Music Management Software

If you have been thinking about transferring the music on your CDs to a hard drive for playback via computer, there isn't a better time to get started. Adding an internal or external hard drive to your PC as a dedicated home for your music collection is a relatively simple task, and the price for storage seems to drop daily. Finding a program to manage your collection is another story.

I've been using the software provided by AlbumPlayer for several years now. There are many things I like about it, which I will try to point out below.

While many will be perfectly happy using Apple's iTunes for such a purpose, there are those among us that prefer something a little more robust with more features/options.

My first consideration was finding a program that would allow me to use a lossless file format of MY choice. For those new to the game, a lossless format preserves the original quality found on your discs while converting them. Most formats whether lossless or lossy use some form of compression when ripping and storing your data. It's important to distinguish the terms here because I think many folks automatically think of a lossy format when they here the term "compressed" - which simply is not the case.

Being the audio purist that I am, I wanted to use a lossless format, and I already had one in mind: FLAC. I won't go into specifics about this format as it's really not the main topic for this post, but if you would like to learn more about it, you can click here for more in-depth information.

The second thing I required was a program that provided access to my music in a graphical nature. They say a picture is with a thousand words, and nothing is more cumbersome to my eyes than trying to hunt through a bunch of text looking for the artist or album I want to play. There is no denying the elegance of iTune's flip cover display, though it can get bogged down a bit when your collection of music starts to grow. I wanted something similar to what they provided.

Finally, I wanted a program that was flexible. By this I mean I wanted a simple way to perform back-up's of my music data as well as change directories/locations for the data without a lot of fuss and labor on my part.

Well, AlbumPlayer fit all of my desires, so I tried out the demo and soon after, purchased their program. It's been a real pleasure for me to use, and I can't think of any other program that has provided me so much enjoyment. My computer is connected to my home stereo via the digital output on my PC's sound card. I access AlbumPlayer remotely via a laptop computer in my music room using a program called AnyPlace Control. I rip the audio files from my CDs to my hard drive in FLAC using a program called Direct Audio Converter.

However, my music is not confined to just this room. Using the digital files now stored on my PC, I can get music wireless in other areas of my home through my wireless network and the aid of a Squeezebox (review to come in another post).

So don't be afraid to make the move to PC music. It's a rewarding project that will provide you convenient access to your music in a manner that wasn't possible just a few years ago.