CD to MP3

[Sutter]

Now that I have a stereo that plays MP3's, I wants me a program wherein I can convert my CD's to MP3. I've found a bunch of progs on the net that claim to do this, but I a bit scared of adware, trojens and the like. There was a thread a while ago suggesting progs that every Geek should have but I couldn't understand the suggestions (I think they where written in 'l33t'). What do the ZGeekers use?

[Benwah]

Windows media player works fine (let the flaming begin!)

[Sutter]

Originally posted by Benwah
Windows media player works fine (let the flaming begin!)

Beh??? I can't see any options to convert stuff on mine. it's Win 98. Do I need to download new stuff for it?

[Benwah]

'prolly need the latest version, and the latest version 'prolly only runs on 2000 / XP, if you did, it would ASK you if you want to convert to MP3 when you stuck a CD in.

[Sutter]

he he , I got me a P2-266. Don't reckon I'll be running XP. Thanks though.

[kyuss]

I use dBpowerAMP, its the most functional one i've had the pleasure of using.

dBpowerAMP download page (http://download.com.com/3000-2140-10042534.html?part=83769&subj=dlpage&tag=button)

[mrwest]

CDex (http://www.cdex.n3.net/)

[MisterBishi]

Get yourself Exact Audio Copy and a copy of lame.exe, both easy enough to find.

You'll need to find out whether your stereo will play VBR (Variable Bit Rate) MP3s, which are basically encoded at higher bit rates where the quality difference is audible and lower where it isn't, giving you the best quality/size ratio.

I think EAC is set to do VBR when you first install it, if your stereo can't play them then make sure you change it or else weird things will happen :)

[Sutter]

Thanks guys. I'm gonna try PowerAmp, if that don't suit me, I'll try the others.

[MisterBishi]

Oops, seems there were a few replies while I typed mine, with a P-266 I wouldnt bother with EAC, it'll take forever :)

[locust]

iTunes.

[midg3t]

I vote for Exact Audio Copy because it's free, powerful, and has secure mode ripping.

[scathing]

I use EAC + LAME for ripping from CDs to MP3s, but when converting from one format to another I use dBPowerAmp (which can also be made to use LAME).

The former is one of the best rippers I've ever used, and the latter is great because of the amount of codecs that will plug in, and the fact that you can just convert from Windows Explorer.

For those that care, I use the encoding option %l--alt-preset 320%l%h--alt-preset extreme%h %s %d -q 0 -V 0 --vbr-new with LAME for ultimate VBR quality. No 192k crap for me. :)

Windows Media Player won't rip to MP3 by default. Unless you "pay" for the encoder, it'll only rip WMA.

[Shootz]

Originally posted by mrwest
CDex (http://www.cdex.n3.net/) Seconded.

[Hired Goon]

Originally posted by Sutter
he he , I got me a P2-266. Don't reckon I'll be running XP. Thanks though.

Whoa - that's one old 'puter. U're gonna find it tough to run a lot of the mp3 ripping tools - as they're pretty resource hungry nowdays (ie music match grrr :mad: )

[StygiaN]

I use iTunes. It's easy and sounds good enough to me. You can set it up so that when you have the program running just pop a cd in and it starts ripping, no button clicking at all, then it pops the cd out. Makes it easy to mp3ize your collection of CD's.

Dave

[oracle]

Personally, I used AudioCatalyst for years, and I still believe to to be one of the best ripping apps available.

Once you set the directory where the mp3's will be saved in the General Settings, you insert a disc, click the "CDDB" button for automatic titling, and then click "Grab" and that's it. Two clicks! Each song takes only a few seconds if you got a speedy processor... Just make sure you untick "Use intermediate .wav file" in the mp3 settings to ensure the ripping process is a quick as possible.

[Sutter]

Originally posted by HiredGoon
Whoa - that's one old 'puter. U're gonna find it tough to run a lot of the mp3 ripping tools - as they're pretty resource hungry nowdays (ie music match grrr :mad: )

Tell me about it, converting a Basement Jaxx CD took 44 minutes! and that was with the setting on 'normal' bitrate. For good quality or cariable, it threatened 2 hours!

[midg3t]

Originally posted by scathing
I use the encoding option %l--alt-preset 320%l%h--alt-preset extreme%h %s %d -q 0 -V 0 --vbr-new with LAME for ultimate VBR quality. No 192k crap for me. :)
You might be interested in using --r3mix instead of that hefty line. Looks like the r3mix.net (http://www.r3mix.net) domain hasn't been paid for or the site is no longer, but I managed to track down this from a website (http://sy.cowiki.org/244.html#A6)...

in lame 3.9.0,
--r3mix" =
"--nspsytune \
--vbr-mtrh \
-V1 \
-mj \
-h \
-b96 \
--lowpass 19.5 \
--athtype 3 \
--ns-sfb21 2 \
-Z \
--scale 0.98 \
-X0"

[mjolnir]

Originally posted by oracle
Personally, I used AudioCatalyst for years, and I still believe to to be one of the best ripping apps available.

Once you set the directory where the mp3's will be saved in the General Settings, you insert a disc, click the "CDDB" button for automatic titling, and then click "Grab" and that's it. Two clicks! Each song takes only a few seconds if you got a speedy processor... Just make sure you untick "Use intermediate .wav file" in the mp3 settings to ensure the ripping process is a quick as possible.

yeah, same, but even the lastest version still uses ITAPI or some shit, and u can't really use it it XP. i advoided AudioGrabber cause it took so friggin long to rip tracks, but it seems they've fixed that in the latest version (it looks and works exactly like Catalyst)

[hijukal]

EAC and LAME for best mp3 quality, IMO.

[rosamund]

I vote for MusicMatch Jukebox, everytime.

I only use the free version, very simple to configure, and user friendly. Good for tagging tracks too.

[spurr]

EAC + LAME for me too. They are both free and will produce the best quality mp3 files you can get. EAC's secure mode is especially good for correctly ripping dirty or scratched CD's.

Processor power is not that much of a worry.....I have used EAC with a P233MMX! The ripping and compressing process are seperate, so you can have multiple CD's worth of tracks enqueued on your hard drive and they will be converted to MP3 in turn.

That said, I would certainly prefer to be using the latest multi-gigahertzed hyper-threading P4 to do the work!

[scathing]

I can't fucking stand MusicMatch Jukebox.

I used one of the early releases, and it was kludgy and bloated, tried to take over everything and fuck about with your music collection.

On the end user side, it had a shit interface, and the quality of the ripper was minimal. It sounded like radio quality. The actual MP3 encoder was fine, but the ripper just flattened everything.

Time hadn't improved it any since the last time I checked it, which was a few versions back.

[hijukal]

Originally posted by spurr
EAC + LAME for me too.

The ripping and compressing process are seperate

I have a mid-range machine and can do ripping and encoding on-the-fly and simultaneously.

On "make sure it rips properly" mode it still does it at around 5-10x on a 52x reader.

[chip256]

Musicmatch Jukebox. it came free with my iPod (woohoo, i have legal software now :D ), supports exporting to the ipod, and i love it's batch track tagging feature.

[scathing]

Originally posted by hijukal
I have a mid-range machine and can do ripping and encoding on-the-fly and simultaneously.

That's pretty impressive, considering EAC doesn't have an integrated encoder and so has to pass the wav file to another program.

Can you send me the link to the LAME encoder you're using that lets you a encode a wav to MP3 while its still being created? The guy who coded it must have been pretty smart. I don't know how he could work out the random file name EAC uses before it creates the wav on completion of the rip, and how it keeps tabs of which part of this dynamic file its up to as it encodes the song.

The only downside would not being able to encode VBR, but still....

[scathing]

Originally posted by chip256
Musicmatch Jukebox. it came free with my iPod (woohoo, i have legal software now :D ), supports exporting to the ipod, and i love it's batch track tagging feature.

That's right, I tried MMJB when I got my iPod. I noticed with some distaste that the interface still looked like a dog's breakfast and it ate too many resources.

Seriously, go get iTunes, Ephpod or Music Center instead. The first two are freeware, and the last is shareware. And any of them are heaps better than MMJB.

[midg3t]

It rips the WAV, starts the encoder and runs the encoder while it rips the next track.

I prefer to do them separately as ripping in Secure mode takes a fair bit of CPU time and I don't mind waiting an extra minute or two to be sure there are no errors in my rips.

Ogg Vorbis (http://www.vorbis.com/) is better than MP3 (http://www.google.com.au/url?sa=U&start=1&q=http://www.xiph.org/ogg/vorbis/listen.html&e=42)

Please, check out the samples for comparing them (http://www.google.com.au/url?sa=U&start=1&q=http://www.xiph.org/ogg/vorbis/listen.html&e=42). Vorbis is clearly superior. ... and anyone using a pre-1.0 encoder, go get the latest -- it shaves a fair bit off the file size (per quality).

Last thing, please listen to the rips in the places EAC reports sus timings, if there's a click or pop, rip it in burst mode or something... anything but the pop :)

[Uther Pendragon]

I have to add my support for cdex, it is teh goods.

or grip if you are using linux (I am assuming not)

[hijukal]

Originally posted by scathing
That's pretty impressive, considering EAC doesn't have an integrated encoder and so has to pass the wav file to another program.

If you have a codec properly installed on your system, you can save in any particular format you like (i.e. mp3, ogg, wav, aac and so on). EAC names the files as wavs but they are actually mp3s. It's actually the OS that does the "encoding". It has to "encode" a file as a wav when it saves too; just not quite as CPU intensive.

I use Sound Forge to occasionally modify mp3s and save directly to mp3 as well. mp3 encoders aren't like they were in the "olden days" (I remember setting up batch files in DOS 6; my 486 managed to encode 6 or 7 in a NIGHT! The speed!).

[hijukal]

Originally posted by midg3t
Ogg Vorbis (http://www.vorbis.com/) is better than MP3 (http://www.google.com.au/url?sa=U&start=1&q=http://www.xiph.org/ogg/vorbis/listen.html&e=42)

And isn't FLAC (http://flac.sourceforge.net/) better than both? ;)

[Psycho Jon]

Yup, Ogg is better than MP3... No question.

Ever try burning a pile of OGG files to an audio CD though?

Nero can't handle it...

[Drakin]

Originally posted by hijukal
And isn't FLAC (http://flac.sourceforge.net/) better than both? ;)

Might as well mention wav files while we are talking stupidly big formats.

11min flac file = 59meg.

[scathing]

Originally posted by hijukal
If you have a codec properly installed on your system, you can save in any particular format you like (i.e. mp3, ogg, wav, aac and so on). EAC names the files as wavs but they are actually mp3s.

So this 50MB "wav" file is actually a MP3? I'll admit the audio quality is great, but the file size is a bit bigger than I was after. I'm also having problems editing the ID3 tag in WinAMP - it won't let me.

[midg3t]

Winamp 2 doesn't read mp3s. That's why there's a 2 in Winamp 2 and a 3 in mp3.

[scathing]

Originally posted by midg3t
Winamp 2 doesn't read mp3s. That's why there's a 2 in Winamp 2 and a 3 in mp3.

But I'm using WinAMP3, which is the best version of it they've ever released!!!

[druid]

Originally posted by midg3t
Winamp 2 doesn't read mp3s. That's why there's a 2 in Winamp 2 and a 3 in mp3.

Are you fucking serious? If not, please stop the trolling.

[midg3t]

Would you like to install AOL with that?
[no]
How about now?
[no]
Or now?
[no]
C'mon... install AOL?
[no]
OK this is the last time, please install AOL.
[no]
Would you like to intall AOL?
[Cancel setup]

Winamp5 rocks!

:: mod note : try to stay on topic ::

[DrDivad]

It only asks once, there's something wrong with you, and it's a check box that you have to remember to unclick.

[Up_All_Night]

i use CD ex its simple and easy to use

[Al]

Originally posted by Psycho Jon
Yup, Ogg is better than MP3... No question.

Absolutely agree, but how many car stereos or dvd players play mp3s?

Sucks, dunnit?

I'm gonna try EAC and Lame methinks...