Enough of that for today. Whew!

[Brad Johnson]

Time to take a break.  Ma fangers is 'a gittin tarred!

I'm getting ready to upgrade the stereo in the new truck.  The Pioneer head unit I have (P4100) is a pretty neat piece of technology, up to and including the ability to read from a thumb drive via a USB port.  In anticipation I'm taking every CD I own and converting them to mp3. 

It'll be nice to simply toggle over to the song whenever I want, never having to shuffle CDs again.  Not having three or four CD cases rattling around in the vehicle is a bonus, too.  In the mood for Tschaikovsky?  Got it loaded.  AC/DC?  No problem, I can toggle right to it.  Barbershop quartet?  Yep.  Barbara Straisand?  You'll have to bring that yourself, wierdo! 

I tried using a couple of different utilities but keep coming back to Windows Media Player (I have WMP 11).  Simple and direct.  I changed the defaults to MP3 file type and 128k sampling rate, made a quick change to the file save location, and that's that.  Put in the CD, click "Rip" and a few minutes later it's done.  I have to manually enter the album and file names (song names), but that only takes a couple of minutes and I can do it as the next disk is being converted.  I am averaging about 10 an hour.  90 down, about that many to go.  I figure I can easily have them done by next weekend.

Brad

[Gewehr98]

Guess you really are serious about keeping that truck, then?   

[Brad Johnson]

Yep. 

Went through the brakes yesterday, the last thing on my list of bumper-to-bumper checks.  Pulled all the wheels, dropped the calipers, and made sure everything was in good shape and properly greased.  Aside from putting a dab of extra grease on the sliders everything was perfect. (The sliders didn't actually need greasing, but cleaning them off and regreasing them lets me mentally justify the time I spent on the project.  I need to be able to say I did something.  )

I also straightened out the bumper bracket for the trailer wiring connector.  Someone had apparently run a trailer tongue into it, bendingover the bracket and smashing the connector.  Thankfully the connector plugs onto the end of the wiring harness instead of being made as a part of it.  A couple of hammers, a pair of Channel Locks and fifteen minutes of my time cured the bent bracket.  A trip to the dealer and a few metal screws cured the smashed plug.  It's all tested and ready to go.

*Edit to add*
I just did some file size checks and a quick estimate of the space I'll need for the MP3 library.  I should end up at about 2200 songs with the data totaling 19 gig or so.  Here I was thinking I'd have to pop for a 64 gig stick when a 32 will be waaaaay more than enough.  Absofrikkinlutely amazing that kind of music library can be loaded onto a device the size of a pack of gum.

Brad

[Balog]

*Edit to add*
I just did some file size checks and a quick estimate of the space I'll need for the MP3 library.  I should end up at about 2200 songs with the data totaling 19 gig or so.  Here I was thinking I'd have to pop for a 64 gig stick when a 32 will be waaaaay more than enough.  Absofrikkinlutely amazing that kind of music library can be loaded onto a device the size of a pack of gum.

Brad

[Brad Johnson]

Got all industrious last night and did another 30.  Total of 118 CDs so far making for right at 1500 songs (12.5 gigs of data).  Sure will be glad when this little project is done.  I'm tired of typing.  It's going to be really bad when I hit all the classical stuff.  Instead of three or four words in the song title they're all stuff like "Flight of the Volkswagen in D minor, from Billy Bob's Nutcracking Fourth Of July Beer Bash (I. P Freely, 1984) Opus V8, performed by the Way Down South Beanie Weenies High Blowby Band, Luthor Hicks, director".

I did one as a test last night.  Took me for-freakin'-ever to get all the song files renamed.

Brad

[AZRedhawk44]

WinLAME is your friend.

Rips to MP3, name the songs, creates subfolders based on artist name and album name.

Doesn't perform any DRM operations to the finished product.

IIRC, WMP11 puts DRM on WMA/MP3 rips it creates.

[mtnbkr]

I've used WMP and iTunes to rip songs and haven't noticed any DRM issues (even moving the music to different players, different computers, etc).  Also, those two packages do all the naming and even download album art. 

Chris

[Marnoot]

Windows Media Player has a toggle in the settings as to whether it applies DRM when ripping a CD. I have mine toggled off and the resulting files indeed have no DRM.

[robear]

The best audio ripper I have found is audiograbber.  (I think I have recommended it before on this forum)   It is freeware, and in addition to the LAME mp3 codec (also freeware) I was able to rip all 500-or-so of my CD collection a few years ago.    One of the nicest things about audiograbber was its ability to use an internet based CD database to automatically download albumn and song titles, eliminating the need to manually enter the name of every song.

[crt360]

One of the nicest things about audiograbber was its ability to use an internet based CD database to automatically download albumn and song titles, eliminating the need to manually enter the name of every song.

WMP also has this wonderful, time saving feature.  Brad, why are you typing everything? 

[Brad Johnson]

WMP also has this wonderful, time saving feature.  Brad, why are you typing everything? 

Apparently because I'm retarded and didn't look into seeing if WMP had the feature. 

Brad

[PTK]

Hahahahaha, I'm sorry but that's just downright funny. You remind me of my dad trying to "rewind" a DVD before bringing it back to the library...

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

you don't rewind dvds?!

[InfidelSerf]

Honestly since you have retail copies of your music.. I would just search and download your cds via torrents.
Your technically not violating your fair use rights. (Heck you might already be violating their terms just by converting them)
You might as well let someone else do all that work for you and probably to a great level of detail.

Have you tried out the USB thumbdrive feature yet?
I decided I want that on the next head unit I purchase.  I download all my talk radio shows, it would be
real nice to just be able to plug in a drive and listen to yesterdays show while driving.

[Brad Johnson]

Have you tried out the USB thumbdrive feature yet?

Saw it demo'd at a local stereo shop.  That's what turned me on to the unit.  Every piece of music I own in the vehicle all the time.  No flipping through disk holders finding a particular album, no thinking about listening to a song and realizing it's back at the house, no wrestling around trying to switch CDs.  Scroll to the artist, then to the song.  Done.

Brad

[PTK]

I have had awful luck with Pioneer stuff in my CVPI. I don't know what's going on, but I've managed to kill two of them, now. I gave up and put an old Sony back in, but it only plays regular CDs.

[robear]

I recently installed a new stereo in my car.   Nothing elaborate, just a new head-unit (Alpine CDA-9886) and 2 pairs of Polk DB651s 2-way speakers for the doors.   I used the factory wiring for all connections, facilitated by the adapter that came free with the head-unit from Crutchfield.   The antenna adapter, head-unit mounting kit AND the speaker brackets were also FREE from Crutchfield.  They also provided a set of instructions for the install specific to my vehicle. The sound is MUCH improved.     

My favorite part about the head unit is the USB jack, however.     I have about 4gig of music in my (non-apple) .mp3 player, and I picked about 250 of my favorite songs and put them on a small thumb drive.   Using the shuffle play feature, I now have the equivalent of a 3gig, random play mix-tape.   

[lupinus]

WMP is a very good piece of software, IMO. I've been putting all CD's into MP3 format for years.

Then again I haven't bought a CD in years. I download directly from Amazon. 99 cents a song and DRM like songs bought from iTunes or most other sources. I also like it because if I only like one song from a CD it costs me 99 cents for the one song I want and I'm not blowing money on other songs I will just skip over. And if I do want the whole album it's usually less then going to the store and buying a CD.

[Brad Johnson]

Almost there.  28 disks left, along with a smattering of single files from various sources I'll have to organize.

Total so far:
1948 files
17.29 Gb data.

Nothing on the schedule at the office tomorrow so I might get industrious and do a marathon session.  That, plus going through a bunch of compilations for the songs not on albums I've already converted, will have the project 100% complete.

If the sub box gets here by Friday I might go ahead and do the install this weekend.  That would be VERY nice!

Brad

[Brad Johnson]

I finished all the CDs this morning.  I forgot that one shelf (the last one I did, of course) had a bunch of double disk sets.  Ick.  That pushed my song and data numbers out a little further than my estimates, but not enough to make any diff.  Just a little irritating when you think you're only fifteen or twenty disks away from done and it's really double that.

I say I "finished up".  I thought I did, anyway.  I cleaned up the stacks, tucking all the disks away - alphabetized, mind you - back out of sight in the entertainment center.  "Ahhh..." though I, "Maybe a few disks I'd burned and lost the original, or maybe some wayward disks tucked in my car cases." 

A few.  Yep, juuuuust a few. Try forty three.

FORTY THREE ... GAH!!   

That's four hours, minimum, for the conversion plus the time to figure out which album it is (about half have only the artist written on them. No album title, nuthin') and look up the song list.  Jimminy Christmas!  It's just not freakin' fair!  Get a guy's hopes up and then, BAM!  *grump*

On the upside I have an MP3 library that currently totals 2391 songs (21.1 gig).  With the additional disks and misc mp3 files I have laying around, that total will be pushing 3000 when I'm done.  And it will all be at my fingertips any old time I want.

Brad

[Scout26]

Who's up for going over to Brad's house and stealing his car stereo ?? 

[Brad Johnson]

Wouldn't be hard.  It's currently sitting on the end of the kitchen counter.

Brad

[Harold Tuttle]

I can send you a thumbdrive to backup that data upon
and you can mail it back to me for safekeeping

 

[RoadKingLarry]

That is almost enough to make me consider updating the radio entertainment system in my old '83 Chevy pickup, I think the old AM only box may have a few caps starting to dry out.

[mtnbkr]

I can send you a thumbdrive to backup that data upon
and you can mail it back to me for safekeeping

 

I see what you did there. :D

Chris