Viable alternative to iTunes

[eds2777]

CDex uses the LAME encoder as well. I prefer the interface and ease of use with CDex. I use a Plextor CDRW drive to rip all my music. It has a fantastic DAE rate and never gives me errors.

[PCiPoder]

I also prefer the CDex interface and I'm sure they both encode pretty much the same with LAME. I also use it a lot to reduce the bitrate (file size) of mp3's I want to shrink for use with the pod and the quality of those is excellent too.

[ItsMyLife]

Originally Posted by PCiPoder

I also use it a lot to reduce the bitrate (file size) of mp3's I want to shrink for use with the pod and the quality of those is excellent too.

:shudder: You're obviously not a sound quality proponent as this is about the worst thing you can do to an MP3.

[Step666]

Actually, if it's not straying off-topic too much, I have a question for the people who use CDex.

How do you get it to correct name/tag songs ripped from a CD of various artists?

[PCiPoder]

Originally Posted by ItsMyLife

:shudder: You're obviously not a sound quality proponent as this is about the worst thing you can do to an MP3.

Sez you!

[studogvetmed]

Originally Posted by PCiPoder

Sez you!

Exactly, many people will compromise a bit of sound quality for more space on their iPod, lower bit-rate files through mid earphones are going to sound okay for casual listening. now if we were trying to play 96kbps MP3s through our high fidelity system from out 1 terrabyte server we might need our heads examined

[PCiPoder]

Originally Posted by studogvetmed

Exactly, many people will compromise a bit of sound quality for more space on their iPod

To my ears the files I've converted from 320 to 192 kps (using high quality conversion settings) sound indistinguishable from files ripped at 192 to start with. Of course, for years I listened to a lot of Jesus and Mary Chain

[Palmyra]

Originally Posted by Step666

Actually, if it's not straying off-topic too much, I have a question for the people who use CDex.

How do you get it to correct name/tag songs ripped from a CD of various artists?

On menu bar click "CDDB" then "Read Remote CDDB" this should fill-in the correct names etc. This unless it is some really obscure CD.

[PCiPoder]

Originally Posted by Palmyra

On menu bar click "CDDB" then "Read Remote CDDB" this should fill-in the correct names etc. This unless it is some really obscure CD.

I guess most of my comp CDs are really obscure Anyway, what you want is for the "Artist" tag to be the actual artist for the song, and the "Album Artist" tag to be "Various Artists" (or Compilations or whatever you prefer). Cdex may or may not get this right, as with any program which uses CDDB. You may have to edit the tags manually before transferring the songs to the pod.

[Step666]

No, I have that checked but with compilation CDs it just puts 'Various Artists' as the artist name then the artist's name and track title as the track's title.
When I use EAC, it puts the album in the Various Artists folder but tags the artists and tracks properly.

Is there no way of doing this with CDex?


edit: yeah, PCiPoder knows what I'm on about but my point is more that EAC does it properly so is there no way of getting CDex to do it properly too?

[PCiPoder]

I dunno. Maybe not. I'll check when I get home tonight...with a really obscure CD

[PCiPoder]

I checked it out and I think there is no way. I had forgotten how complicated EAC was but it does have that capability. However, you're still limited to what freedb has in the database. I tried two CDs with EAC; one is so frickin obscure that I can't even find album art for it online (Gyroscope-Sky catalog sampler). It was in the freedb database, but all the tags were crap; the artists were hyphenated with the song titles, wrong numbers, etc. Then I tried the less obscure "Biggest Ragga Dancehall Anthems 2005". Also hyphenated artist-song non-tags and all lower case to boot. So with both, it would take some tag editing. In that case I would probably use mp3tag to convert filename to tag.

I hate to say it, but I recall that WMP 10 recognized and ripped both of these at 192 and assigned good tags with no problem and they sound fine. Of course we know my hearing is no good.