CD ripper

[hapoo]

Ok after many years i've decided to mp3-archive all my cd's. I used to use Audiograbber way back in the day but i just installed it and it just will not work with win2k... it keeps telling me that it can't initialize the aspi. Since win2k doesn't have aspi drivers i already installed adaptecs drivers. Anyone got any idea's? and good programs i can try out besides audiograbber maybe?

[TommyBoomfiger]

EAC to rip and LAME (WinLAME or RazorLAME) to encode. if you have a lot of hard drive space availible, i suggest you rip as much as you can, then use RazorLAME to encode overnight. also, for the easiest, best quality, use the --r3mix switch in RazorLAME.

[billxp]

I use musicmatch. Haven't had any problems.

Good ripping FAQ http://webhome.idirect.com/~nuzhathl/mp3-faq.html#ques91

[TommyBoomfiger]

LAME (http://www.mp3dev.org/mp3/)
EAC (http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/)
R3MIX (http://www.r3mix.net/)- awesome site about mp3's

[hapoo]

Thanks guys! I'll check it out!

[hapoo]

Woohooo After some tinkering (Had to install the asapi drivers) i got EAC to work! :D :D thanks. Ripping used to be so much easier.

[spigidygak]

. . . /me likes windac for a ripper better.

[DoPeY5007]

one thing I don't like about EAC and windac is they dont create the file tags....

[Hoser]

I use Nero for ripping. For some reason it's over twice as fast as using EAC. EAC used to work good with my Iomega (Plextor) 12x10x32, but it doesn't rip CDs any faster with my TDK 24x10x40. I'm not sure why, but when you compare 3 minutes to over 7 minutes, there's really no other choice. I know about using EAC for 'problem' CDs, of which I have a few. I had to get a CD restore kit to fix a couple of my CDs. I'm pretty careful with them and I don't know where they got all the scratches.

You can get EAC to add the ID3 tags under the EAC->Compression Options menu. You choose the external compression program and what kind of ID3 tags you want. I prefer to rip all the CDs at once and then convert them overnight.

I agree with the --r3mix setting for LAME. I used to do the usual 128 kBit/sec setting, but to me there is a big difference in the sound quality with --r3mix. If I'm going to use MP3s on a portable device and memory is a factor, then I'll encode them with a lower bit rate.

[hapoo]

convert them overnight??? how many cd's do you convert at once???
It usually takes me 15-20 min to encode one cd at a vbr.

[Hoser]

See More MP3 Q'z by DoPeY5007 for an explanation. Basically I've got around 1200 CDs. Now I don't need to encode all of them, but eventually I will. I'll get three machines working at once, ripping CDs for an hour. This will give me around 46 CDs worth of songs. I'll then run RazorLame on all 3 and have it shutdown the machines when it's finished.

It takes around 3 minutes to rip a CD, and 7 or 8 minutes to encode using the --r3mix setting (Thunderbird 1.3GHZ). If an average CD takes 8 minutes to encode, that's 368 minutes total (a little over 6 hours) for 46 CDs. The time needed for everything to finish is no faster than the slowest machine. I haven't encoded any songs with a Celeron 500 in a long time, so I don't know how fast it'll be. I'll probably try the Dual Celeron 500 and see if there's any time savings. I do have a Duron 750 that was my previous processor laying around. All I'd need is a motherboard, and it'd be ready to joing the workforce. I may also try using both Windows and Linux versions of LAME and see if there's any difference in speed.

It would take about a 30GB drive to hold that much music in WAV format. Since the space would be split up over 3 drives, it's not a problem. I have enough drive space free to rip at least 100 CDs, and since the WAV file will be deleted after the MP3 file is created, space is freed up quickly. The MP3s will be copied to CDs after I verify the ID3 tags are correct.

[TommyBoomfiger]

Originally posted by hapoo
convert them overnight??? how many cd's do you convert at once???
It usually takes me 15-20 min to encode one cd at a vbr.

whenever i get into ripping my cds, i usually rip about 10-15 cds then encode em overnight.

[DoPeY5007]

Originally posted by TommyBoomfiger


whenever i get into ripping my cds, i usually rip about 10-15 cds then encode em overnight.


that's what I have been doing as well now

[TommyBoomfiger]

Originally posted by chosenfool
i have to vouch for the -R3mix setting - im using both EAC and CDeX (which surprisingly enough HAS the -R3mix setting using the latest LAME version), and i must say, the audio quality is astounding, compared to my usual encoding with Blade. (thanks again for the heads up a few months back, tommyboomfiger!)

:cool:

glad you found it useful



Originally posted by Hoser
I use Nero for ripping. For some reason it's over twice as fast as using EAC. EAC used to work good with my Iomega (Plextor) 12x10x32, but it doesn't rip CDs any faster with my TDK 24x10x40. I'm not sure why, but when you compare 3 minutes to over 7 minutes, there's really no other choice. I know about using EAC for 'problem' CDs, of which I have a few. I had to get a CD restore kit to fix a couple of my CDs. I'm pretty careful with them and I don't know where they got all the scratches.

You can get EAC to add the ID3 tags under the EAC->Compression Options menu. You choose the external compression program and what kind of ID3 tags you want. I prefer to rip all the CDs at once and then convert them overnight.

I agree with the --r3mix setting for LAME. I used to do the usual 128 kBit/sec setting, but to me there is a big difference in the sound quality with --r3mix. If I'm going to use MP3s on a portable device and memory is a factor, then I'll encode them with a lower bit rate.

the reason for using eac is that eac supposedly does exactly what its called, exact audio copy. it copies audio tracks exactly as it is on the cd. other rippers dont always do that and sometimes causes pops and hisses in the rip. this doesnt happen all the time, just in a few cases, but eac is one of the best ripper available. if you look at the time difference you are just trading off speed for quality.

[TommyBoomfiger]

ive used tag & rename to mass edit tags with cddb access. it is very customizable and fairly easy to use, though i have found it to be a little buggy at times. but if i remember correctly, i only used it to correct mistakes i made through messing with settings in eac. so i suggest you just use eac to edit mp3 id tags.
Tag & Rename (http://www.softpointer.com/tr.htm)

[DoPeY5007]

Originally posted by TommyBoomfiger

Tag & Rename (http://www.softpointer.com/tr.htm)

I have been using this for a little while and find it easy and helpfull

[attgig]

Xing Audio Catalyst (http://www.xingtech.com/)

[Hoser]

I've decided to go back to using EAC with my Iomega (Plextor) 12x10x32. This drive seems to be faster using EAC then my TDK 24x10x40. I was ripping them the fastest way possible, and then going back and using EAC for the problem songs. I decided that it was easier to rip the songs using the secure mode, and only rip them once.

Now I use EAC while I'm doing other things on the computer. In fact now, I'm ripping the 12th CD of the night. I've been on the web for a couple hours, so I'm getting my internet fix while actually accomplishing something. I'll start the encoding before I go to bed and tomorrow 304 MP3 songs will be waiting for me.

I've tried Cdparanoia to rip CDs on the Linux side, but so far it's been extremely slow. I may rip all the CDs on the Windows side, and encode them on both sides. I've got the same version of LAME on both operating systems, so they should encode to the same size/quality MP3 file. I'll try it this weekend and see.