Just a belated thank-you to nohitter151, teknojnky, and dlt for all the help and tips... all my ripping, playlists etc going well. I do have one more question, but I shall post a new thread for it, and allow this thread to go to the Great Forum In The Sky. Thanks again, one and all.

I think I favour the 'rip CD' option, my only choice being whether to pay for MM Gold for this purpose, or use FREE CD Ripper. Teknojnky, may I ask- you mentioed that MM Gold has many extra features, what are (some of) these? That will help me decide whether to get MM Gold, or just use the FREE CD Ripper software.

You don't have to pay for Gold to get free unlimited ripping to mp3 in Mediamonkey. As Teknojnky explained, you merely have to download and manually replace the encoder dll, which is free.

There are good reasons to upgrade to gold, but it's not necessary just for that.

Teknojnky wrote:You can either register and pay for the 'gold' version which allows unlimited mp3 encoding (amongst many other extra features), or you can choose to save to one of the other file types (flac for lossless or wma), or you can google for 'lame mp3 encoder dll' and replace the default limited lame_enc.dll with one downloaded from the internet.

With MM gold, you can configure it to monitor specific folders for changes, this will automatically add or update any files within the monitored folders as long as MM is running. tools > options > library > file monitor


as far as ripping, you should be able to click the rip icon or choose from the tools menu, the rip dialog appears, specify the path and file masks to where you want the files stored (I use J:\Music\Ripped\<album artist>\<year> - <album>\<track#> - <artist> - <title>) and configure the file type and settings you want (flac for lossless or perhaps mp3 vbr v2 for mp3).

all tracks should rip in one go, if for some reason it is not then perhaps there is problem with cd-rom or player or something.

FreeDB is only used for CD, you can't apply freedb info to already ripped tracks. If the tracks do not appear on the cd list, you may need to refresh the freedb request.. tools > get album info from freedb

If the info does not appear, then perhaps freedb is down and/or inaccessible, or the cd is not in the freedb in which case you will have to manually enter the info in the track list, or possibly use the amazon look up to populate it. Or alternatively, just rip it an then use the musicbrainz tagger to fix the metadata (see link in my sig).

I am not sure why you think you need a playlist for every album, you could simply use the 'album' node or the 'artist & album artist' node to expand out and display the applicable artist/album.

You can configure MM to automatically add newly added tracks to a playlist, however it does not necessarily add them in the manner when I think you want. tools > options > library > tags & playlists > create playlists of tracks newly added, and you can find the playlists under the playlists node > recently added tracks.

hope that helps.

Oh dear, I really shouldn't speak too soon...

I managed to rip an audio CD to a folder I created (although for some reason it would only do one at a time despite all songs being ticked), and after a few false starts, added it to my MM library (I think by selecting it in the My Computer node, right-clicking and selecting 'add to library')...

But I can't help thinking that I am doing things the hard way- to add these tracks to a playlist (from the library), I highlighted/right-clicked on them, and sent them to a playlist I created. Does this mean that everytime I rip a CD and add it to my library, I need to scroll down the list in my library to find the music in question?

The thing is, I own about 300 CD's, and would like to be able to add most of these to my MM library. Am I going to need to scroll down a massive, massive list (thousands of songs) in MM library to find the CD rip I have just added?

Also I am confused about how to use Freedb... I added the tracks from the library to the playlist (at this point they were untitled), clicked on Freedb in tools, it found the album/artist title and names of tracks, I clicked ok and nothing happened. At what point in the process does one use the Freedb tool? One other thing is just the gaps between tracks- is it possible to specify the length of the gap between tracks in a playlist? Presently there is virtually no gap- I would prefer to get the same length gaps as on the audio CD.

I am really sorry to be a pest and fully understand if you feel you don't want to answer any more questions!!

Anonymous wrote:Thanks nohitter151. Boy, you weren't kidding when you said hope you're ready to read!! No big deal re: the playlists really, but I shall hang on to the link you provided and visit it when I feel a bit more 'cerebrally adventurous'. BTW, I ended getting MM Gold (v.3). Thanks a lot for all the help!

Glad to hear you went Gold, I'm sure you won't regret it. Glad to help!

Thanks nohitter151. Boy, you weren't kidding when you said hope you're ready to read!! No big deal re: the playlists really, but I shall hang on to the link you provided and visit it when I feel a bit more 'cerebrally adventurous'. BTW, I ended getting MM Gold (v.3). Thanks a lot for all the help!

Anonymous wrote:Hi guys, still having some difficulties re: playlists!!

I have tried the drag and drop thing, but I have still encountered the same kind of problem.

What I would like to be able to do is the click the + on the playlists node and have this expand out to list all of the artists I have playlists for e.g Aerosmith, Beatles, Blue Oyster Cult, Doors, and so on. What I am getting at the moment is playlists still located within playlists. So when I click the + on playlists node, this expands out to list (at the moment): David Gilmour, Moby Grape. But at the moment I still have to click the + next to David Gilmour to get my Led Zeppelin heading (which now contains all the recordings for Led Zep I dragged and dropped into it). Hope this makes sense and you may be able to help!

Okay, what you want to do can't be done with playlists (sorry for misunderstanding you earlier!)

It sounds like what you want it pretty complex, but possible with Magic Nodes.

I personally do not use that script, but there are plenty of other users who should be able to help you set up your nodes. The thread which I've linked to has the script to download, plenty of examples on how to set it up, and an instruction manual. Hope you're ready to read!

Hi guys, still having some difficulties re: playlists!!

I have tried the drag and drop thing, but I have still encountered the same kind of problem.

What I would like to be able to do is the click the + on the playlists node and have this expand out to list all of the artists I have playlists for e.g Aerosmith, Beatles, Blue Oyster Cult, Doors, and so on. What I am getting at the moment is playlists still located within playlists. So when I click the + on playlists node, this expands out to list (at the moment): David Gilmour, Moby Grape. But at the moment I still have to click the + next to David Gilmour to get my Led Zeppelin heading (which now contains all the recordings for Led Zep I dragged and dropped into it). Hope this makes sense and you may be able to help!

Thanks for that, nohitter151 and teknojnky!

Or you can use the Artist &/or Album Artist nodes to expand out all led zepplin (or any artist for that matter) without even needing a playlist.

Yes, you should be able to do this already by just dragging playlists over one another.

Hmmm, thanks nohitter151 that sounds pretty impressive actually. Maybe I will get MM Gold...

Nohitter 151, may I push my luck and ask one more question? Just in relation to playlists, is there a simple way I can organise them so that for groups I have a lot of playlists of, there is just the one 'parent' heading, which then expands out into the full list of 'children'?

For example, I have a lot of Led Zeppelin recordings. This is probably an error by me in the way I have created playlists, but at the moment I have a whole lot of individual playlists for Led Zep, one or two of which 'expand', listing other Led Zep stuff. What I would like is just to have one heading 'Led Zeppelin', expanding out to list all my Led Zep stuff. Is there a quick and easy way to accomplish this? Thanks.

Anonymous wrote:DazB, jc836, nohitter151, and Teknojnky- thank you one and all for all your help, patience and advice- your input has clarified a lot of this for me. I think I favour the 'rip CD' option, my only choice being whether to pay for MM Gold for this purpose, or use FREE CD Ripper. Teknojnky, may I ask- you mentioed that MM Gold has many extra features, what are (some of) these? That will help me decide whether to get MM Gold, or just use the FREE CD Ripper software. Thanks again everyone!

Heres a list of my most used gold features:

File Monitor (automatically updates library)
Advanced Searches and AutoPlaylists
Advanced Portable Device Synchronization with on-the-fly format conversion
Unlimited MP3 encoding
Virtual CD / Previews
Advanced Filters
Sleep Timer

DazB, jc836, nohitter151, and Teknojnky- thank you one and all for all your help, patience and advice- your input has clarified a lot of this for me. I think I favour the 'rip CD' option, my only choice being whether to pay for MM Gold for this purpose, or use FREE CD Ripper. Teknojnky, may I ask- you mentioed that MM Gold has many extra features, what are (some of) these? That will help me decide whether to get MM Gold, or just use the FREE CD Ripper software. Thanks again everyone!

when itunes 'imports' a cd it very likely 'rips' the cd to the itunes music folder.

as far as adding your cd music to MM, there are basically 3 possiblities:

1) add/rescan the disc, this will add the tracklist to the library but will not 'rip' or 'import' (same thing) any files to your hard drive. This is good if you want to catalog the physical cd audio discs, however you must have the disc in the player to play otherwise the tracks will 'grey out' indicating they are not playable.

2) use virtual cd, this will add the disc to the library and 'cache' the tracks by ripping them to a special folder (the virtual cd folder as specified in the options). The tracks are not directly managable, they are simply used as a substitute for the cd when the cd is not in the drive.

3) 'rip' your cd, this will store the music files in the folders you specify using whatever you have configured for the rip settings. This is where you would normally choose .mp3 or whatever file type you prefer.

regarding the licensing restriction, since mp3 is a patened/licensed technology, the MM developers must pay for each copy of the mp3 encoder. To use the 'free' version of MM has thusly a time limitation on mp3 encoding. You can either register and pay for the 'gold' version which allows unlimited mp3 encoding (amongst many other extra features), or you can choose to save to one of the other file types (flac for lossless or wma), or you can google for 'lame mp3 encoder dll' and replace the default limited lame_enc.dll with one downloaded from the internet.