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For Christmas, Qiao got me an 8GB MP3 player with a microSDHC slot and a 16GB card. Now, I've embarked on the task of converting/ripping my collection of 300-odd CDs into MP3 files. My old MP3 player was only 2GB, so till now I never bothered ripping more than a few of my favorite CDs.
First I had to decide what quality and bit speed settings to use. Based on several tests*, using various speakers and volume levels and different songs, I can't tell any difference between the quality in tracks at 128 kbps vs 320 kbps. I decided to use 256 kbps.
I am using EAC (Exact Audio Copy) with the LAME MP3 encoder to do the rips. It has a fairly simple interface (once it's been configured, anyway) for retrieving the freedb song/album info and album artwork.
When I think about it, it would be nice to be able to play songs based on certain criteria. I'd like to be able to rate each music track, for example from 0 to 10. And then I'd like to be able to choose to only play songs with a rating of 10 (in a random order). Or to play songs with ratings in a certain range such as from 5 to 10. Or to play all songs from 1 to 10 randomly, but weighted so that the ones with higher ratings are more likely to be played than the ones with lower ratings. And I'd rate a song as zero if I never wanted the song to play unless I manually selected it. Unrated songs could get a default rating of 5.
I still have to finish reading the MP3 player's manual, but I doubt it has that kind of functionality. But maybe some computer-based audio players do? It would be nice if you could store your ratings in some standard format, so that they could be used no matter what player you were using.
* foobar2000 along with the ABX Comparator component lets you switch back and forth between 2 tracks in order to compare them. This video explains how to do it.
First I had to decide what quality and bit speed settings to use. Based on several tests*, using various speakers and volume levels and different songs, I can't tell any difference between the quality in tracks at 128 kbps vs 320 kbps. I decided to use 256 kbps.
I am using EAC (Exact Audio Copy) with the LAME MP3 encoder to do the rips. It has a fairly simple interface (once it's been configured, anyway) for retrieving the freedb song/album info and album artwork.
When I think about it, it would be nice to be able to play songs based on certain criteria. I'd like to be able to rate each music track, for example from 0 to 10. And then I'd like to be able to choose to only play songs with a rating of 10 (in a random order). Or to play songs with ratings in a certain range such as from 5 to 10. Or to play all songs from 1 to 10 randomly, but weighted so that the ones with higher ratings are more likely to be played than the ones with lower ratings. And I'd rate a song as zero if I never wanted the song to play unless I manually selected it. Unrated songs could get a default rating of 5.
I still have to finish reading the MP3 player's manual, but I doubt it has that kind of functionality. But maybe some computer-based audio players do? It would be nice if you could store your ratings in some standard format, so that they could be used no matter what player you were using.
* foobar2000 along with the ABX Comparator component lets you switch back and forth between 2 tracks in order to compare them. This video explains how to do it.