Music Management Software 2009 ??

Point taken on Apple, I have been reading threads on Steve Hoffman Forum about FLAC and all the options too, a lot to take in.

Foobar2000, Squeeze box, FLAC are all new to me. As will be a PDA, I do have a nice collection of remastered CD's and with technology being what it is and this being 2009 I thought it was time to dive in and have my music on a hard drive for audiophile home playback and travel.

What about J. River Media center?

I appreciate the input!

What's wrong with ripping to Apple Lossless instead of FLAC. It will certainly be more handy if you plan on getting an iPhone.

I use MediaMonkey to rip my CD's to FLAC, then use the Slimserver software to my Squeezeboxes for managing and playing the music from there. The process works great. MediaMonkey is pretty good for organization, but since I play the music through my Squeezeboxes I use the Slimserver software for that.

Michael

I should add: A lot of software are advertising this feature where they automatically update your tags by an online database. While this is initially handy, every software that I've used that has done this has messed up at some point, and going back to fix these tags retrospectively has been more trouble than it was worth.

The best software that I've used for tagging is MP3Tag (it works for FLAC too, despite the title). It allows tags convert to filename, filename to tags, and more importantly:

1. Text file to tags. If you have an excel spreadsheet, you could export that as a csv and define/map the fields. This allows you to update multiple files at once, instead of typing them in one by one.

2. Scripts. These allow you to, say, capitalize the first letter or a word, and a variety of string manipulations.

I haven't had any experience with Catraxx or Media Monkey; in my opinion, choosing a music management software depends primarily on if you like the layout, assuming free software like MP3Tag could handle the tagging. If a comprehensive, all-in-one, solution is what you're looking for, then there needs to be more trial and error, since what the feature set list doesn't tell you is how the workflow would match your habits.

Okay,all sounds good, I have been searching around looking for the best way to do this. I like the way Music Collectors looks form an aesthetic point. Recording the music in lossless FLAC sounds like a smart or best way to go,foobar2000 looks cool and I will be considering it.

Does anyone have any input on CATraxx 200 or Media Monkey?

itunes not supporting FLAC is unfortunate, any comments or ways around this? I was planning on getting an iphone soon, the Palm Pre is not for me after evaluation.

You know, we go through an enormous process to build our music collections and one would think in these days of so many 30 year old software engineers there would be a simple method with a small amount of advertising doing this for us, itunes not allowing FLAC is a bummer. I need this to be simple for others in the household to operate as well as myself...
All your input is greatly appreciated!!

I don't understand the need for 'audiophile' software; seems to me like if you just want to organize music, that has nothing really to do with sound fidelity.

There are a variety of software you could try. One that I highly recommend, as it is customizable, uses a low memory footprint, and expandable in features with plug-ins is foobar2000. Of course, you want to properly tag all your files after you rip them from the CD, and there are a variety of tags you could use to organize by whatever category you want.

Personally, I have laptop hooked up to a DAC for a headphone setup. I stream my files from my NAS (network attached storage) stored in lossless FLAC with foobar200. There's a plug-in called foo_uPnP that even allows me, say, at work, to transcode the FLAC on-the-fly to mp3 files for internet streaming. There's another plug-in that allows me to use ASIO drivers for bit-perfect playback. And another one allows artist biographies, lyrics, and relevant info to be streamed from lastfm.com when I play a song. You get the idea...

iTunes should work and it is free. You can add the XRCD, DCC, etc. info and if your connected to the internet it will download all your track, artist, etc, info for you. There are easy ways to add info that you weant added too.

Efc,

I am using Collectorz (http://www.collectorz.com/music/). It works great with digital media and is user friendly. There has been a significant recent upgrade that allows you to interface with their iPhone app. Organizing my vinyl collection was certainly more labor intensive, but ultimately worth the effort.

Hope this helps...