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music organiser software/playlists/Cambridge CXN/Mac/Dbpoweramp


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Hi,

 

Please bare with me as I am new to all this technology & trying to learn as I go along.....can anyone help advise on music organising software for my Mac, all this is new to me as up to now I have been listening to music on iPod only through iTunes, I bought a Cambridge CXN player & a WD mycloud NAS drive, I started converting cd's to flac files & put them in a MUSIC folder on my cloud which works great but now I am wanting to get bit more organised having playlist & editing genre which I can't once I have ripped my cd's....any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thankyou in advance.

 

ian

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"I am wanting to get bit more organised having playlist & editing genre which I can't once I have ripped my cd's....any help would be greatly appreciated."

 

I'm assuming the issue is iTunes not being compatible with FLAC. Download and install a free music player called Clementine. It will do everything you want and its very easy to use. You'll need to make sure that you don't share your music folder with iTunes. Either create a new music folder for Clementine, or take away access of your current music folder from iTunes. The reason for this is that iTunes makes changes to your metadata without asking and cause problems. Also, keep in mind that its easy to confuse library view and folder view.

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also take a look at foobar2000. it's free and very flexible. it's not much to look at out of the box, but you can configure it to your needs -- many people have even shared their "skins" so you don't have to reinvent the wheel.

(1) holo audio red (hqp naa) > chord dave > luxman cl-38uc/mq-88uc > kef reference 1
(2) simaudio moon mind 2 > chord qutest > luxman sq-n150 > monitor audio gold gx100
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also take a look at foobar2000. it's free and very flexible. it's not much to look at out of the box, but you can configure it to your needs -- many people have even shared their "skins" so you don't have to reinvent the wheel.

 

Do they have a Mac version? I thought Foobar was PC only.

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Do they have a Mac version? I thought Foobar was PC only.

 

ah, sorry. missed that. i'm on windows . . .

(1) holo audio red (hqp naa) > chord dave > luxman cl-38uc/mq-88uc > kef reference 1
(2) simaudio moon mind 2 > chord qutest > luxman sq-n150 > monitor audio gold gx100
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Hi

 

IMHO by far the best is JRiver Media Centre I have tried a lot but have used JRiver consistently since I converted to digital 6 years ago.

 

 

Its not free its around $50. There is a windows and Mac version , you try a 30 day full functioning demo.

 

As well as its audio output , it is a comprehensive library management system.

 

I use a CXN as well , you can set up a PC (Mac) and run by USB from the PC to the CXN. CA provide a USB 2 driver on their web site . This will give you bit perfect sound through JRiver. The CXN DAC is very good and you will not be disappointed

 

Along with JRiver is JRemote which allows you to control JRiver from an iPad, Andoid etc

 

If you feel really flash maybe have a look at Roon , this is VERY pretty and addictive but it can only communicate on a network with the CXN through AirPlay which limits anything above 44.1/16. I was sorely tempted by it but the connection to CXN was a showstopper for me.

Hope This Helps

 

Mike

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Thanks again for the info Mike,

 

I have just downloaded the free trial version of Jriver media & so far it looks pretty good so I guess I will be buying it, I have imported my music (file-library-import) to import my music but as I organise library, add to it, make playlist etc how do you get it back into your music folder so the Cambridge CXN reads the files/playlists etc.

Any help would be greatly appreciated as always.

cheers

ian

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Hi

 

A good decision IMHO. Another good step is to follow the JRiver forum, there are lots of guys who regularly contribute to it with masses of info.

 

I use the CXN as a USB HDD source. My file structures differ for Classical & Rock

 

Classical

 

AudioLibrary>Classical> A...Z> Composer>Genre>Album

 

It sounds abit long winded but it means each disc read is a small amount of data and is quicker. If you use CA Connect then theses reads are cached for a session.

 

Rock is Easier

 

AudioLibrary>Rock>A...Z>Artist>Album

 

I name Albums 1969 - Led Zeppelin III etc so they sort in release date order

 

In JRivers main tree view you can adjust the views to look just like this as well so you PC view, CA Connect View etc have the same look and feel

 

I hope this helps

 

I don't know whether you can send emails personally from this forum but it may be a better mechanism if we get deeper into the mysteries of setting up the library

 

My Library is currently 65,000 tracks so I have had to learn a few tricks

 

Cheers

 

Mike

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Hi Mike,

Thanks again for the info but Sorry it took so long to reply haven't been on as soooo busy with work. My library will be around 10,000 tracks but when I turn on the CXN & go to ALL TRACKS it takes ages to load up before I can use it, I think I understand abit what you mean with genres maybe if I split my music up I could pick a genre & it wouldn't take as long to load. Still struggling with the AudioLibrary>Rock>A...Z>Artist>Album bit though.....

email - [email protected] if it helps

 

cheers

ian

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Hi Ian/all

Even if in my case i am not using usb connected device (but typical streaming device from Scottland hills...), I have faced similar issue few years ago. I am on Mac and actually having 6000 albums and almost 80000 tracks on my QNAP with Minim server.

Here are only my personnal findings, for easiness and sq-wise.

For ripping, the best option to recommend is XLD, and eventually Max.

For organising and updating/changing the metadata, I would recommend Jaikoz (paid but worth few euros) - it has some selection means; and 2nd - Metadatics. That latter one has the ability to add some extra type of metadata (ie - I am using 'rip_date') and on my Minim server I have added that field in order to have easy selection of dates.

 

Concerning the files organisation, do not create too many subfolders (or use some short names at least), as it may create some issues when you want to organise the files (ie transfer on PC), as Win is not treating at all too long file localisation (file path + file name). You may face the issue on classical music certainly.

Hope it helps, if not please post me a PM.

Andy

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Computer Audiophile

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Hi Mike,

Thanks again for the info but Sorry it took so long to reply haven't been on as soooo busy with work. My library will be around 10,000 tracks but when I turn on the CXN & go to ALL TRACKS it takes ages to load up before I can use it, I think I understand abit what you mean with genres maybe if I split my music up I could pick a genre & it wouldn't take as long to load. Still struggling with the AudioLibrary>Rock>A...Z>Artist>Album bit though.....

email - [email protected] if it helps

 

cheers

ian

 

If it was my system, I would use the CXN as a dac and use the computer for organization and music player. Its just better suited to the task.

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I may agree but we need to know more about Ian's system e.g. PC or mac and how he intends to run it. A lot of the stuff in andymels post is mac. My comments are PC windows

 

the CXN is a Great DAC but expensive as just a DAC I started with a DAc magic and a laptop

 

i bought the CXN to simplify life for my family and to have a hifi component not a computer maybe I'm getting old I am old !!!

 

i tend to run the CXN with a external USB HDD for a variety of reasons

 

mike

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From what I can see with the CXN, if you want to use it as a front end, you're limited to a file system or playlist to organize and play music. Otherwise, it has to reload every time it gets used. If you have a Mac or PC, any decent playback software, including some good free ones, doesn't have this type of limitations. It just seems like a lot of work if you want to use the CXN for library management.

 

If you're willing to access your library with a file manager, then its a different matter. If you take the time to organize your files, a system like that can be very effective. I like doing it this way if I have a single file rip with a cue sheet.

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The other option with CXN is to use a UPnP source. J River bundles this - try https://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/DLNA

 

Personally I think you should not organize music files by genre. Genre is a classification tag and mutable. You don't really want to be moving files around all the time, it causes problems with software which use file paths as keys to identify music. Use identification tags instead - artist, album, track, disc#, and derivatives if the tree is too broad (separate using first letters etc).

 

bliss - fully automated music organizer. Read the music library management blog.

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