tedious, and something I didn’t want to repeat…

Not to mention there was no good way to assess the accuracy of the resulting rips…

Twelve years later, with better tools available, and finding some time in the form of a holiday break (Christmas Eve to after New Year’s) I began thinking about re-ripping my CD collection. Having recently moved my web hosting (this site, nuxx.net) to Linode, my old server was sitting unused at home and I only needed some modern software and an autoloader to set up a high performance CD ripping workstation. The requisite tools were purchased and I got to work. 411.3 GB later and most all of my physical CDs (1241 albums) have been imported as cleanly as possible, ready for listening on a myriad of devices, hopefully for years to come. (Duplicates were not ripped.)

Since ripping an entire CD collection is a desire of many friends of mine I wanted to share the general setup and workflow that I used. It went well and was mostly hands-off, with only occasional manual intervention needed when the auto-loader jammed and then tool-assisted cleanup of tags and artwork. By using high quality ripping software which supports AccurateRip I was able to ensure that the vast majority of ripped tracks are affirmed error-free and effectively digital archival quality.

Most Inaccurate tracks were caused by damaged discs; typically reflective layer scratches, cracks, or scuffed polycarbonate.

Success Results:

14069 tracks (92.3%) are Accurate
144 tracks (0.95%) are Inaccurate
1024 tracks (6.7%) were not in the AccurateRip database.
1 track was a hidden track 0 in the pregap, which had to be ripped specially, and thus couldn’t be checked with AccurateRip.

Hardware / Software Used:

HP ML110 G7 w/ 24GB RAM, 64GB SSD, 3x 1TB HDD, USB 3.0 Card, AMD Radeon HD 5450 (Needs to be a sufficient computer to handle ripping, encoding, and displaying Aero graphics with ease. Built-in video card was not sufficient.)
Dell 2005FPW Monitor (1680×1050)
Acronova Nimbie USB Plus NB21-DVD
HP SATA DVD Drive (Internal, identifies as hp DVD-RAM GH80N.)
Samsung USB DVD Drive (External, identifies as TSSTcorp CDDVDW SE-218CB.)
Epson Perfection 3170 Scanner
Windows 7 Professional
dBpoweramp and PerfectTUNES (w/dBpoweramp Batch Ripper and Nimbie Batch Ripper Driver)
Mp3tag (Incredibly useful tagging tool with powerful scripting.)
CD cases organized into numbered boxes of 30-50 discs.

Workflow:

Use dBpoweramp Batch Ripper to rip all CDs. Label output folders by the box numbers containing each CD; this will make manual metadata validation/cleanup easier.
For each disc that is rejected, use dBpoweramp CD Ripper to rip the entire disc. This is likely a metadata issue as CD Ripper has access to more metadata providers than Batch Ripper. Or it may be the drive failing to recognize the disc.
Use AccurateRip from PerfectTUNES to scan the entire directory structure, then use the built-in information tool to get a text file listing all “InAccurate” tracks.
For each disc with “InAccurate” listings:
1. Delete entire disc. (I opted to do this instead of re-ripping just the InAccurate tracks, as metadata differences between CD Ripper and Batch Ripper could lead to file names that are clumsy to fix.)
2. Look disc over and clean if necessary. This, coupled with using a different drive, seems to resolve about 50% of ripping issues. Be sure to use proper technique: soft/clean/low dust cloth, wiping from inside to out (not circularly).
3. Re-rip discs using dBpoweramp CD Ripper in fast mode.
4. Re-rip individual tracks with secure mode as needed. Note that re-reading of bad frames can take hours per track, and that some tracks just won’t match AccurateRip or even rip securely. (Some of my discs are sufficiently damaged that I was not able to rip certain tracks.)
5. Some discs may need to be ripped with Defective by Design settings, particularly in case of copy protection.
6. Make a separate list of discs which have been accepted issues.
Run AccurateRip (part of PerfectTUNES suite) to confirm all tracks and check against list of accepted issues. Repeat #4 as needed.
Run the Fix Albums tool within Album Art (part of PerfectTUNES suite) to attempt automatic acquisition of artwork for all albums.
Start with the PerfectTUNES suite components to fix artwork and metadata:
1. In ID Tags go through a series of directories at a time sanity-checking metadata. Compare each CD case to the tags as needed, confirming that artwork looks sane. Keep a document listing artwork to later review.
2. Use the Album Art tool to attempt bulk fix of art on all albums.
3. One box at a time add artwork using a scanner and online resources. Then fix Low Resolution artwork.
  1. An Epson Perfection 3170 scanner connected and configured in automatic mode, clicking … next to an album then Acquire (from Scanner) will automatically scan, rotate, and crop artwork from a scanner. This seems to fail on thick-case (Digipak, clamshell) albums and is inconsistent on mostly-white artwork.
  2. Decent artwork can be obtained from Discogs.
  3. Add observed metadata errors to a document for later review.
Use Mp3tag to clean up tags. Useful filters and suggestions include:
1. (albumartist MISSING) AND (compilation MISSING) – Find tracks that are not part of compilations but did not get Album Artist set.
2. %_covers% IS "" – Find tracks without artwork.
3. compilation IS 0 – Find tracks with Compilation set to No. This can be removed using the Extended Tags editor.
4. "$len(%year%)" GREATER 4 – Find tracks with Year fields longer than four digits (some metadata includes month and day).
5. (totaldiscs IS 1) AND (discnumber GREATER 1) – Find disc numbers higher than 1 when the total number of discs in the album is 1.
6. Selecting all tracks, exporting to CSV, then reviewing in a spreadsheet program can help find misspellings, duplicates, etc. For example, look at unique values in the Artist column to find misspellings like “Dabyre” vs. “Dabrye” or “X Marks The Pedwalk” vs. “X-Marks The Pedwalk”.
7. NOT %ACCURATERIPRESULT% HAS ": Accurate" – Show all tracks that do not contain the AccurateRip header indicating an accurate rip.
Fix any noted errors using a combination of ID Tags, Album Art, and Mp3tag.
Prepare for archiving by renaming all files using Mp3tag:
1. The following Format string for the Convert → Tag – Filename renamer will move files to e:\final_move with the following formats, without most invalid characters for Windows filesystems, truncating the artist, album, and track lengths to 64 characters: e:\final_move\$if(%albumartist%,$validate($replace(%albumartist%,\,_),_),Various Artists)\$validate($replace(%album%,\,_),_)\$if(%albumartist%,$replace($validate($left(%artist%,64)-$left(%album%,64)-%discnumber%_$num(%track%,2)-$left(%title%,64),-),\,_),$replace($validate($left(%album%,64)-%discnumber%_$num(%track%,2)-$left(%artist%,64)-$left(%title%,64),-),\,_))
  1. Tracks with Album Artist set: ...\Artist\Album\Artist-Album-Disc#_Track#-Title.ext
  2. Tracks without Album Artist set (compilations): ...\Various Artists\Album\Album-Disc#_Track#-Artist-Title.ext
Make a backup. Make many backups…
Import into your preferred music player. In my case, iTunes on OS X:
1. Album or artist at a time, delete the old, MPEG-4 versions and import the Apple Lossless tracks.

Issues:

Autoloader would occasionally jam. Seemed to be caused by:
- Discs sticking together; ensuring they are gently placed in the loader seems to help.
- Some discs are particularly thin or thick; these would often fail to load properly. Manually rip these.
Autoloader only supports standard size CDs, so mini or artistically cut CDs must be ripped in a normal drive. The USB drive is a laptop-type with a snap-lock spindle, which is better for artistically cut CDs.
Off-balance artistically cut CDs must be ripped at 1x to mitigate vibration. This can be problematic during initial spinup.
Some discs didn’t read well in one drive or another. If a rip would not be error-free in one drive, it’d frequently be fine in another.
Some discs are not present in AccurateRip.
Dirty discs caused more problems than I’d anticipated. Discs seemed to be scratched or dirty for a number of reasons:
- Previous poor storage techniques (DJ or CaseLogic-style slip cases).
- Outgassing of liner notes caused cloudy white buildup on some discs; could be removed with alcohol.
- Discs lacking paint over the reflective layer are more susceptible to damage; particularly if stored in slip cases.
I suspect that less-common discs may have invalid information in AccurateRip. (Tip: The number after the Accurate Rip CRC indicates how many other users the rip matched with.)
In order to use either dBpoweramp CD Ripper or Batch Ripper via Remote Desktop, the following group policy must be enabled: Local Computer Policy → Computer Configuration → Administrative Templates → System → Removable Storage Access → All Removable Storage: Allow direct access in remote sessions. This setting is detailed in this article from Microsoft.
PerfectTunes Album Art will lump together albums with differing versions specified with parenthesis. For example, “Pearl’s Girl (Tin There)” and “Pearl’s Girl (Carp Dreams…Koi)” will both show up simply as “Pearl’s Girl”. This can make artwork assignment challenging. To work around this I’d name albums something like “Pearl’s GirlTin There)” until artwork is assigned, then change the name afterward.
PerfectTunes ID Tags will occasionally fail to set the Compilation tag when it is the only attribute being edited. Work around this by using Mp3tag and editing the extended tag COMPILATION to 0 or 1.
PerfectTunes Album Art will not always show missing art. Work around this by using Mp3tag with filter %_covers% IS "" to find specific tracks without art assigned.
Mp3tag had issues renaming the artist “Meanwhile, Back In Communist Russia…” due to the ellipses at the end. By replacing the three dots format (…) with precomposed ellipses (…) the issue was resolved.

Cost:

Time: Hard to fully quantify, but overall process took about four weeks of spare time. Most time was spent waiting for the autoloader on initial rips and then manually cleaning up artwork and metadata issues. I was typically able to run 3-4 boxes of discs through the autoloader per day, then spent some lengthy evenings working on tagging and artwork. The use of the autoloader then PerfectTUNES and Mp3tag made the process feel very efficient.
Hardware:
- Acronova Nimbie USB Plus NB21-DVD: $569.00
- USB 3.0 Card: $19.99
- Internal Power Cable: $1.99
- AMD Radeon HD 5450: $31.76
Software:
- dbPoweramp and PerfectTUNES bundle: $58