Best way to generate FLAC copy of medium size AIFF library?

[diw]

Need help here....I need to convert my 2000 CD AIFF library to FLAC so that I can play it in the car...I first converted to FLAC using dbPoweramp...that took 3 days to happen but just produced a list of files arranged by track number...used mp3Tag to tag files with artist and album data but that just gave an alphabetical list of artist and album tracks with no folders to enable easy searching. Trying to find some way to get files into artist folders and album subfolders has led me to MusicBrainz but I am finding that very slow and over complex, as well as having a tendency to lose albums if you are not careful....so after a week of solid time on this i have only got to Johnny Cash and have lost Dr John completely on the way ( I have backups so loss is a relative term ) I never realised this could be so difficult...if I connect the harddrive of FLAC files to Roon it takes five minutes to produce a nice library with album art and everything. I now realise that MusicBrainz is a very nice sledgehammer to crack a small nut....Anybody got any advice on the best way to do this on a MAC? The harddrive has to be formatted in FAT 32 for the car headunit. When I first got involved with computer audio it seemed then to be more about data management than music or acoustics...I am getting that feeling again.....

[diw]

I am sure it can but as with many of these programs the instructions are absent or impenetrable...i thought I could do that on the initial conversion but it didnt happen...I could just rerip all the files from the AIFF source but thats a three day job and I cant work out what the settings are to give me the same folder structure as an iTunes library....Artist folder, album sub folder...so what settings should I use to acheive this? MusicBrainZ is doing my head in and I know its slow because its encoding all sorts of derailed information that I will never use in this application....Roon does that fine for me on the main system

 

So....I can go back to the original AIFF library which has the right folder structure, I can use the FLAC files which are now all tagged in artist and album or I can plod on with MusicBrainz....best way to proceed ( and any detailed instructions truly welcomed !! )

 

dbpoweramp and foober2000 can automatically create these folders during conversation from aiff to flac.

 

... or from flac to flac. whatever you want.

[diw]

What both of these suggestions seem to do is rename the files but not create folders..the screen shot shows the before ( with all the track information ) and the after ( with not so much. My first attempt with ZLD just named all the files with the exact words of the format I typed in rather than using the content . The second one was attempting to use the format shortcuts from XLD in a dropdown menu that is only available for two milliseconds .The Mp3Tag suggestion processed the files fairly quickly saying it was renaming them but clearly didnt and just locked up at the end. Dont know why because Mp3Tag managed to re-order the original tags very efficiently. Maybe the problem is that there is no folder structure for the FLAC files at the moment so keeping it isnt an issue...Music BrainZ was able to impose a folder structure but very slowly. Is there a problem with how I am naming the files or is there a second step to move labelled files into folders, assuming the labelling is correct?/Users/diw/Desktop/flac 1.tiff/Users/diw/Desktop/flac 1.jpg

 

Not sure if these images are added.....

[diw]

Is the creation of folders and subfolders a library function rather than a tagging function? Am I going to have to go back to the original AIFF files and convert them retaining the existing folder structure ( and how do i ensure that dB Poweramp or whatever does that?) Or do I have three more days of nursing MusicBrainZ? Or do I change to Plan B for the car and use Roon on a laptop under the front seat and selection via a MacMini on the dashboard ( that works really well by the way ) and bypass the FLAC playing capabilities of the car head unit completely?

 

Thanks for all the suggestions, I am sure the answer lies somewhere close....

[diw]

Apesbrain........Tried your suggestion with a couple of CDs worth and the files disappeared somewhere Searchlight cant find them...I put the destination as the hard drive the FLAC files are on but they arent there!! Mystery , eh?

[diw]

Some resolution finally and maybe it will be helpful to others to recount the journey

 

Kumakuma...it wasnt dB Poweramp that caused the mess, it was my operating it!!

 

In the end I went back to recoding the original AIFF files with dBPoweramp but played around with the settings before doing the whole lot...the various artist\album\title combos that first spring to mind for file naming fall apart when compllations and multi-artist albums are involved. You get lots of individual artist files with only one or two tracks in each. There is no doubt some file naming convention that deals with this but I couldnt work it out. An easier solution is to use the original file naming that comes from whatever library software you are using and in dBPA this is possible using "dynamic naming " when converting. You have to upgrade to the Reference version of the software for this as the free one doesnt do it, but this upgrade is well worth it for the speed advantages. The free one does batch conversion but with encoding rates between 30 and 100 x, while the paid version encodes at between 100 and 300 x. My reluctance to recode the whole lot stemmed from the 3 days the trial version took to encode 25 K of files, and it ended up a 5 hour task with the proper program. You just use [origpath]\[origfilename] in the dynamic coding box and it just reproduces your original folder structure. For simplicity I read the files off one external harddrive and exported them to another one.

 

iTunes isnt perfect but I ended up with more respect for its capabilities that we take for granted! Undoubtedly there are other library programs that do a better job but its not bad. With those settings the batch conversion with dBPA was a set and forget operation. It is worth taking the time to tidy up your library or hard drive before you do this so that you dont waste time coding movies and other stuff that has been parked there for reasons long forgotten

 

It is impressive that you can get a 2000 CD library in Flac on a solid state harddrive the size of a fat credit card ( Samsung T1) but sadly the Kenwood head unit doesnt deal with it terribly well. It has a limit of 1000 folders and doesnt like bitrates higher then 16/44 much. Sometimes plays them, (and sounds spectacular), sometimes not. It does a good job with the 1000 files within its limit. But I now have a Flac library that I can use to make up smaller drives for the car while I work on the Roon solution...

 

many thanks to all members who contributed to the thread for their advice...thats what these enthusiast forums are all about