Easy Lp To Mp3 Not So Easy

[OBG1Kenobie]

I bought this program as my own Christmas present, along with an Ipod Classic. I still have LPs, CDs and bunches of cassettes, and recently threw out dozens of 7" magnetic tapes. I've thrown most of my CDs onto the Ipod and only taken up 46 GB out of the 149 available, and have tons of questions about Easy LP to MP3 and i-Tunes etc. For instance, when loading CDs via i-Tunes, the program generally identified the song, but often asked me to pick the album name from 2 or 3 choices, and occasionally the choices were not obviously different. The artist was generally correct, except for some CDs with two or more artists. The one thing I mistrust entirely is the time shown on each track (do I really have 3 different versions of Heartaches by the Marcels?

 

Easy LP to MP3, however, not only misidentifies everything, but identifies music as books and puts Chinese characters in several fields. Moreover, I can't figure out how to separate tracks properly except where it identifies silence as a track. For instance, I only get 5 tracks out of the 8 on "The Best of George Clinton." (Of course, in i-tunes I got only one track for Prince's "Lovesexy" album.) The helpful instructions tell me to separate the tracks as the first process after recording them, but I can't figure out how to do that.

 

I still need to find programs that do what I could do with my old stereo equipment--slow down & speed up records, splice two songs together, and pick my own spot to fade out a song. What with MP3s being digital, I expect to see programs that can do a lot more--transpose songs from one key to another without changing speed, change speed without transposing keys, and remove specific voices or instruments. If Natalie Cole can sing along with her daddy, I ought to be able to get Hank Ballard and Chubby Checker to sing The Twist as a duet.

 

Also, is there a way for lots of us audiophiles to share our Ipod lists with whatever database that Easy LP to MP3 uses, so it becomes less stupid?

[sknis]

I bought this program as my own Christmas present, along with an Ipod Classic. I still have LPs, CDs and bunches of cassettes, and recently threw out dozens of 7" magnetic tapes. I've thrown most of my CDs onto the Ipod and only taken up 46 GB out of the 149 available, and have tons of questions about Easy LP to MP3 and i-Tunes etc. For instance, when loading CDs via i-Tunes, the program generally identified the song, but often asked me to pick the album name from 2 or 3 choices, and occasionally the choices were not obviously different. The artist was generally correct, except for some CDs with two or more artists. The one thing I mistrust entirely is the time shown on each track (do I really have 3 different versions of Heartaches by the Marcels?

 

Easy LP to MP3, however, not only misidentifies everything, but identifies music as books and puts Chinese characters in several fields. Moreover, I can't figure out how to separate tracks properly except where it identifies silence as a track. For instance, I only get 5 tracks out of the 8 on "The Best of George Clinton." (Of course, in i-tunes I got only one track for Prince's "Lovesexy" album.) The helpful instructions tell me to separate the tracks as the first process after recording them, but I can't figure out how to do that.

 

I still need to find programs that do what I could do with my old stereo equipment--slow down & speed up records, splice two songs together, and pick my own spot to fade out a song. What with MP3s being digital, I expect to see programs that can do a lot more--transpose songs from one key to another without changing speed, change speed without transposing keys, and remove specific voices or instruments. If Natalie Cole can sing along with her daddy, I ought to be able to get Hank Ballard and Chubby Checker to sing The Twist as a duet.

 

Also, is there a way for lots of us audiophiles to share our Ipod lists with whatever database that Easy LP to MP3 uses, so it becomes less stupid?

 

It looks like you may be expecting just too much from consumer and prosumer software. Much of what you are talking about is more professional software with sound engineers and recording stiudios. The also don't work with mp3s. You may need somehtign better.

 

1) Easy LP does not misidentify anyhitng. It goes out to a music service and asks. Gracenotes and one run byRovi are two of them. They are both used depending on the version. What you get back fro the music service is the best guess. People (like you) upload the album and other information. I'm sure you see that request when you put a complilation cd into your computer and try to identify it . Blame the gamers for putting in those game names and the oriental characters.

 

2) To separate tracks, you must use the LP and tape assistant. It is the one that shows the wave form. If you stretch out the wave form, you can easily see where there are breaks in the music. As for doing much else, that program is very basic. Creator has a better audio editor called 'Sound Editor" as part of the suite but it too is more comsumer than pro-sumer. If you want more (pitch change etc.) , I would suggest that you download and try "Gold Wave". It will do all you want and more. It has a good trial period and is inexpensive.

 

Did I cover everything in your questions?

[ggibas45]

I bought this program as my own Christmas present, along with an Ipod Classic. I still have LPs, CDs and bunches of cassettes, and recently threw out dozens of 7" magnetic tapes. I've thrown most of my CDs onto the Ipod and only taken up 46 GB out of the 149 available, and have tons of questions about Easy LP to MP3 and i-Tunes etc. For instance, when loading CDs via i-Tunes, the program generally identified the song, but often asked me to pick the album name from 2 or 3 choices, and occasionally the choices were not obviously different. The artist was generally correct, except for some CDs with two or more artists. The one thing I mistrust entirely is the time shown on each track (do I really have 3 different versions of Heartaches by the Marcels?

 

Easy LP to MP3, however, not only misidentifies everything, but identifies music as books and puts Chinese characters in several fields. Moreover, I can't figure out how to separate tracks properly except where it identifies silence as a track. For instance, I only get 5 tracks out of the 8 on "The Best of George Clinton." (Of course, in i-tunes I got only one track for Prince's "Lovesexy" album.) The helpful instructions tell me to separate the tracks as the first process after recording them, but I can't figure out how to do that.

 

I still need to find programs that do what I could do with my old stereo equipment--slow down & speed up records, splice two songs together, and pick my own spot to fade out a song. What with MP3s being digital, I expect to see programs that can do a lot more--transpose songs from one key to another without changing speed, change speed without transposing keys, and remove specific voices or instruments. If Natalie Cole can sing along with her daddy, I ought to be able to get Hank Ballard and Chubby Checker to sing The Twist as a duet.

 

Also, is there a way for lots of us audiophiles to share our Ipod lists with whatever database that Easy LP to MP3 uses, so it becomes less stupid?

 

On Jan 12 I contacted Roxio Easy LP to MP3 support to determine if there was something I had to do in order for Gracenote MusicID to identify track information correctly. I was getting Chinese characters, books, game data from MusicID for track information. Today Roxio replied to my ticket, and their reply is below.

 

"After you have adjusted the track separators to trim your tracks (use the zoom buttons at top right to get a close-up look, then drag the separator arrows left or right), click the Tags button. The Edit Audio Tags window will then open, where you can identify your tracks automatically with MusicID."

 

I have updated the ticket to let them know that this is the process I use, but MusicID rarely returns correct information for the entire album. Since opening the ticket I have converted 25-30 more albums, and it seems that I get better results(sometimes 4-5 correct tracks) when I use MusicID on each track of the album instead of all tracks at one time.

 

Looking at documentation fromn competing products, Audacity and something from DAK, I've learned that album conversion isn't as automatic or easy as I had hoped. There is a learning curve for every product.

 

I'll update you if I hear anything useful from Roxio support.

[ggibas45]

I bought this program as my own Christmas present, along with an Ipod Classic. I still have LPs, CDs and bunches of cassettes, and recently threw out dozens of 7" magnetic tapes. I've thrown most of my CDs onto the Ipod and only taken up 46 GB out of the 149 available, and have tons of questions about Easy LP to MP3 and i-Tunes etc. For instance, when loading CDs via i-Tunes, the program generally identified the song, but often asked me to pick the album name from 2 or 3 choices, and occasionally the choices were not obviously different. The artist was generally correct, except for some CDs with two or more artists. The one thing I mistrust entirely is the time shown on each track (do I really have 3 different versions of Heartaches by the Marcels?

 

Easy LP to MP3, however, not only misidentifies everything, but identifies music as books and puts Chinese characters in several fields. Moreover, I can't figure out how to separate tracks properly except where it identifies silence as a track. For instance, I only get 5 tracks out of the 8 on "The Best of George Clinton." (Of course, in i-tunes I got only one track for Prince's "Lovesexy" album.) The helpful instructions tell me to separate the tracks as the first process after recording them, but I can't figure out how to do that.

 

I still need to find programs that do what I could do with my old stereo equipment--slow down & speed up records, splice two songs together, and pick my own spot to fade out a song. What with MP3s being digital, I expect to see programs that can do a lot more--transpose songs from one key to another without changing speed, change speed without transposing keys, and remove specific voices or instruments. If Natalie Cole can sing along with her daddy, I ought to be able to get Hank Ballard and Chubby Checker to sing The Twist as a duet.

 

Also, is there a way for lots of us audiophiles to share our Ipod lists with whatever database that Easy LP to MP3 uses, so it becomes less stupid?

 

Roxio support mentioned that the published track time, which is used by GraceNote, must match your recorded track time. I have gotten much better results since I've made the recorded track time match or be within 1-2 seconds of what is listed on the album. MusicID accuracy is now 85% or higher. Although I've had some track times match and still get incorrect results from MusicID.