Audio – from CD to Mac?
13:46 Wednesday 16 May 07
Here is what I want:
- Insert CD
- Program reads CD, tags all tracks
- Program saves to a specified parent directory and fully respects the CD structure while naming the folder after the Album Title
- Program uses MP3 format at a bitrate I choose
That does not seem an overly complex task. But I cannot find an os x application that will do that.
I don’t want AAC, Flac, Ogg or any other audio formats, I want MP3.
I don’t want it to read a Compilation album and then go make a folder for each artist.
I don’t want an CD image.
I just want to open – for instance ‘The Best Punk anthems ever’ – and find a neat, numbered list that is a copy of the CD.
Does such a beast exist?
Update: Dual Core Intel chips and encoding music takes 80% of EACH cpu. What in hell did you Mac people do before?
And as for ‘Well iTunes knows where it is” – I’m sure the OS knows where everything is so why bother with any structure for anything? Why not have one HUGE folder and let iOSX take care of it? It’s the same thing.
There are some things Windows does a lot better than OS X and one thing is music. Why? because there is competition, more programs, more thought, more choice. In OS X there is one. Just one. And it isn’t that great.
In fact, given the complete bloody mess it’s made I’ll let Windows do it. You should always use the right tool for the job and the commercial whore that is iTunes can be thrashed by CDex.
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Ohhh, almost had me suggesting iTunes there… apart from that whole Compilation album thing it does. So close.
But, about that requirement, WHY do you want it done that way? I guess you don’t use a library style app for your music needs – in other words you NEED the structure or you can’t find anything, as opposed to iTunes or similar where you can just search for the album name?
Just curious because I used to do the same thing. Then I gave up and now use iTunes. I can’t remember the last time I had to go and find an MP3 file (like, more than 2 years ago?) so it’s not a big concern for me WHERE the files are, just that I can play them.
15:37 Wednesday 16 May 07
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P.S. Your zeitgeist plugin is being spammed I think…
15:38 Wednesday 16 May 07
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iTunes will do it for you, just ensure to have ‘Group Compilations When Browsing’ in General Preferences ticked, and ‘Keep iTunes Music Folder organized’ ticked in Advanced -> General, and it should be fine
(at least it is here -I have a ‘compilations’ folder, and in it, for example a ‘Peace and Love -the Woodstock Generation’ folder with the various tracks in it… all in mp3… )
15:53 Wednesday 16 May 07
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Start looking at Applescript :) One of the most underated aspects of OSX. Jayzuz somebody must have produced an applescript that does that…
21:15 Wednesday 16 May 07
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Gordon – why not? It’s as efficient, allows the same access to any program and more importantly it looks like my CD shelf. Small detail, anal maybe, but I like it :) The Zeitgeist? That is VERY odd – the number of sex searches – from a myriad of places – is amazing. They are making my adsense experiment worth it though :)
AJ – I really really don’t want to use it. Memories that are the abomination of the Windows version (IE+Mac was super crap, iTunes+Windows is super crap too) and the blatantly commercial aspect piss me off. It may be good, it may have zero competition but I don’t like it.
Mosceala – Applescript. I think it’s a given that it’ll whoooosh over me :) But I’ll look around – I know there is much I have yet to discover in this machine.
22:43 Wednesday 16 May 07
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Max looks pretty good… http://sbooth.org/Max/ -it uses the LAME encoder… and is free!
00:12 Thursday 17 May 07
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I did not know you could tell iTunes to group compilation together. i’ll have to do that. good tip. though, i only use iTunes to buy the underground stuff i can’t find near my house. i usually just burn to cd and rip using cdex right after that. messy, but it does the job for albums i really want to BUY (ie: support the artists).
00:20 Thursday 17 May 07
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“It’s as efficient”
Ummm no it’s not. Not if you have to manually do stuff just to keep a folder structure a certain way. And if other applications can’t handle searching or indexing a set of folders then I probably wouldn’t use them..
Let go man, let go, be free!! ;-)
08:30 Thursday 17 May 07
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It is as efficient.
Windows. CDex, Insert CD, click button – it does what I want.
OS X – it can’t.
OS X does not give you a reasonable choice here. You have to work round it.
CDex (open source and one of many) takes the CD and makes a copy.
It may well all be in the machine but it’s not how I want simply because Apple chose it not to be. As I wrote in the Update, seeing as Spotlight exists, why not just have one huge folder for everything in the machine? If that needs organisation, why not music?
10:09 Thursday 17 May 07