What are you really trying to do? Convert files or fill in empty tag info?
Use a third party app other than foobar if you are tagging or converting. If it is just tagging you can also try mp3tag. They will do it better and easier. They each do a particular tagging job the best. I prefer mp3tag for bulk editing. Say to have a disography with about 1000 tunes. The albums are in correctly labled folders but some albums have artist and or album names. I cleaned one of them up in less than an hour. All the Artist tags names were the same, the album and titles were filled in.
Media Monkey does the best job of extracting information from the file name. I believe WinAmp has the best play and fill in the blanks.
Teddy, I installed Foobar and Winamp a few weeks ago. I like Winamp over Foobar. Feature rich apps tend to be confusing. It took several uses before I figured that little magnifying glass was the tag search button in WinAmp. I was at a complete loss to figure out Foobar.
I found Foobar to be the most difficult to understand of all the audio orginizers I have used. Some of the features makes it the best for audiophiles but the interface or lack there of with the default skin, turned me off.
In WinAmp I just right click on the file (in the library or playlist)and pick 'View File Info'. 'Auto-Tag' is on the lower right corner of the 'Basic Info' tab. You can also select a bunch of files and Right Click -> Send To -> Auto-Tag, although I prefer to do them one at a time to ensure accuracy.
sorry for seeming like a scub, but my internet was down for like 72 hours. ok heres my prob. I have japanese cd's and german cd's and i can't seem to get them tagg'd. most of my stuff is found with windows media and winamp. Second problem is should i been converting my cd's to a certain mp3 format? example is winamp 128 klb better than wma's 128 klb?
Winamp is not in the encoder business. It uses encoders made by others. Winamp supports a wide arry of encoders that is why it is in the top 3 jukebox apps.
128 CBR (Constant Bit Rate) is not very good quality. I can't hear and I can easily tell a 128 from higher quality music. To capture the human voice you only need about 50 CBR. The lower bit rates ignore the higher frequencies. 320 will capture the limits of human hearing. That is why you do not see 400 BR mp3s. Not because it can't be done but because that would be stupid. By the time men hit their late 20s 192 BR will capture about every thing you can hear.
CBR mp3s are the least sophisticated compression relying on ignoring the high pitch frequencies to make the files smaller. Most of your bandwidth is used to store high pitched frequencies that most persons can't hear.
wma and m4as use more types of compression so they can deliver a better quality for the same bit rate. It uses CBR but variable audio quality. The quality improves when there is silence or the music is simple. This is important because those formats are sold. The music industry put a 128 limit on digital music. 128s is not great quality. These add a little quality to the 128s. This kind of compression will allow the bandwidth to encrease if the music is less complex. The problem with this scheam is, you might not percive the quality improvement for a moment of silence as the bandwidth is maxed out. That model is flawed but it is the best they can do.
I perfer VBR mp3s. They are played by everything and have the most sophisticated compression routines. They save disk space when there is a moment of silance. This model is not flawed. Anyting that plays an mp3 wil play these. You do not select a BR. Instead you set a audio quality. That quality is maintained but the bit rate will vary depending how easily it compresses. Unlike the ma4s and wmas, the quality is known. You can see the quality using a good tag reader. Because VBRs are hard to make, most ecoders can't mke them perfectly. I use LAME for ripping and Helix for lossless conversions. Helix is inferior to LAME but the artifacts are at the edge of human hearing and even young ears can't really hear them. I don't mind having some artifacts that I can't hear for 10x faster conversions. Since ripping is IO bound, using Lame does not slow the process down so I use the better product. I would steer clear of the other encoders that make VBRs. The others create artifacts carefull listeners can hear. Plus how ignorant can you be? You can get the best for free why would you use something inferior?
I use the highest settings even though that is way overkill. I don't mind waisting 10-20% more disk space to max out the quality. I do mind waisting 20 times the file size with lossless so I can reproduce ultrasonic tones that only a dog can hear if the speakers or ear buds had that range. Only extreamly expensive speakers reproduce sounds no one can hear. I have not seen any ear buds that produce ultrasonics maybe becuase of the health hazzard. Ultrasonics can't be heard but they cause serious hearing loss.
In the ear sealed ear buds could do serious damage in the ultrasonic range.
I would not use Winamp to rip. It will do a better job than itunes or WMP but not as good as a ripping app that uses accurip. EAC and Poweramp use accurip. You can get a free version of EAC. I would try EAC first. If the freeDB tag service works for you great, if not, try the pricy poweramp. It uses paid for tag info databases which are far more extensive. You can try it out for 30 days. After the 30 days the tag reader that works with windows explorer continues to work.
