Topic: Music Server Software Options / Suggestions

[SonicSound]

I am setting up a music server and the hardware is all hooked-up and good-to-go [Operating System: Windows XP professional, Audio Card: Nuendo 96/52 - Stienberg, DAC: Nuendo 8I/O96k 24bit AD/DA].

Could use some help in selecting some software that will make this baby sing.

What software would you recommend to do the following?

- Rip CD’s to a hard drive

- Automatically retrieve and save album information [cover art, album title, release date, genre, song titles, band members, etc.] from the internet.

- Interface shows cover art and can query on artist, song title, year, genre, and other aspects.

I have a copy of Nero 7 but not sure if this is the best solution.   

[dgodwin]

Exact audio copy will rip cds to the hard drive.  You can set up up to flac/mp3/etc as well as download album information from the cddb.  I'm unaware of it being able to grab album art though...

[SonicSound]

+Thanks

Really want the album art capability.

Also want to select the best software for the job...I will be loading over 900 CD's

[Jammin72]

Audio CD-DA Extractor is the ticket for extracting with all of the Extras and excellent sound quality.

Check into MediaMonkey as a playback solution.  Supports Kernel Streaming Extraction and advanced tagging as well as Auto-Tagging from Amazon including album art.

[SonicSound]

I will have to check into this option +

The software package that comes w/ the Axonix music server looks very interesting.  I believe it is only available for use with their server.

Check out the screen shots http://axonix.com/Mediamax/ScreenShots.aspx

This gives the general idea of what I am looking for.

Can I do this with Nero?

Audio CD-DA Extractor is the ticket for extracting with all of the Extras and excellent sound quality.

Check into MediaMonkey as a playback solution.  Supports Kernel Streaming Extraction and advanced tagging as well as Auto-Tagging from Amazon including album art.

[spott]

I'd tell you to use iTunes, just make sure that you select lossless compression (AAC), especially since it auto-downloads the album art... in terms of ease of use, it's by far the best.  But I know the Slim Devices / Slim Server is popular as well.  I know you can associate album art with a FLAC file set, but it's not automatic. 

[pfife]

I'd tell you to use iTunes, just make sure that you select lossless compression (AAC), especially since it auto-downloads the album art... in terms of ease of use, it's by far the best.  But I know the Slim Devices / Slim Server is popular as well.  I know you can associate album art with a FLAC file set, but it's not automatic. 

I love slim server, but I don't see it as fitting his needs.  The querying isn't that good (can't search for a particular artist), and afaik, it doesn't have the ability to play tunes right there.  The real strength of SlimServer, imo, is that it can stream remotely.  There are a lot of other sweet plugins too.  Its nice for cataloging, but not as good as Itunes. Slim server doesn't rip either.   ITunes was the first thing that came to my mind, but he'd have to go AAC instead of flac.   

I don't get a lot of the itunes hate, I think its pretty nice overall.

[SonicSound]

Bump

Any other options?

[SonicSound]

Jammin72 - Thanks again for the suggestions +
I have downloaded both MediaMonkey and Audio CD-DA.

Any thought on just using MediaMonkey to rip cd’s to my hard drive?
Am I risking a degraded or lower sound quality?
It would make it a lot easier if I could just use MM, however I do not want to sacrifice audio quality. 

Edit:

I have noticed that during play back track transitions are not audibly smooth [skipping sound].  Is this a limitation of MM playback?  If so I need another solution.

Audio CD-DA Extractor is the ticket for extracting with all of the Extras and excellent sound quality.

Check into MediaMonkey as a playback solution.  Supports Kernel Streaming Extraction and advanced tagging as well as Auto-Tagging from Amazon including album art.

[kskreider]

I think that Foobar will play, extract, FLAC/MP3, download CDDB, and download album art.

[SonicSound]

I fixed the issue with gapless playback by adjusting the "buffer-ahead on track change" to 4000ms [tools/options/player/output plug-ins]

But I am still concerned about the audio quality results in using MediaMonkey to rip.
As you can imagine, I only want to have to do this once [1000+ CD collection]
 

Jammin72 - Thanks again for the suggestions +
I have downloaded both MediaMonkey and Audio CD-DA.

Any thought on just using MediaMonkey to rip cd’s to my hard drive?
Am I risking a degraded or lower sound quality?
It would make it a lot easier if I could just use MM, however I do not want to sacrifice audio quality. 

Edit:

I have noticed that during play back track transitions are not audibly smooth [skipping sound].  Is this a limitation of MM playback?  If so I need another solution.

Audio CD-DA Extractor is the ticket for extracting with all of the Extras and excellent sound quality.

Check into MediaMonkey as a playback solution.  Supports Kernel Streaming Extraction and advanced tagging as well as Auto-Tagging from Amazon including album art.

[Tim]

I don't get a lot of the itunes hate, I think its pretty nice overall.

I thought I was the only one who didn't get that

[SonicSound]

I have riped approx 250 Cd's...

I f'n hope that MediaMonkey is the ticket!

I must say that it is pretty awesome having the ability to access your music at a keystroke.

[Chris K]

are you making flacs of those cd's? if not what format?

[spott]

Does anyone know (or heard the rumor) that FLAC will be supported in OSX Leopard.  If that's the case, I'm guessing that the new version of iTunes will support FLAC as well (OS independent, XP, Vista, etc)?

If this is the case, this will provide all the "purty" extras (artwork, etc) without the CD-DA extractor.

FWIW, I love iTunes and would probably adore it if they started supporting FLAC