FLAC or MP3

[djmichaelm]

Going to be ripping my entire collection to a harddrive soon. My question is whether to go with lossless FLAC or lossy MP3 at a high bit rate (no lower than 320kbps).

What do you guys use? How's the quality?

I know Mp3 would degrade my CD quality to save space, but is that loss noticeable, especially in a live setting that's is typically louder?

FLAC seems to be the obvious choice if it wasn't for space issues.

About how many typical CD's In FLAC could I fit on, say, a 500GB drive?
How might that compare to a the same being ripped to a drive at 320kbps Mp3 format?

Thanks to everyone in advance!!

[Stealthii]

Considering space, depends on this factor mostly. Personally, I've removed myself from the lossless road, I used to rip my Vinyl at 96khz 24-bit FLAC :P now I am settled for MPEG4 AAC-LC maximum quality, minimum bitrate 256kbps, which is pretty near 320 all the time. Personally I'd say there's no noticeable difference, the only true disadvantage is you can't re-encode it to something else later, so keep your CDs safe or safe archive rip them to FLAC.

For DJing though, m4a is fine. For peace of mind why don't you rip at constant 320kbps m4a instead of mp3? The codec improvements are minimal, but you might as well have it in a more modern format.

Two points to note - iTunes still does not support FLAC. This is partly my decision to avoid lossless for now, as ALAC (Apple's Lossless) isn't supported in Mixvibes! Second is lossless loses unnoticeable sections of the music if quality is good enough, and seriously reduces the size. Otherwise you might as well just lug the CDs around with you, for you're drive will be just as big.

[djmichaelm]

Great info. Thanks a lot.

I am not to sure about m4a though. I have never used it. I'm worried that some other player or my mp3 car stereo for instance might not understand it too. Or my iPhone. What are the benefits over mp3?

As for Apple, I'll pass. I really dislike iTunes and how they try to force it on you with iPods and iPhones. I don't use it. I have a work l around. Would have been nice to have a choice of an web purchase integration, like Beatport.com or similar.

Over all, 320kbps might be my choice for the rip. I have tons of CD's that I use to DJ at the bars, at least a thousand I'd say (hip hop, rock, pop, 70's, 80's etc.). All of my better music, techno, is mostly in mp3 in no less than 320kbps. That 4,000 or so songs is eating up around 55GB. a little simple math with the estimate of about 15 songs being on standard CD, that's around 266 CD's.

So, seems I should be go with a 500 gig drive for my collection (1000 some Cd's at 320 will take a bit over 200GB)

Sound logical?

Djmichaelm

[hemskoc]

Hi again.
All my tracks are either 320k MP3's, or 256-320 VBR quality (actually, i do have a couple of 192's that i cant get a better copy of). Anyways,
works out to around 30-ish Gig for ALL my tracks!
Flac if you have room for it, is another option worth thinking about depending on the size of your collection, and available HD space.

For peace of mind why don't you rip at constant 320kbps m4a instead of mp3? The codec improvements are minimal, but you might as well have it in a more modern format.

It maybe 'newer', or 'modern' as you call it, but not really a format that is as widely used, and adapted as much as MP3 though. Not really any difference in compression tech, so why would you bother going for a 'mac world' format like aac or m4a that is way less usable to many players/softwares? Sorta limiting; like most of what Apple try and do with their products.
Cheers

[Stealthii]

The only particular reason I have is that this music is only for DJing for me - most of the crap I have to DJ I do not want to listen to in my spare time as well :P I listen to radio replays in my spare time where new music get's showcased and the like, which is the durable mp3 format. Heck I'd probably be using OGG Vorbis if it wasn't nearly incompatible with everything else, which is a bit ironic

[djmichaelm]

Great input fellas. Thanks.

I could try FLAC, and if I every run out of space, I could always compress the file to a Mp3 or similar.

I could probably do that as a batch file too, which would eliminate the tedious efforts of the compression.

I plan on using EAC (Exact Audio Copy) software for the ripping, what did you guys use?

djmichaelm

[Stealthii]

On OSX, I use Max, and the cdparanoia mode, with skipping completely disallowed, to make sure I get a good 1:1 copy - and I use the encoder options built in to Max as well, which are really quite good and configurable. As for Windows, Exact Audio Copy is the perfect software for copying your CDs with.

Originally I'd reckon I'd use any normal settings, it's funny when you realize speed ripping isn't important - and not so cool when you are mixing and you hear quarter beat skips. Rip on lower speeds if you don't have many CDs, but in EAC, make sure you at least have all those paranoia settings turned on - your computers CD drive might not be as good at anti-skip as your CDJs are!

[djmichaelm]

Yeah, I have the Windows over here. So EAC it will be. Speed would be nice, as of course I don't wanna rip forever (hehe ), but quality is much more important. Flawless quality.

Thanks, djmichaelm

[polocorp]

I'm down with m4a 256 or mp3 320 VBR, flac is a great format but, indeed, still not iTunes compatible. I like my iTunes

[Stealthii]

My 'free' iPod Touch is the more important investment, as I get my mix ideas when walking the dog