Programs for File management - HELP


I know it is only a matter of time before my cd player becomes a thing of the past. I have ripped some of my music in a lossless format (WAV) and want to invest the time to rip the remaining music. I am actually going to selectively rip songs I love from about 1000 cd's, so you can see my concern with doing this right the first, and hopefully only time.

My frustration in my past experience with ripping discs is the organizational issues that occur with proper labels, tagging and access of the library that has been ripped. I am not an APPLE user, so Itunes is not for me.

What programs provide the best or most efficient system for ripping and tagging the music? What system/program will be best for the future as technology becomes better to access and identify this digital data?

As I am just starting to develop a plan to develop a PC based system to adjunt (Not replace) my high end source, I don't want to wait. I have purchased a few 320gig dedicated hard drives to store and backup the music I rip.

I have always found these forums to be incredibly honest and useful...please take the time to share your thoughts and advice.
gerarddunn
You might not like this answer, but the only way to make sure you're ripping and tagging your cds right is to practice first. You should burn the same cd several different ways and then open up your interface such as iTunes, Media Monkey, Foobar, etc and see how the cd comes up. For example, is it listed in folk or jazz. Now try to have it listed as trip-hop. Once you figure out how to change the genre, you don't have to rely on the often incorrect genres automatically picked by your ripping program.

When you burn a compilation, is the artist listed under the artist section, or was it accidently listed in the album section. This is a big problem. If you come across a compilation cd that isn't recognized and the track titles are blank, type them out and see if after the cd is burned everything is listed properly. It probably won't be until you figure out how. Do you type the artist and THEN the track title? Do you separate the artist and track title with a comma or with a hyphen?

One of the biggest pitfalls is tagging the year. I have a big jazz collection and some John Coltrane, for example, was released only recently. So the automatic tag might be, say, 1998. This is bad because when i want to random play jazz from the 1960s, the title won't be in there. You need to learn how to change this before you burn the cd - perhaps you can make the change after (I don't think so) but i don't know how. Even if you can, do you want to have to go back?

A tip: You don't have to burn the entire cd to practice. Just burn a track or two so you don't have to wait to see the results.

I would suggest practicing for a while and then when you set out to burn all your cds, for the first 50 or so, after each burn, open up your interface program and check to see that the cd is tagged properly before moving on to the next cd. I can tell you from experience that this will save you a nervous breakdown, $17,000 dollars in psychiatric visits, a two month stay at bellvue and other incidentals like fixing holes in your walls and apologizing to neighbors for the late night sobbing.

Good luck my son and god bless.
I have used EAC for ripping and Foobar 2000 for playback with exelent results in a Windows XP environment. However, I was given a 30 Gig. iPod six months ago and started to use iTunes (yes, in Windows XP), ripping for loading up the iPod but also using it for playback (still using EAC and Foobar 200 too). For file mangagement, there is no question about the advantages of iTunes, it just makes everything so simple and accessible- automatically. You can call up the whole collection by artsist, albums, genre, playlists, etc. And for the most part, I see myself ripping my collection into iTunes for that very reason. And in regards to sound, I really do not hear any differences between the two, using Apple loss less file system in iTunes and Wav. in Foobar 2000. I recommend you download iTunes (it is free) and try it out, it is that good for the purpose that you have in mind, regardless whether you are an Apple user or not.
Good Luck
Thanks for the responses so far. I suspect that Kublakhan has the most realistic answer. There are no shortcuts. Practice makes perfect. Please continue contributing with ongoing advice. Thanks in advance! Gerry
With that said Kublakhan, what would you recommend for a interface. From simple...with the ability to upgrade as needs and equipment change?
In my opinion the best program is Mpeg audio collection (MAC), it is an incredible program that can do all of the organization for you, in addition it is also free, I am using it to organize my few thousand albums.

http://mac.sourceforge.net/

It is worth to give it a try..