First pass

The first pass looks up the release, splits its tracklist across the sides you recorded, and places every boundary against the measured gaps.

Do it once both sides are ripped. It replaces the plan for the whole record, not the side you happen to be looking at.

Running it

Press First pass. Artist and album are filled from the record; correct them if the search needs it, then Search MusicBrainz.

Choosing a release

Each result shows the title, date, country, format, track count and total length. Two things decide which one to take:

• Track durations. An entry marked NO DURATIONS cannot be fitted — there is nothing to place boundaries against, and it is refused if you pick it. Vinyl entries are often bulk copies of a digital tracklist with the lengths left off.
• The pressing. Prefer the vinyl release you actually own. A CD edition often carries extra tracks or a different order, which puts the tracklist across the sides wrongly.

Results with usable durations are listed first, whatever the format. A CD entry with durations fits better than a vinyl entry without them.

What it does

The tracklist is divided across the sides by duration — the arrangement is chosen as a whole, since putting one track on the wrong side displaces every track after it. Each boundary is then placed at the measured gap nearest where the catalogue says it should fall.

The report it prints afterwards is per side, and shows where each boundary landed against where the catalogue expected it.

Both documents are written: the record's spec and the plan the cutter reads.

After it

The track table fills in, with a cat Δ column: how far each boundary is from the catalogue's duration for that track. That column is where you look next — see Checking the boundaries.

Naming

What you type in the Album panel — artist, album, year — is what gets written to the files. It overrides the release title, qualifiers and all. Change it there rather than in the import dialog.

Without the catalogue

You can skip the first pass entirely and place tracks by hand: Add track in the side panel, then drag the markers. The tracks need numbers and titles before an import means anything, which you can type into the track table.

A record MusicBrainz does not have can still be imported — see Importing.

From the command line

ripdoctor lookup "Artist" "Album"

lists candidate releases with their ids, usable entries first.

ripdoctor fit <spec.json> <envelope> [<envelope> ...] -o <plan.json>

places the boundaries from a spec and the measured envelopes, one per side.