Questions and Answers
Q. What is the single best reason for digitizing my music?
A. Forgotten favorites come back to life.
The larger a CD or LP collection, the greater the likelihood that many of them are orphaned on shelves. We keep a handful in heavy rotation, bring out some others when an urge strikes, and leave many others to gather dust.
Digital music loaded onto a personal player or streaming to a home music system makes rediscovery a breeze. Everything is neatly arranged, a tap or two away. It's a gas.
Q. Why should I choose mp3Geo?
A. Personal and customized service. My experience is especially beneficial for beginners. And consider this: all other music conversion services require their customers to mail their CDs for ripping. I would find that unnerving. I offer in-person pick-up and delivery.
Q. How much should I know before we proceed?
A. As much or as little as you prefer. All you really need is a desire to do this thing. I can help with the particulars.
Q. I'm a blank slate. Do you have a template for a neophyte?
A. Yes. Here are the basics:
1) Go Apple, specifically an iPod teamed with iTunes software. They're ubiquitous, and for good reason: they're the best. I'm no shill; as a former record industry guy I am less than thrilled with Apple's online music store. But iPod + iTunes is really all you need to know.
2) Get an iPod/iTunes primer. The best I know of is iPod: The Missing Manual, by Jude Biersdorfer and David Pogue. It's easy reading and will have you up and running in a hurry.
3) If you are going exclusively with iPods, choose the native Apple format, AAC. However, if you are unsure or are going to be using multiple player types, go with mp3 for versatility.
Also, have your initial music conversion done at the highest practical bit rate level (see sidebar to the right). The two best are 256 VBR (Variable Bit Rate) or 320.
4. Archive (back up) your music. Digital music is a joy for its convenience and versatility, but all important data should be backed up as a practical matter. Keeping an archive on a separate storage medium brings priceless peace of mind.
For archiving purposes, I preach keeping a 'lossless' archive. This allows reconversion to compressed files or perfect CD replicas as you desire.
5. When moving music between iTunes and your iPod, choose the option to manage your music manually. Automatic syncing can be a convenience if you plan on tightly managing playlists and only downloading those to the iPod. But if your library is larger than your player's capacity, you will find it better to drag and drop music into the iPod on the fly. It's easy.
6. Get to know a few basic iTunes user preferences:
- Import settings (bit rate, error correction)
- iTunes Music Folder location
- 'Keep iTunes Music Folder Organized'
- 'Copy Files to iTunes Music Folder'
You don't have to understand these points right now. I can help with this stuff.
Q. I don't think I can see myself spending that much time with music management and conversion software.
A. Part of what I try to convey to music lovers who are new to the digital world is this:
Music maintenance and reconversion are fun. Digitizing represents a fundamental shift in how we enjoy music: possibilities become reality, and then we want to see what else we can do to embellish the experience. Also, maintaining a music library is rewarding: you can fine-tune artist/title information, create playlists, and load your player with as much or as little music as you want to carry with you. Also, with the right setup you can use iTunes to handle the music being played in your home, taking the portable player right out of the loop.
Q. Let's say I go with 320 with an eye towards using that as my only compression level. How much music can I carry on my iPod?
A. At that level, I'd want to have a 16GB capacity iPod. It would hold about 1200-1500 tracks at 320. For 256, figure about 20% more.
Q. What is 'ripping?'
A. That is the indelicate term for extracting the data from a hard medium (a CD) and placing it on a soft one (a disk or flash drive). A euphemism is 'converting.'
Q. When I hand off my CDs for conversion, what is the turnaround time?
A. This depends on the size of your music library. My rough estimate: 500 CDs would take 2-3 days from retrieval to return, and 1000 about 5 days. Immediately thereafter I can help set up your computer with iTunes and do an initial library load. Or I can provide you with some instructions for doing it yourself. In any event, you can contact me with any follow-up questions you have.
Q. Are there any CDs you can't rip?
A. Certain copy-protected CDs won't rip. It's uncommon but known to happen. Badly scratched CDs might be an issue, but I use robust error-correction software that can handle most such issues. I shy away from homemade CDs, but if you have a small handful I can work with them.
Q. Do you digitize LPs?
A. Ah. Well, um...I can do that, but there are lots of caveats:
The sound quality might disappoint you. I don't dress up the sound; the clicks and pops will remain. And the price is steep: $20 per disc. The reason for this is the time expenditure: there is no speeding up LP conversion. A 40-minute album takes 40 minutes to convert, and more after that to break up the audio information into tracks and fill in the data. However, if you have some treasured music that hasn't seen the light of day on CD, I can help with that.
Q. Any tips for the advanced digital music lover?
A. Get an iPhone or an iPod Touch. Doing so adds a wi-fi component. Download the Simplify Media app and you can listen to anything in your home computer's music library wherever you are, given a wi-fi connection. Also, a bonus: the program fetches lyrics and artist information (if available) from the internet for any song playing. Virtual liner notes!
Also, look into multi-room music delivery systems for your home. The gold standard is Sonos, with its versatility and terrific controller. Also, Sonos has forged partnerships with Rhapsody and Pandora, which allows you to access those services using the same controller you use to manipulate your home music library. Sonos is pricey but worth it.
Q. How do I reach you to get this ball rolling?
A. Drop me a line here:
or call me at (530) 308-0876
and let's talk: How many CDs? Do know which format you want (it's okay if you don't)? Are you new to digital music? Do you prefer follow-up communication by email or by phone?
Bit Rates and You
The bit rate of a coded audio file is the number of bits (0's and 1's, in binary terms) that are required to store one second of audio. An mp3 encoded at 128kbps requires 128,000 or so bits to store 1 second of audio. Higher bit rates generally mean better sound quality and a closer representation of the original sound.
The following are estimations of storage space usage for a music library of 1000 Albums (or 12,000 tracks):
128 = 50 GB. Lossiest; best space efficiency. Not recommended.
192 = 75 GB. Best for portable player only. Higher-quality backup recommended.
256 = 100 GB. Most versatile. Best for those not wanting two different bit-rate copies.
320 = 125 GB. Best 'lossy' compression for all-purpose use
lossless = 300 GB. Best option for good home sound systems and/or as archive files.
bit-for-bit (e.g. WAV or AIFF) = 500 GB. Least space-efficient, can't hold metadata. Not recommended.
VBR (Variable Bit Rate) = This setting tells the encoding program to raise or lower the bit rate within a song file according to how audible any given portion is: louder or more complex sounds are encoded at a higher rate, while quiet or silent passages are given a lower one.
The 'lossless' setting above is a form of variable bit rate encoding. The median rate seems to be about 800kbps, but can vary widely. I have lossless song files with an average bit rate of little more than 200kbps, and a couple that are greater than 1200kbps.
'Bit-for-bit' in this case means uncompressed encoding, at a standard rate of about 1411 kbps.
The digital music world comes equipped with lots of jargon and acronyms, e.g. mp3, AAC, AIFF, WAV, FLAC. You needn't bother with any of it, as long as you are comfortable with the subjective stuff:
How do you plan on listening to your newly-converted music? Portable player? Home sound system? Computer speakers? All of these?
Do you more desire sound quality or efficiency and convenience? For example, is it important to you to have your entire music collection fit on a personal player (at the risk of some loss of sound quality, depending on the size of your library and the capacity of your player)?
Once you have this stuff figured out, you're most of the way there.
The Fine Print
Downloaded music data can be inconsistent. I routinely do an initial data comb after all rips to clean up the more egregious data errors. However, here are a few points to consider:
-
Artist name is 'first name first, last name last.' This has become a standard in music data maintenance.
-
Classical music data is problematic, as providers' listings often don't bring order to artist/title information. This is due to the challenges in managing info pertaining to composers, conductors, vocalists, symphony movements, and such. My best suggestion here is for the classics enthusiast to become familiar with iTunes and edit the data to taste.
-
Genre is subjective. These days, there is much blurring, given culture fusions and sub-categories. I attempt to fix the obvious errors but, again, finer-tuning is often up to individual taste.
