Joining ripped CDs - how?

[Berwhale]

If the CDs are correctly tagged for disk number, you can use MP3Tag to rename using the CD$ tag. This is one of my standard format strings...

(D:\Music\!Inbox\!Done\%albumartist%\%album%\%albumartist% - %album% [- CD$num(%discnumber%,2) ]- $num(%track%,2) - %title%,-)

This will rename the selected files into the D:\Music\!Inbox\!Done folder...
In a subfolder named after the Album Artist tag...
In another subfolder named after the Album tag...
With the files named using the : Album Artist tag - Album tag - 2 digit CD number if tag present - 2 digit track number tag - track title tag

This puts all the files in the same folder, retains the CD number and original track numbers in the filename. Obviously you would use a different format for compilations and probably for classical music (which is why I maintain a selection of format strings)

MP3Tag also has an 'auto-numbering wizard'. This will number all the selected tracks sequentially. For example, if you have 3 folders named CD1, CD2 & CD3 with 10 tracks in each folder, you can drop all 3 folders onto the MP3Tag window, select all the files and use the auto-numbering wizard to update the track tags to 1-30 - I guess you would ignore the CD tag if you want to arrange this way.

 

[Vincent Kars]

I think AAC (MP4/M4A) might be better

Correct. AAC has variable framelength so no white in the last frame.

 

[tobyjug]

With EAC ripping CDs with no metadata is it possible to add my own jpeg files that will then automatically show up on screens during playback? I'm not very techy !! Thanks.

 

[Redacted]

With EAC ripping CDs with no metadata is it possible to add my own jpeg files that will then automatically show up on screens during playback? I'm not very techy !! Thanks.

Yes.

Use MP3Tag.

For album names, track names/numbers, dates etc, these tags should be auto-filled in by EAC from an online lookup of the CDs, at the point of ripping. If not try fre:ac, which definitely does.

For tracks already ripped, MP3Tag will find tags for you, and cover art, via a right click. If there a no tags at all in the files, you will have to type in artist name and album name for it to look up art online.

I recommend using "AlbumArtDownloader", rather than MP3Tag's built in tools for cover, because it can be pre-set to your choice from many sources at once for the album art, which means you can see more of the variations of different covers according to specific releases of the albums in question, at various resolution/qualities to suit you.

Once you have tags and cover art, you can add to them or change them in MP3Tag - for example, you may not want to embed a 4000 x 4000 pixel image into every file in every album. A 220 x 220 is more typical - MP3Tag lets you adjust to suit - but I recommend keeping the larger image in the same folder as the tracks (it's useful if you try different media players or DLNA servers, but TMI for now...)

Many of us here on ASR can help with all the above, if it's new to you. Or have a 100 page argument about which is the best approach!