The page I created listing my entire MP3 collection is apparently rather popular, so this post is just to let ya all know I've updated the page with about 20 new CDs. A little Sarah McLachlin, some I Mother Earth, some older music from The Vines, the latest Nickleback and Radiohead and more!

Check it out.

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Every MP3 in my collection can be seen from this page.

I ironed out some the wrinkles, fixing listings for "Offpring" and "Tragically Hip" so they appear beside listings for "The Offspring" and "The Tragically Hip". This is every CD I've ripped into MP3 since I began this project all on one convenient web page. You can even click the CD name for specific files from that title. I think this is absolutely one of the coolest things I've ever done.

I'm seriously considering adding My Music to the main navigation menu to the left.

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Back in December, I wrote at great lengths about my digitalization project. You can refresh your memory here, here, here and here. Essentially, I ripped every CD I could ever envision myself listening to again into MP3 format and I store these digital files on my home computer. This is definitely one of the smartest things I've ever done.

Because I used Audiograbber to rip my discs, I was able to download a utility that converts the record of discs I've ripped into HTML pages. I tried this today and you can view the results.

Now that's cool. A table containing every CD I've got ripped to MP3 and drill down capabilities to view the song listing for each of them. It's nearly perfect. I say nearly perfect because there are a couple of wrinkles. Because this web page derives all of it's details from the data for each disc that I download from a man-made database, "The Offspring" may be listed as simply "Offspring" for one CD. Same for The Tragically Hip and other bands that start with "The". This somewhat lessens the value of having everything alphabetized by the artist's name. Also, I've noticed at least two discs are missing completely. My Alice Cooper's Greatest Hits and The White Stripes' Elephant CDs don't appear at all for some reason. Otherwise, I love it and it was easy like Sunday morning...or Saturday morning as the case may be.

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There's a new company called RipDigital that will rip your entire CD collection into MP3s for a price. For $129 USD you can ship them up to 100 of your CDs and they'll ship them back along with a DVD containing your CDs as MP3s. Their site celebrates the act of ripping your entire CD collection with the following verbiage.

Unleash your music and you can:

- enjoy your entire music collection any time, anywhere: at home, while you travel, exercise, work
- keep your music collection organized perfectly by artist, album, genre or any combination
- create mixes and play-lists of hundreds of songs that play for hours without ever swapping a disc

I'm speaking from experience when I tell you they're right about the advantages of ripping your entire CD collection to MP3. I undertook this task last month and wrote about it extensively on this site. I feel extremely liberated having every song I care about ripped to an MP3 file I can take and use anywhere. It was a big task, but the end result was well worth it.

I ripped like a mad man for a solid week, all day long while I worked and all night long while I played. In the end, I ripped well over a hundred discs at a cost of some blood, sweat and tears. RipDigital's website will tell you not to waste your time. "Thinking about ripping your music collection at home? Brace yourself. At six CDs and hour for an hour a day, it will take you several months." Several months? Who are they kidding? One long week of my life and I was able to keep my $300+ Canadian dollars for something else. If you want to digitalize your CD collection, save your money and read what I did. The end result will look something like this. Feel free to contact me if you need help.

One line in particular that is posted on the RipDigital website was enough to prevent me from utilizing their service even if it was free of charge. "RipDigital actively encourages the responsible use of digital music by including uniquely identifiable information in each track converted." I'd want to know a whole lot more about this "uniquely identifiable information". That sentence alone would ensure I rip my own CDs regardless of the time and effort involved.

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I just finished installing my new 80 GB hard drive that I'm using strictly for multimedia. My digitalization project consumed over a third of my hard drive so I've made my original 30 GB hard drive the master and added the new slave drive to host my MP3s, pictures and some video.

I would like to take this opportunity to apologize to anyone I may have offended by my use of the terms "master" and "slave". Back in November Los Angeles County asked suppliers to stop using the IT jargon 'master/slave' deeming the terms politically incorrect. Snopes has posted the transcript of an e-mail sent by the County to its manufacturers, suppliers and contractors. The email singles out "master" and "slave" as expressions portraying an image that may be construed as offensive or defamatory in nature.

In an effort to be more politically correct, I would like to restate the above. I now have a 30 GB primary drive hosting my operating system and other software and an 80 GB secondary drive for multimedia. Happy now?

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Last week I wrote about my efforts to digitalize my entire CD collection. Here's your update on the status of this project.

It consumed hours and hours of my week, but I managed to rip every CD I care about into 128kbps MP3s. Once I finished ripping the CDs I enjoy, I went through the remainder of my collection ripping the songs I enjoy. There were many late nights, but I have successfully converted my collection to 11 GBs of MP3s. Just last night I backed up these 11 GBs onto 15 CDs, just in case.

My next step is getting a second hard drive that will be used strictly for storing multimedia files. My 11 GBs of music will only grow, and I'm already pretty much out of room. Perhaps I'll save any money I get this Christmas and put it towards a 120 GB hard drive for this purpose.

So, the hard part is done. I only wonder why I didn't do this sooner. When I'm sitting at my PC, I have every song I've ever cared about at my fingertips. I think of a song, and two seconds later I'm hearing it. We're not just talking about a track from Nirvana's "Nevermind" or something else I always have close by, but the more obscure Mike specials like Paris' "The Devil Made Me Do It", Public Enemy's "Welcome to the Terrordome" X-Games remix or Hayden's "Take". Everything is organized within my music folder with a directory for each artist and within the directory a folder for each CD by that artist. Almost 30 years of love for music compressed into 11 GBs. Who says love of music is immeasurable?

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I'm in the process of digitalizing my entire CD collection. Since I left behind good ol' cassette tapes for CDs back in the 80s, I've amassed hundreds of discs and kept them in various CD racks to I could easily access whatever I was in the mood for. Some time last week I had an epiphany of sorts. I realized I needed to digitalize my entire collection.

This is no small task. There was much to consider. What format did I want my songs stored in? Where would I store them? What's an acceptable bit rate? What software would I use to rip my CDs? I decided to rip them as MP3s with a bit rate of 128kbps. I'm using Audiograbber and BladeEnc's MP3 DLL to up the bit rate. I've decided not to rip every CD I own, merely the ones I may actually listen to from time to time. When it comes down to that CD with only one song I like, I'm only ripping the one song. I'm storing the MP3s on my home PC's 40GB hard drive until I save up enough to buy a 2nd hard drive of at least 120 GB that will be used for all my multimedia. If I run out of room before then, I'm going to archive my less frequently listened to tunes on CDRs. Once I've got every CD I care about ripped into MP3 and organized nicely on my new hard drive, I will be finished. With my entire collection digitalized, I can grab what I want for whatever purpose. I envision one day owning a portable MP3 player and even an MP3 player in my car. Until then, it's simple to create an audio CD with the songs I want. As I've written before, the compact disc as a medium is quickly becoming obsolete.

I've been ripping steadily for a few days now and I've only scratched the surface. It's going to be weeks before I'm finished this phase of the project. I've already taken all the CDs off the CD racks in the living room and moved them to the basement. When I'm complete, they will be stored away some place in case I ever require the source material again.

I should have done this long ago. The freedom this gives me is rather liberating. Hey, I want to hear Liberate from Disturbed. It's only a click away...

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