Tips for a Personal Music Archive

[Hans Fugal]

Jordan Gunderson wrote:
> Esteemed Plug members,
> 
> After much procrastination and many damaged CDs, I'm ready to start 
> archiving data from my music CDs.
> 
> I know I should save to FLAC files first, but that's about all I know, 
> so I'm looking for any tips & resources about the best way to create and 
> consume a personal music archive.  What can you suggest?
> 
> Thanks in advance!
> Jordy

I use abcde to rip, and I usually just rip to ogg. But when the music 
I'm ripping is dear to my heart, I go with flac. I transcode from flac 
to ogg or mp3 as needed (e.g. for an mp3 player), but otherwise I just 
deal with flac directly.

I sort my music as genre/artist/album/track#-title.ext but I try to keep 
the genre list to a minimum. Things like synth, baroque, piano, choral, 
stuff like that. For tagging modifications, I use Ex Falso when it does 
what I need. I trust Ex Falso with my tags. When it's not quite 
featureful enough, I go with EasyTAG, which I don't really trust with my 
tags but I keep a close eye on it.

As for archival, I do keep my CDs of course, but I have had CDRs rot on 
me and I have to wonder if pressed CDs are going to end up rotting too. 
Maybe ripping is the more long-term solution (if you back up).

-- 
Hans Fugal ; http://hans.fugal.net

There's nothing remarkable about it. All one has to do is hit the
right keys at the right time and the instrument plays itself.
     -- Johann Sebastian Bach