[Dixielandjazz] Converting CD's to song files

[J. Ellis Rue]

  I am curious as to whether (m)any others have converted their CD's 
into song files using iTunes or some such program.  I started collecting 
CD's back when they first came out and it was difficult at the time to 
find much trad jazz. Then I pretty much stopped buying them when I 
retired 17 years ago. In that time frame, I have collected over 500 CD's 
now, which may not seem a lot to big time collectors, but enough to keep 
me loaded with plenty to listen to for all these years.  I have taken 
all the CD's and used iTunes to convert them, then scanned each CD cover 
so that whatever song I bring up shows the cover of the CD.  Obviously, 
it took some time to do all this, but it was well worth it as far as I 
am concerned. I have invested in particularly good speakers for my 
computer and use Bose QC2 headphones when listening on my iPod, so I 
rarely listen to the actual CD anymore. I  have 8,300 files on the 
computer and a 40 gig iPod with over 6000 songs.  I use the iPod when 
doing my daily walk on my treadmill and I half jokingly say that I give 
credit to OKOM and the iPod,  for having gotten me up to the 80 mark.  
All my CD cases are numbered which I included when converting them, so 
iTunes is an excellent way to catalog the music for search purposes or 
to find the CD quickly for learning information from the CD folder.  In 
fact, that is one of the drawbacks to this procedure since obviously, 
there is no information about band members, etc. with just the files.
BTW, I have plenty of CD's by many members of this list, just no recent 
ones.  Also, my CD's break down into approximately 63% trad jazz, 16% 
big band, 13% "jazz" and 8% Misc.   That is pretty close, but some were 
difficult to categorize. For example, where would you put Dirty Dozen 
Jazz Band or Herb Alpert or Canadian Brass?

I do not intend this note to initiate a discussion on the relative 
merits of the audio quality of CD's or files versus records.   I do 
wonder about the legality of sharing any of my files with others since I 
do have a number of "foreign" (to U.S.) CD's that others may not have.

J. Ellis Rue
Palm Harbor, Florida