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Gracenote Database - how to add Cover Art manually if not found automaticaly

Hello to the community, I recently acquired an Astell&Kern AK500n with Gracenote DB, which actually recognises every CD with all titles during the ripping process
- but rather often it does not find the appropriate covers = no cover at all.
Any advice how to add Cover Art manually is highly appreciated! (it does not work the same way as with dBpoweramp where I can import files, e.g. cropped jpegs from covers!)
Thanks very much in advance for your help!


collectorat
collectorat OP
12 posts
 
So far thank you for your recommendations.
The curious thing is that folder.jpeg images from dBpoweramp ripped CDs are not compatible with Gracenote folders- at least the ripped folders from Gracenote do not show any separate jpeg images,
I could not find separate images in all Gracenote folders- in the dBpoweramp folders there is always a folder.jpeg image at the bottom of the folder.
@hgeifman : I know this procedure from dBpoweramp and I practised this a couple of times - its time consuming but it works- not so with Gracenote, don’t know why!
hgeifman
2,291 posts
 
Unfortunately, finding and saving album cover art is not easy and I do not have man answers.   I searched for how to find album cover art and save it.   Please review the link below:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/264826

I had a similar problem when I converted my iTunes albums to my Aurender server.   For example, iTunes does NOT STORE the album cover art within the song folder but "HIDES" it in another encrypted and hidden folder. This means the Aurender setup coming from iTunes requires you to run Doug Scripts to extract the album cover art in your transfer.  Doug's Scripts only works on Apple computers.  The Script find the cover art images (from iTunes), changes the file name in my case, Folder.jpg.    It was a time consuming process BUT works.

http://dougscripts.com/itunes/scripts/ss.php?sp=savealbumartjpeg

I suggest you search for finding cover art in Gracenote and determine if the covers art can be converted.   This is not an easy task but I suggest you search and see what you can find.  Good luck.
jasonbourne52's avatar
jasonbourne52
2,863 posts
 
Ah, the joys of the new digital age!
hgeifman
2,291 posts
 

@collectoratad, I read your post again and want to add more info.

As I understand it, your Astell&Kern AK500n is your music server that also maintains your stored CD’s. Access your Astell&Kern AK500n to determine where your stored CDs are located (or maybe located on an external hard drive). You need to find the music folder and albums stored within (this took 5 seconds on my Aurender). After you locate the folder, you look for an individual album and determine WHERE & HOW the album cover art is stored. I hope you can find the file with the JPG extension (for example cover.jpg, folder.jpg). It should have a file name and JPG. Next, locate another album that has no album cover art.

Search using the album name and the word “image” (for example, Enya image). It should be found on Amazon (or something similar). Copy the album image to your desktop. Manually change the album name to the name required on your Astell&Kern AK500n unit (for example, cover.jpg or folder.jpg).

Copy this file to the appropriate location on your Astell&Kern AK500n device. CONFIRM, TWICE, the image was copied correctly and named correctly. Use your iPad, tablet, etc. to access the Astell&Kern AK500n and confirm the album cover art is displayed. Continue to add more album cover art.

Unfortunately, this is a time-consuming process. I followed these instructions to add album cover art to my Aurender server and copied 10 albums cover art images per day until I was finished. I hope this helps. Please keep us posted.


collectorat OP
12 posts
 
@hgeifman,
first of all thank you very much for your ongoing support and your attempts to help me in this matter.
I followed the links you sent me in your previous post - very interesting information but does not exactly meet my case.

I am rather familiar with finding album covers in the internet, making screenshots or simply taking pictures from the covers, crop them, save them as jpegs, named as Folder.jpg, and place them into the appropriate music folder at the bottom end of all music titles - this worked fine with dBpoweramp on my MacBook Pro.

BUT: unfortunately NO music folders of all CDs ripped by the A&K 500n show a folder.jpg or cover.jpg, although the cover images are displayed during search or playback!
And so far I found no location or folder on my A&K 500n where images could have been stored - there is a "ripped folder" that shows all ripped CDs as separate folders with the album name, but there are no jpegs inside (I accessed the HD of the A&K 500n by an USB-connection with my MacBook)

The A&K 500n is an almost perfect ripping server that would do everything automatically, but I can't be sure whether it finds cover art or not! (currently I am not ripping those CDs when Gracenote can't find the cover art - waiting for a solution to rip them later!)

As the hardware and the ripping software are SOTA (the A&K 500n sounds absolutely fantastic) I would not like to import complete folders from previous rips with my MacBook and dBpoweramp (the databases used by dBpoweramp (MusicBrainz, AMG, GD3, freeDb etc.) rather often did not find the CDs or title information either, so buying the A&K 500n was also a decision driven by the Gracenote DB.

What I tried successfully was importing a complete folder previously ripped by dBpoweramp incl. the Folder.jpg - the music was played flawlessly by the A&K 500n and the correct cover image was displayed - crazy!
What did NOT work was moving an A&K 500n ripped CD folder without album art to the desktop of my Mac, adding the cover image and moving back the folder to the A&K 500n - absolutely crazy!

Sorry for the length of my reply to your suggestions - but thank you anyway for your efforts in this matter!
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