New user - help with directory structure?

[simbun]

(16-05-2022 00:33)RachFan Wrote:  I don't use Windows at home. A friend suggested dbPowerAmp because it's the only software for Mac that has AccurateRip to verify the ripped bits.

That makes sense, you're certainly much more restricted on the mac, although I believe XLD verifies with AccurateRip and it produces CUE sheets.
Here's a useful CD ripper comparison article; I don't know how up to date it is, but it looks like you're right to steer clear of iTunes!

Given you're new to this - unless it's horrible to use - I'd use XLD and make sure it's generating CUE sheets (and keep them alongside the rip), this will mean it's trivial further down the line to identify "special" discs that utilise things like HDCD (requires scanning the files) and pre-emphasis (should be indicated in the CUE sheet), as they're a whole other can of worms (and will represent a tiny minority of discs) that's best left until you're comfortable with everything else you have to get your head around ;-)

(16-05-2022 00:33)RachFan Wrote:  From my reading, I thought I would use FLAC.

If you're not going to play the files on anything apple related then I think you're probably good to go, but I don't think FLAC is natively supported on any apple system - I assume because they didn't create it - so you may be making life more difficult for yourself.

(16-05-2022 00:33)RachFan Wrote:  What's the deal with selecting tags? Can't one simply "select all"? Is there a downside to that?

If you're talking about saving everything Picard/MusicBrainz offers there's no problem with that, but it does give you quite a lot of info that may never be of any use to you, but it won't hurt anything.
I was talking more about capturing data that may be specific to you, like your Classical/Jazz/Piano/Trumpet/Soundtracks/Poprock split, or maybe RIPPED_DATE, basically things that you may find useful to filter on that won't be held on any music database.