My squeezebox or slimserver won't recognize the CD Title or Artist

Corbin Johnson · « **on:** 18 Oct 2006, 07:29 pm »

This weekend I installed a new Squeezebox for the first time. Initially, I ripped some CD using the windows media player and the wma lossless setting. I was very impressed with the sound quality and system performance, but reading how most in this forum recommend using EAC and FLAC for the best ripping results, last night I followed the instructions found here:

http://www.carltonbale.com/projects/cd_audio_extraction/

then followed them exactly to install EAC, FLAC and Accurate Rip. Now, neither my Slim Server or Squeezebox recognize the CD titles or Artist Name, but when I look in the folder where my music is stored, I see that there is a folder with the name of the artist. I've tried changing a few settings in both EAC and SlimServer without any success. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Also, I'd like to know if there is any difference in sound quality between ripping in Windows Media Player using the lossless format and EAC + FLAC. If the only difference is compression, I may opt to go back to Windows Media and purchase a large remote hard drive. Windows Media Player was very easy to use and understand. Frankly, I'm overwhelmed with all the options in EAC & FLAC.

Sorry if this is a basic question answered somewhere else in the Square Circle, but I looked and read a lot, but couldn't find the answer to either question above.

Thanks,

Corbin

jermmd · « **Reply #1 on:** 18 Oct 2006, 07:59 pm »

I'm not sure what the problem is. Did you change the music directory in the slimserver settings menu to the file you've downloaded the music into? Have you checked the music files to make sure they work? Try playing the files in another program (I use Foobar).

lcrim · « **Reply #2 on:** 18 Oct 2006, 08:31 pm »

You may need to tell Slimserver to rescan your music library. I'm at work now so I don't remember the proper menu path but you want to look at Server Properties in Slimserver and scroll down until you find the button to Rescan your library. You also need to tell Slimserver to play whatever format you're ripping the music to, I assume its flac. I don't remember the path to find this list but its not hard to find. You can "expand" flac to wav before sending it to the SB or send it as flac, there are proponents of either method.
Hope this helps.

Corbin Johnson · « **Reply #3 on:** 18 Oct 2006, 08:33 pm »

Joe,

I did set Slim Server to look to the directory where I store my music files and I can play the music files. It's just when I try and scroll to read the Artist or Album get see No Artist, No Album on both the Squeezebox Display and Slim Server screen, but both do show the track titles, all other track information and they both play the files.

Thanks,

Corbin

Corbin Johnson · « **Reply #4 on:** 18 Oct 2006, 08:35 pm »

Larry,

I also tried rescanning my library a couple of times, even the option of clearing everything and rescanning the entire library. Yes, I'm using the wav format and I think I have these settings correct. I'll try more tonight.

Thanks,

Corbin

nathanm · « **Reply #5 on:** 18 Oct 2006, 08:58 pm »

Sounds like your FLAC files don't have metadata\tags in them. If you are talking about WAV files then they don't have metadata. Looks like the "freedb" screen would be the one to double check.

Greg Erskine · « **Reply #6 on:** 19 Oct 2006, 06:27 am »

Hi Corbin Johnson,

I'm using EAC to rip a single WAV and a CUE file per CD. I find it very simple to do and it works 100%. There were 2 bugs reading the GENRE and YEAR from the CUE sheet in 6.5.0, but I reported the problem and it was fixed in nightly 6.5.1 releases.

Directory structure I use is:

H:/Artist/Album/Album.wav
H:/Artist/Album/Album.cue
H:/Artist/Album/cover.jpg

I'm a bit on the outer here, but I can't see the advantage of FLAC, on Windows NT I could just turn disk compression on.

I always use the full rescan option and turn playlists off.

EAC command: Action > Copy Image & Create CUE Sheet > Uncompressed

Occasionally some of the CUE sheets need editting due to weird freeDB information.

regards

Corbin Johnson · « **Reply #7 on:** 20 Oct 2006, 03:32 am »

Thanks for all the suggetsions. I solved my problem, but never figured out the problem. I uninstalled EAC and installed dbPower AMP and everything works fine. I also uninstalled Itunes prior to the new installation of dbPower AMP. This may have created some of the problem, because I couldn't delete the folders of CD's I had ripped using Itunes prior to installing EAC.

Another thing I noticed is the file extensions saved to my hard drive now have the .FLAC extension and they are no longer in subfolders with the artist name. They had the .wave extension when I was ripping with EAC and were placed in subfolders, so maybe I had some settings screwed up.

I don't know if dbPower AMP has all the options EAC does, but is sure seems easier to use. Now I have to figure out what the various options do in this program, but there aren't many to learn. The only one that appears to have an impact on ripping quality is ripping speed. I've ripped two with maximum speed, then adjusted the setting to slow assuming this will be better. Any suggestions for this setting?

One more question. Why does SlimServer have to connect to the internet to update my file library every time I rip a new CD?

Thanks,

Corbin