WAV Conundrum

I will check it out.

 

JRiver plays AIFF too and no problems with metadata.

 

And JRiver will convert WAV to AIFF.

 

WAV files do not have standard tagging so converting them to FLAC will allow you to then tag them within a ID3 tag standard. FLAC will compress to nearly half the size of the WAV files with no loss of quality. MP3tag can lookup and tag albums for you. Foobar can tag with Discogs.

 

I just tried the JRiver free trial however the database isn't very good, or at least the method it uses. For instance I tried retrieving the tags for Led Zep II Deluxe and it populated the album column with a mix of Mothership and LZII deluxe, so I had to manually fix the tags. Is the paid version better? Gracenote gives a choice if there are multiple albums with the same track. I'm afraid if this is the case it would actually be faster to re-rip everything than having to manually tag a few tracks on thousands of albums. Other than that I like the app.

 

Be careful - Creative's software might actually be storing tags on the WAV files themselves. While there's no metadata standard for WAV files, I believe the format does support metadata. So different programs have implemented tagging on WAV files themselves in their own individual, incompatible fashions.

For example, MusicMatch Jukebox allowed you to tag WAV files with extensive metadata. However, only MusicMatch and a few players properly supported the tags it wrote. I ripped my entire collection to WAV back in 2005 using Exact Audio Copy and MusicMatch . . . and was then stuck when MMJB got gobbled up by the idiots at Yahoo! and ruined. Fortunately, the folks over at Ventis took pity on us and configured MediaMonkey to read MusicMatch's wonky WAV metadata, so I was able to load my library and all of its metadata into MediaMonkey. Then I converted the whole thing to FLAC, which supports standard metadata across all platforms (and takes up half the space).

You might try running MediaMonkey and seeing if it can read any of your files' metadata. I'd also do some Googling to see if others have had the same experience. I'm sure there's some way to get to that metadata, either on the files themselves or in whatever the Creative app is using as a database.

 

Thanks, I will look into that however I think the metadata must be stored in a separate file on C: or else theoretically it should not have trouble reading the exact same files on a different drive. Im seriously considering re-ripping everything in FLAC using JRiver on a new PC. I'm still using XP and the main reason I have not updated my old pc is due to this issue.

 

New information has come to light. When I imported my new drive into the JRiver free trial app my Hi-Res WAV files came through tagged, I think the reason is because I manually typed in these tags as opposed to the app retrieving the tags. Unfortunately Hi-Res only represents a small percentage of my collection.

 

If you find the database file with all the metadata in it you can check to see what format the data is in. It may be a text file. If it's a binary data file it may be in a format that can be read or imported or converted by some other application (like Access or Excel). Once you have the data in a format that you can read then it may be possible to write a script to read the data fields from the database file and then write those fields to tags in the WAV/FLAC files. It would be some work to write (or have written for you) the script, but less work than re-ripping all of your CDs.

 

If you do re-rip I would suggest using a program like dBpoweramp that has good metadata lookup support. dBpoweramp can get metadata from AMG (All Music Guide), MusicBrainz, GD3, and FreeDB. It is able to get good consistent metadata. dBpoweramp costs money, but its well worth it for the time you save and for the consistent metadata.

A free ripper option would be CUERipper which is a part of CUETools. CUERipper is able to get metadata from MusicBrainz and Discogs. It does OK. Better than relying on FreeDB. But dBpoweramp has a more powerful and usable metadata lookup and editing features.

JRiver Media Center includes a ripper. But it gets metadata from FreeDB or its own YADB database. YADB is like FreeDB. YADB and FreeDB are full of user submitted data that is inconsistent and messy. If you're looking for a ripper with good metadata support I'd go with dBpoweramp or CUERipper as a distant second choice.

 

I wouldn't say the tagging is 100%. I do have to fiddle with it sometimes.But it is pretty good.

 

Yes, I really like the UI.

 

Is dBpoweramp just for ripping? Or does it also do what JRiver does for playback?

 

dBpoweramp does ripping and file conversion. You'd use another program for playback, like Foobar or JRiver Media Center or Roon or MediaMonkey or MusicBee.

 

There is actually n conversion involved. Both WAV and AIFF are container files that hold raw PCM data. So, JRiver will just take the PCM out of the WAV container and then stick it in the AIFF container.

The only difference, really, is that AIFF (Audio Interchange File Format) is an open standard whereas WAV is a Microsoft-developed format. AIFF had its beginnings in the professional audio world and the Apple and Amiga ecosystems, whereas WAV began as an MS-DOS file format.

 

I'd search the MediaMonkey support forums to see if anyone there came over from using Creative's software and had issues importing their metadata. It's remotely possible someone already did this, and might have come up with a script or something to import the metadata from Creative's database.

Also, are there any settings in Creative's software to sync the metadata to the actual WAV files? That might explain why some came over with metadata and some didn't. Maybe some of the files aren't set to sync their metadata back to the actual files...

 

I always understood that the big issue with WAV was with metadata especially when transferring files and creating new libraries.

 

Yup, it's a mess. Several programs "tag" WAV files, but none of them follow any sort of standard. Another Microsoft screwup.

 

Another fan of AIFF here, tags are no problem.

 

I understand you still have the original files in the original location. If you used something like dbPoweramp to convert the WAV to FLAC in the same location might it then see the necessary metadata and embed it? You could then transfer a couple of test files to the new HDD to confirm. If that works you can erase those WAV files you have created on the old HDD. Once you are confident the transcoding and transferring/copying are going well. You could begin larger batch copying.

 

I doubt dbPoweramp could read the metadata, since it sounds like (most) of it is in the Creative software itself, probably in some kind of database.

If he can get the Creative software to actually write the metadata to the files themselves (don't know if that's possible, but he said some tracks seemed to have their own metadata, so maybe), something else (like MediaMonkey) might be able to read that.

It's even possible someone's written a script or plugin for Winamp or MediaMonkey that can read Creative's database directly.

 

My library is also AIFF. The first time I transferred my library to a new HDD several years ago I lost cover art from a few albums. The last time I did it a few months ago it went flawless. Now whether using iTunes, JRiver or Sonos (which allows for only very basic metadata fields as far as I can tell) as my library manager or playback software all the appropriate fields display.

 

And yes, another difference between AIFF and WAV is that AIFF has ID3v2, XMP, and native tag support. Forgot to mention that above.

I just read that WAV, like AIFF, is based on IFF, and it was developed in 1991 for Windows 3.1. So, they are even more closely related than I thought.

 

Thats an interesting idea, I will give that a shot.

 

I've actually looked for some setting that could link the metadata but no luck, seems like something that would be logical in case a user had to do what I did. I'm pretty sure the metadata on my hi-res that copied thru was due to me manually typing it in by right clicking on the file and going into properties.