Best CD Ripper & how is ripping done?

Wayne Carver · Post by **Wayne Carver** » 14 Oct 2005 7:03 pm

I'm getting a Sandisk mp3 player for my birthday and would like to rip songs from cd's and convert them to mp3's. Is there software available that can convert to mp3's without having to record each song or opening in an editor? I have Nero 5.5, Total Recorder, Audacity & Winamp(free version) but I hate to open a lot of files in like Audacity and then saving them as a different format. I was looking at the free CD rippers like CDex from sourceforge.

Dave Boothroyd · Post by **Dave Boothroyd** » 15 Oct 2005 1:06 am

I don't do it that way myself, but I'm pretty sure that Winamp does exactly that.
Ripping is a process of copying all the 16 bit nunbers from a CD that describe how loud the sound is every 44thousandths of a second.
The ripper ignores all the error checking numbers and the track data. Then it looks through the numbers to find parts of the sound that it does not think you need to hear, and ignores those too. You can often set the sample rate of the decoder to make a small, lo-fi file or a large hi-fi file. It is the way that it makes those decisions that determines whether the final format is MP3, WMA, OGG or whatever.
Because so much is discarded, all of these formats produce a file which can be 1/24th the size of the original and still listenable.

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Cheers!
Dave

Will Holtz · Post by **Will Holtz** » 15 Oct 2005 1:10 am

I'm a bit surprised that Nero 5.5 can't do this for you. I've never tried to do anything with Nero but burn CDs, but there appeared to be a ton of other functionality there. I think CDex will do exactly what you need. Alternatively, Apple's iTunes (which is also free) makes ripping to mp3s about as idiot proof as possible.

Jack Stoner · Post by **Jack Stoner** » 15 Oct 2005 2:03 am

Audiograbber is a free CD ripping program. http://www.audiograbber.com-us.net/

It was originally a shareware program but due to the author selling some other CD utilities he had to quit selling it so he made it freeware. b0b, on the forum, uses it as do many others.

It will rip to wav or MP3.

One issue, if you want to edit the songs that have been "ripped", you need to have them in a wav format, not MP3. You can rip to wav with audiograbber and if you later want to convert them to MP3, audiograbber will do that (and it will convert a group of songs, you don't have to convert them individually). Also, if you rip songs from CD's and decide you want to make an audio "compiilation" CD you need wav files so you maintain the fidelity of the songs. MP3 is a compressed format and is not full fidelity.

Wayne Carver · Post by **Wayne Carver** » 15 Oct 2005 3:13 am

Can I upload songs from an Ipod, maybe with Itunes and downloadt them to my Sandisk player? I didn't no I could use Itunes with another brand of mp3 player.
I can change waves to mp3's with the software I have. I just thought something like CDex or Audiograbber might be easier and faster. With what I have I have to open each file in a wave editor and then save the file as an mp3. Wondered if something was available that would do this automatically. Say something that would let me choose 3 songs on a cd, click save to a certain folder and put them there as an mp3.

Will Holtz · Post by **Will Holtz** » 15 Oct 2005 9:19 am

I wasn't suggesting that iTunes would interact with your non-ipod mp3 player. Just that you could use iTunes to rip CDs and then use some other software/method to transfer them to your mp3 player.

I think you should give CDex (or the program Jack recommends) a try. Both should be able to go from CD to mp3 files with just a few clicks.

Mitch Drumm · Post by **Mitch Drumm** » 15 Oct 2005 2:06 pm

Wayne:

I have been using CDex successfully for several months. If you sniff around on the web, you will find out that it has a good reputation.

It can rip from a CD into MP3 or other formats if that's what you want to do, and it can convert from Wave to mp3 and vice versa.

It is developed using open source code, so you can get it at no charge.

Another good thing about it is that it has a relatively simple interface without a thousand different configuration options. You can accept the defaults in most cases. It has a good help file built in and works well for me.

When ripping to mp3, it makes a temporary wave file, which you can choose to keep or have it deleted after the mp3 is finished.

Best of all, you have a lot of control over the encoder that you want to use with it. The LAME mp3 encoder is built in and is the recommended choice for mp3s. Just choose it from within the options/settings menu.