Newbie question - CD audio - No save in Windows 7

Hi,

I checked the Quick Start Guide, the FAQ and the Documentation pages but could not find what is wrong.

I want to catalogue my CD audio collection. I inserted the CD in my CD drive. The album is in MusicBrainz database. I selected the right version with the bar code number. But I can not save the album on my computer. The Save function is greyed.

Here is a picture.

What am I missing? What is the procedure to save a CD audio collection? I tried to drag the files to the Unmatched Files or Cluster folders on the left, but nothing moved. When I quit Picard, nothing is saved…

Thanks in advance.

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Welcome!

Unfortunately Picard is not a tool to rip (take music out of) CD’s, but a tool to tag/add metadata to files already on your hard drive/computer.
(another use it has is to add information from a CD to our database, but that wont help you)

To get music off the CD I would recommend something like EAC, although I’m sure others have their own preferred software.
Here is a guide to using EAC http://wiki.slimdevices.com/index.php/Beginners_guide_to_EAC

Leave Picard installed though, once the files are in a folder on your computer, drag that into Picard, and get that data into your music files!!

Hopefully that helps :+1:

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Thanks for the answer aerozol.
My goal was not to rip my CDs but rather to have a bibliographic database of my collection on my computer, like a library catalogue but for my music. I am looking for a way to have that database without having to type all the disks and tracks information. I will have a look at EAC.

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You might consider setting up a personal collection on MusicBrainz, and just add the appropriate releases to your collection. Then, when you’re ready, you can download the collection information to your local system (I grab mine in JSON format) and import it into your local database.

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If you are ripping the CD’s as well, then Muso is a great library manager for classical music (and will queue music to some players) - it also integrates well with MusicBrainz.
If you are not ripping, then the “collections” approach is best, but you don’t need to use Picard for that - just search for the release in MusicBrainz, then add it to your collection.
Picard can sometimes be faster than a manual search, if you have the CD to hand, but in that case you might want to rip it as well, using EAC or similar.
If you do rip, it doesn’t matter too much what tags the ripper provides initially - Picard will do much better if the release is in MusicBrainz. You may want to take a look at my “Classical Extras” plugin if you go the Muso route.

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At least one ripper actually adds MusicBrainz IDs directly to the ripped files, which makes looking them up in Picard much easier. But other than MBIDs, I agree. (As long as it’s adding correct tags for the ones it does add. :slight_smile: )

Edit: Added link to the ripper I know to be adding MBIDs to ripped files.

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Any clues as to which one :wink:. Getting the MBIDs is the most useful tagging a ripper can do (if you are using Picard).

Not sure that really matters as Picard will over-write them. Though obviously it helps the lookup if they are close to the MB metadata.

@Freso, Which ripper adds MusicBrainz IDs?

Can I also remind you guys that EAC also has MusicBrainz tagging now?

I use the CUETools DB Metadata Plugin v2.1.6 and the disc lookups are done at MusicBrainz and Discogs. So you can select the right tags and artwork to start with.

I then take the ripped files over to Picard after ripping to get more detailed tags, but this all speeds up the steps.

As the OP’s main mission is to catalogue already ripped albums, I’d second rdswift’s suggestion of using Picard and the MusicBrainz website to build up a collection. (Or multiple collections). This is going to need a fair bit of manual work on your side selecting the specific versions of albums. All depends on the level of detail you are after.

Another way I get my music catalogued is by using the KODI media player. Once my music is catalogued I then have it all sitting in an SQL Database. From this I can then export all kinds of information - but that needs a bit of SQL Knowledge.

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Thanks, the tips are always welcome. Next rainy day (or rainy week) I’ll start adding to my Picard collection. Glad to know I’m not the only Winamp user living.

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2 posts were split to a new topic: Winamp for music collection management