Ripping Cd's? What Software do I use?
 

Ripping is when you want to take a cd and copy it to the your comp,right? Just making sure......

Well I would like to copy some cd's of mine but I would like advice and recommendations on which software to use. Thank you Very Much to all those that reply:b: :D :b:

I got MusicMatch Jukebox 2.51 bundled with my Diamond Rio and it rips CD's pretty good and it does CDDB, but it uses the old Xing mp3 encoder which i think bites. I just rip to Wav's and use the LAME encoder. Not the best possible combination but it was free and it works for me.

I use CDEX from http://www.cdex.n3.net/ lets me rip albums into single cuts and full album cuts. Plus it's free.:AP: :AP: :AP:

I use Audiocatalyst and Music Match 6.1.

The reason I don't want to use MusicMatch is because I've heard that It only lets you rip to 128 bitrate,and I at least want 192 bitrate quality....and unless you pay for MM it does the process slower than usual....I'm going to try out CDex:D looks a litte complicated but I'll figure it out. Thanks:D

Oh and thats all I need to rip cd's right? I thought I needed 2 programs one to rip the other to encode?

You can rip at any bitrates up to 320 kbs with the free version of MusicMatch by using custom settings (Options|Recorder|Settings|Custom Quality). There is no artificial slowing down of the ripping process - only CD burning speed is limited in the free version. In my view MusicMatch is a good ripping solution for a beginner - use 160 kbs or 192 kbs bitrates and you will get good quality rips very easily.

- tg ;)

I use audiograbber with the LAME encoder plugin. Also, you can incorporate other encoder plugins such as bladeenc or use the other default encoders in audiograbber.

if your cdrom drive has some sort of advanced jitter correction mechanism like plextor cdroms (for example) then it doesn't really matter what grabsoft you use as long as it can extract data digitally

when choosing a ripping program you want to avoid using those that don't have any sort of "secure" extract modes because then your rips will end up with sync errors, which takes the whole listening enjoyment away

same thing applies to what encoder you choose, what bitrate to encode at, what stereo mode, etc. for example, using too low of a bitrate can bring on dreadful "watery" artifacts while using joint stereo on live recordings or songs where there is a lot of stereo seperation can add a lot of flange

in short, the eac/lame combo will give very good results most of the time (especially at higher bitrates or vbr), or you could use eac to rip (to make sure the extracted audio is clean) and audioactive or opticom producer pro to encode

links:

eac: www.exactaudiocopy.de
lame: www.mp3-tech.org
fhg: www.opticom.de

One more thing, the less going on in your computer the better rip you'll get. :TY:

I have a 'bought' version that I got off the net. Simply download the free version and found a keygen. Works like a beuat :)

mm is fine. bad instructions tho. let me know if you need a walk thru.

can you use audiocatalyst with the lame encoder plugin???

I'm not sure DMX, I can try it later this evening and let you know. The way I do it in audiograbber is I take the lame encoder .dll file and copy it to the audiograbber program file directory where the .exe file resides, then when I open up the program, I go to internal codecs, select lame from the drop down menu and chooose the bitrate, stereo type etc. and encode the mp3. Audiocatalyst is very similar to audiograbber in the way the program is laid out, so perhaps you can do the same for audiocatalyst.

:N:

shitty, anyone know where i can grab a copy of audiograbber??

thanks

DMX, PM sent

get rid of audiocatalyst and use eac
its waaaay better

www.exactaudiocopy.de

I agree EAC is by far the best out there right now. Not as user friendly as CDEX etc. but gives you the best ripps for wave files on the net. Then encode into MP3, on the fly encoding should never be done, qaulity and error correction suffer.
I use the Win32 Razorlame encoder for VBR and CDEX for CBR.

http://www.cd-rw.org/win32lame/ Comes all set up with default options very easy to use and awesome file size and quality for VBR encoding.


Here is a awesome site for making MP3's http://r3mix.net/ tons of info and methods.

Just found out my Easy Cd Creator3 won`t work
 

with winXP home edition I like the free good ones that a dumbass like my self can use and maybe understand lol Which ones will work with Xp or where can i go to find out for meeself? steve And there is no patch or upgrade for it

Yeah-I-Did-It pretty much nailed it IMO. EAC to rip and LAME to encode. Also, r3mix.net is the source for information on doing high-quality ripping & encoding.

So far as I know, EAC is the only ripper that will verify that it ripped correctly.

Exact Audio Copy is also the only program that can get perfect ripps from damaged Cd's. Cdex's newer versions are getting better but still cannot get the perfect ripps like EAC can.

EAC is slower and a little harder to set up but worth the learning curve:ND:

A good tip that will help all ripps with EAC or CDEX is to set the priority level to low. This will do wonders if working with another app "browser/winmx/etc" as even mouse clicks can cause artifacts.

Musicmatch 7.0 isn't bad at all.
 

Yea, I'm :doh:

Before I became aware of the benefits of file sharing :AP:, I bought MMJB+ w/lifetime upgrades.

This latest upgrade actually pleased me!

SmartSplit, SuperTagging and wholesale Volume Leveling are features I really like!

Check out MM 7.0.
Musicmatch 7.0

Bloatware I do believe is the term associated with MMJB.

Does the new MusicMatchJunk box offer any type of error correction for ripping yet?
I haven't tried it since version 6 something or another. I did like the library features but the general ripping encoding didn't compare to Exact Audio Copy and the Lame codec. Not to mention the resources needed to power it;( and the countless times it locked up. :RI:

>>>'Does the new MusicMatchJunk box offer any type of error correction for ripping yet?'<<<

musicmatch's ripping program doesn't have any kind of error correction

I didn't think so:BL: Even if it did there is a real good chance I probably wouldn't care anyway. But curiosity did kill the cat and the first version of the MMJB I tried:att:

Oh yes it does!

This is taken from the help files of my copy of MMJB 7.0 Help.

GR

Somethings don't change - bloated is a rather accurate term to use here - even more so with 7.0.

wow. somebody sure likes a mystery!:ner:

- js.

so it does have error correction eh? hmmm..... do any other versions of musicmatch have this feature? i'm gonna head over to irc and see what kind of information i can get on it. maybe mmjb hasn't outlived its usefulness after all :D

Well well:cr: Will give it a try after all doubt it can out perform EAC but it may or may not come in handy for something.:sus:

after asking around (mainly asking people who HAVE actually installed musicmatch as there is absolutely no way i'll be installing it on my system) i found that musicmatch's ripping program does_not_have any kind of error correction. musicmatch calls it "error correction" but in fact its nothing but a fancy name for a function that all it does is reduce the speed of the extraction

the real difference that separates EAC from all the other rippers like musicmatch, audiograbber, audiocatalyst, etc. has to do with the fact that none of these programs have any kind error correction routine. all they do is just rip the data as it is. they do not check sectors to see that the data match, they do not report what types of sync error occur or even when and where they occur. while EAC will do error correction and give you a detailed report of where errors might have occurred, musicmatch does none of that

the only two ripping programs actually have jitter correction as a part of their routine are EAC (for windows) and CD paranoia (for linux). the ripper/encoder combo "Cdex" also has some kind of jitter correction code though rumours have it that it is not as precise as the error correction you get in "secure mode" with EAC

encoding
 

:ND:
I agree wholeheartedly with those who endorse EAC (Exact Audio Copy); I haven't found anything which comes close to it for accuracy.
But encoding is another matter; it surprises me that I see no mention of dbPowerAmp in this thread. It's free, it offers encoding into any of the media currently in use, and it has a really good support forum, moderated by, among others, the designer himself.
The homepage is a good read, and a few minutes spent here will enable you to download and select whichever programs seem most appropriate to your needs.
www.dbpoweramp.com is the url for those interested.

Best rippers?
 

Definately on my favourites list EAC, CDDEA99 thats nice, The New DBPowerAMP converter, too.

But NEVER NEVER try to rip straight from CD to MP3 agree totally with that restriction.

Nice feature of CDDAE99 is you can create WAVs with almost complete file & track names, by presetting the download path
so less editing to do in the end, to correctly title the tracks in the reccommended form.

Encoders: Audio Active Production Studio Pro 2.04 best for speed and Fixed bit rates

Razor Lame (the LAME encoder the the Razor Front end)
DEfinately the tops for VBR and ID3 preservation etc.

Snark.
:D

i use cdex and lame encoder with r3mix setting
the results are even better than 192 and filesize is reasonable between 128 und 160 coding.

since i use it, i love that vbr and only d/l and reshare files with r3mix in the comment field, because of my limited disk space.

so i kindly ask all, who use lame with r3mix,please enter
the keywords LAME version r3mix EAC or cdex into the ID3 TAG comment field,
that i can find them.

i think this quality could become a certain standard with reasonable filesize
and download time on the one hand and state of the art encoding with near
cd quality on the other hand.

indy
:beer:

Well there is another lesser known newer shareware ripper out that boasts secure extraction with error correction. Authors claim you MUST use a drive that doesn't have buggy firmware to get results. I have a LiteON and a Plextor with latest firmware and EAC still did a better job. But it is new only 2 releases so far and it did get alot of mixed feedback on the r3mix/cdrw.org forums.

http://www.compactgear.com/

features include

Accurate and reliable digital audio extraction (DAE)
On-the-fly jitter correction, defective sectors overread and adaptive speed selection based on realtime subchannel reading
Super fast lightweight adaptive DAE engine with realtime subchannel analysis written in Assembler
One click MP3 encoding using third party encoder DLLs: BladeEnc, Lame , GoGo (very high speed, MMX optimized)
Batch ripping/encoding
Optimization for error free DAE on the latest high performance drives
Two level CD drive capabilities detection
Flexible auto adjustable drive specific DAE levels
Support for both manual and auto selection of DAE levels
Support for both MMC and selected SCSI-2 drives
ID3 tag creation
Accurate and intelligent pre-gap detection
CUE sheet creation
Track/album information retrieval from freedb
Full support for authenticaing HTTP proxy so that freedb queries can be tunneled through a corporate proxy/firewall
Advanced diagnostic logging with on-the-fly compression of generated log files
Built-in CD player
Intuitive 'Appliance-like' GUI

r3mix is currently outdated try this in your command line encoder with the 3.91 Lame

-------------------------------------------------
CBR 320 (highest possible LAME quality):
-------------------------------------------------

--alt-preset insane
(bitrate: 320 kbit)

-------------------------------------------------
VBR (variable bitrate) settings:
-------------------------------------------------

Very High Quality +

--alt-preset extreme
(bitrates 220-270 kbit/s -- usually averages around 256kbps)

Faster (Very Slightly Lower Quality):
--alt-preset fast extreme
(bitrates roughly the same as above)


Very High Quality

--alt-preset standard
(bitrates 180-220 kbit/s -- usually averages around 192 kbps)

Faster, slightly lower quality possible:
--alt-preset fast standard
(bitrates roughly the same as above)


High Quality

(Due to the new "--alt-preset standard", the "--r3mix" setting is obsolete.)

--r3mix
(average bitrate ~190kbit/s (150-230kbit/s)




-------------------------------------------------
ABR (average bitrate) settings: (128 kbit ABR: roughly the same filesize as 128 kbit CBR)
-------------------------------------------------

ABR Setting tuned from 320 kbps down to 80 kbps

--alt-preset <bitrate>

Example:
--alt-preset 200


ABR averaging at 128 kbit/s

--alt-preset 128

or (see http://www.ff123.net/cbr128.html ):

--abr 134 -h --nspsytune --athtype 2 --lowpass 16 --ns-bass -8 --scale 0.93



-------------------------------------------------
CBR (constant bitrate) settings:
-------------------------------------------------

320 kbit/s CBR

Highest Lame Quality:
--alt-preset insane
or
--alt-preset cbr 320


256 kbit/s CBR

--alt-preset cbr 256


192 kbit/s CBR

--alt-preset cbr 192


160 kbit/s CBR

--alt-preset cbr 160


128 kbit/s CBR

--alt-preset cbr 128
or
-h --nspsytune --athtype 2 --lowpass 16 --ns-bass -8 --scale 0.93


96 kbit/s CBR

--alt-preset cbr 96


80 kbit/s CBR

--alt-preset cbr 80


You can find the same list at the Project Mayhem forum



:AP:

thank's a lot for the info

lame 3.91 standard EAC or whatever
could be a new standard then, which i can search after.

but i can only search after it, if its clearly stated in the ID3 comment field

so its even part of rip quality, that one could see if a song's available,
encoded with a new version of coder and which settings were used
and which ripper was used.

indy

btw - if i entered "lame standard" into search the only thing i got was:
"Seven Mary Three - American Standard - 06 - Lame.mp3"
i hope this is a good omen for a start either - LOL

>>>'lame 3.91 standard EAC or whatever
could be a new standard then, which i can search after.'<<<

i think the setting he's referring to is "--alt-preset standard" (without the quotes)

the problem is, that id3 v1 comment field has only about 30 character width
and since this --alt-preset seems to be some kind of redundant information
i thought it could be just missed. otherwise you have cut off some other info.

indy

Indiana if you like to know what codec was used to encode you should try this if have not already:BL:

http://www.guerillasoft.com/Encspot/

It is a Mp3 checker reads bitrate/encoder version/stereo,jstereo etc. awesome tool. I use it to check a file shortly after it starts and if I don't like the codec I cancel and look for a good one:BP:

And thanks schmooky yes I was referring to
--alt-preset standard as a replacement for --r3mix