CD-ripping?

SeñorAmor

1.) Both my wife and I have a crapton of CDs that we'd like to rip to my computer so we can listen to them throughout our house. As I haven't used any cd-ripping software in years, I'm a bit out of the loop as to what's good and what's not. Anyone have any suggestions on what program(s) to use? I'd prefer free software, if possible, and I use Winamp so if there's a good plugin for it that will accomplish what I want to do, all the better.

2.) What format/bitrate would you suggest I use? I'd like good quality but not so good that it compromises disk space.

Thanks!

snarks

CDex is a great freeware ripper:
http://cdexos.sourceforge.net/

As for what format and bitrate, that can really vary depending on your tastes, speakers/headphones and if you need to move the files onto a portable player. Generally, I'd say that if disk space is a particular concern yet you still want good quality, try ripping your cds to mp3's at 160-192 kbps with variable bit rate turned on. This will give you a good compromise between quality and file size.

EggyToast

I'll second CDex for Windows and making MP3s. It's very quick, does a good job of working in a batch, and is pretty straightforward. You can easily set it up so as soon as an audio CD is put in the drive, it'll search a CDDB for the album information and automatically start creating MP3s (using your own preferred naming convention) in a folder of your choosing. When it's done, it'll eject the drive so you just have to, every few minutes, swap out the cd and close the drive.

And since you're talking about MP3s, the best quality setting I've found is VBR @ 192, as they're still on the small size without sacrificing any real quality. 128 is still horrible, but 192 seems to be the cutoff point. Only classical music has given me any issues at 192, back when I used MP3.

I now use AAC, which is simply a better codec, but I'm not sure if CDex supports AAC.

Thanatos

I'm gonna go ahead and tell you iTunes.

Don't get me wrong, I hated the idea as much as the next guy, but after trying a couple other programs (including CDex), I tried iTunes, and it was just waaaaayyyyy easier. It's incredibly easy to set it up so that you just insert CD, it rips it, ejects it, and you insert the next one.

RNEMESiS42

I'm going have to also admit iTunes is pretty good. I rip everything at 320 kbs, VBR, but I have a huge external drive that I keep all my mp3s on. I used to do everything at 192, for space. But really, I can't tell the difference that much.

Silvoculous

What, no WMP?

Rook

I really like WMP for ripping, and yeah 192kbps.

blincoln

mp3 is the best format to use IMO because it will work pretty much anywhere. I use CDex, and have it create 256kbit CBR files as an extension of that concept - it's supported by virtually every mp3-playing device.

EggyToast

I use iTunes for ripping on a Mac and found it was much faster and much easier than CDex or other options I had found for Windows, but I don't have experience with it for ripping on Windows. But hey, if it works on your machine, the Gracenote database support is enough for me to back up the iTunes supporters above.

xThanatoSx

Another vote for CDex here. Been using it for years with nary an issue.

DrFrylock

CDex, MP3, 192-256Kbps CDR (VBR doesn't buy you that much quality for the space and not as many players handle VBR well - for example, seeking might be messed up or the total track times won't display right).

CDex is ridiculously fast as a ripper. I built a Linux music server that runs CDparanoia, and while the paranoia people claim that the extra time it takes (like 5x as long) results in better quality, my experience hasn't borne this out. They're both fine.

iTunes is easy but beware of lock-in. Does iTunes even let you rip to MP3? If you iLike Apple to iManage your iLife, then go for it. I personally despise iTunes and Apple, and rip everything to MP3 which is very nice. I even have an iPod (cause that goddamn wheel is so cool) running Rockbox which i rsync with my music server and it's truly beautiful. But that's not for everybody.

RocketScience

For best results, follow this excellent guide.
http://jiggafellz.isa-geek.net/eac/

If you don't have the disc space for FLAC, use MP3s encoded with LAME V0 setting. This is the highest quality VBR setting (average bitrate ~245kbps depending on complexity of the music).

shutz

I use EAC, with an external LAME encoder (for some reason, the internal versions generate MP3s where the VBR fucks up the track length calculations when played in some players) set to either 128 kbps VBR or 160 kbps VBR. I have a lot of older stuff (from the 50's, 60's and 70's) where you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between the original and the 128 kbps VBR encode, so I use that in those cases, and I use 160 VBR for the modern stuff.

You really need to be an audiophile of the kind that buys 1000$ speaker wire to be able to delude yourself into thinking you can hear the difference. Plus, it makes for smaller files, so I can fit more music on my puny 512 MB iRiver flash MP3 player.

Even the LAME people did some double-blind listening tests and found that, at the highest-quality settings, 160kbps VBR is indistinguishable from the original CD source unless you're listening with studio-level or audiophile-level equipment.

Only use FLAC if your goal is archiving and preservation. If all you're going to do is share the music over the network to play it in other rooms, the bitrates I mentioned should be more than enough, provided you encode in VBR.

Also, the reason I recommend EAC is that it is, as far as I know, the only cd-ripping software that can rip in "secure" mode, which means that it will use as many of the features of your CD drive to try and insure that the music you're getting is exactly, bit-for-bit, what was on the CD. Other ripping software will be content with the error-corrected data that comes out of the drive, but EAC can tell you when it had to resort to this, and in the case of scratched CDs, it will over-read the damaged segments, and figure out the data. This can take longer, but the end-result is that, unless the disc was too badly damaged, you can avoid certain types of clicks and pops you would get on other software.

Thanatos

DrFrylock wrote: »

iTunes is easy but beware of lock-in. Does iTunes even let you rip to MP3? If you iLike Apple to iManage your iLife, then go for it. I personally despise iTunes and Apple, and rip everything to MP3 which is very nice. I even have an iPod (cause that goddamn wheel is so cool) running Rockbox which i rsync with my music server and it's truly beautiful. But that's not for everybody.

Yeah, I actually despise Apple as well, but it does rip to .mp3, and it is ridiculously easy to use.

wunderbar

another vote for iTunes. Every song on my iPod is 320kbps MP3, ripped from CD's in iTunes.

blincoln

shutz wrote: »

Also, the reason I recommend EAC is that it is, as far as I know, the only cd-ripping software that can rip in "secure" mode, which means that it will use as many of the features of your CD drive to try and insure that the music you're getting is exactly, bit-for-bit, what was on the CD.

I don't have it installed here at work, but I'm 99% sure CDex has all of the same options as EAC in that regard. I believe EAC was one of the first apps to include them back in the olden days, though.

fightinfilipino

i'm also going to throw in my vote for EAC. it's a bit confusing to set up at first, but there are many step by step guides that will walk you through it. once you've set it up, you simply insert a CD, open EAC and hit a button, and the CD is automagically ripped and compressed into MP3s.

EAC + ext. LAME encoder set to VBR is pretty nice.

Crashtard

WMP is the worse program I've ever used to do anything media related. Itunes is amazingly simple to use, but like some of the others said it does limit what you can do and it sometimes can be a hassle to do something with once your music is ripped into it. I've used Musicmatch Jukebox in the past, but it's not free and is a pain in the ass. One thing you can do is if you already have Itunes installed and large itunes library and want it all in mp3, download a program called Noteburner (or a free one if you can find one that does the same thing). Made my life easier.

As far as bitrate, 192k is what I use and it all sounds fine to me. On a side question, is AAC REALLY that much better?

imbalanced

I use Jetaudio as my ripper from COWON America. It is relatively fast, you can set it to use all or some of your processor's power, and you can select tons of formats to encode to (at least the non-free version does).

http://www.cowonamerica.com/download/

All my audio is saved as OGG, not MP3. If a music player doesn't support OGG, I don't purchase it.

blincoln

fightinfilipino wrote: »

once you've set it up, you simply insert a CD, open EAC and hit a button, and the CD is automagically ripped and compressed into MP3s.

If there are any ripping programs still available that don't do that, they're not worth using.

imbalanced wrote:

All my audio is saved as OGG, not MP3.

I used to do that, but got sick of not being able to play the files on things like my car stereo.

snarks

On the issue of MP3 vs AAC, the general consensus is that the lower the bitrate, the better AAC performs, and as bitrate increases, they will both sound the same. At 128kpbs, a file encoded with AAC will sound better than a MP3, though both will still sound fairly lousy. Once you hit 192kbps, there is essentially no audible difference between a MP3 file and an AAC file. I just recommend MP3 due to it's compatibility advantage over AAC (unless you have an iPod, in which case, AAC is just fine).

Crashtard

Right on. Thanks for the info snarks.

wunderbar

snarks wrote: »

On the issue of MP3 vs AAC, the general consensus is that the lower the bitrate, the better AAC performs, and as bitrate increases, they will both sound the same. At 128kpbs, a file encoded with AAC will sound better than a MP3, though both will still sound fairly lousy. Once you hit 192kbps, there is essentially no audible difference between a MP3 file and an AAC file. I just recommend MP3 due to it's compatibility advantage over AAC (unless you have an iPod, in which case, AAC is just fine).

AAC is also around 1/2 to 2/3 the file size of MP3 at the same bitrate too, that's one advantage. If more players/devices supported AAC, I'd use it all the time, but since I buy and rip CD's so I can have full control over my music, I'll rip it to a format that absolutely everything can play,

RocketScience

wunderbar wrote: »

AAC is also around 1/2 to 2/3 the file size of MP3 at the same bitrate

O_o?