Audio & video software forum: Advice needed for ripping a huge music CD collection

Try mediamonkey and to fix your tags use Mp3tag v239... They are great programs. Check them up

Ive found a web site called limewire.com and it is totally free. I can burn music on to cds mp3 players and ipods.If you want to try this site all you have to do is log on to limewire.com search for the songs that you want to download, then they will appear in the library. once you have the songs you want in the library, you will then have to minimize limewire and get itunes up. Once you have done that go back to limewire click explore and drag the songs to itunes. when there all in itunes you can download them to your mp3 or burn them onto cds. I hope this is ok and that you will try limewire out if you already have not. if you have any prblems transfering them from one to the ohter please let me no andI will help you out a bit more. Debbie

I use Yahoo Music Juke box,and its free. You can rid an entire album,and it (burns CD's) very fast.that is if you have Windows XP or Vista. Try it you may like this.

I don't think you will find one program that will do all that and yet be able to rip at the best quality. There are several steps that need to be taken. If you want the highest quality, you need to go with 320 cbr AND most importantly use a good front end ripper. I have only one recommendation for that, and that is LAME. Lame is the best for mp3's, if your choice of format is mp3. The only thing, in my opinion better than mp3 would be wav, but then you are looking at even more hard drive space. Mp3 is a very good format. Just make sure you stick to 320 cbr, not vbr, and make sure you use LAME as your front end ripper.
There is one ripper that will do almost all you asked. I don't know if you can still find it. It's called A #1 cd ripper. It has a built in front end ripper using lame. It will look up your cd's in the database, and rename them. It will use lame to rip, then convert to mp3. You can choose the different settings you want. If you want to do it step by step, you would use EAC to extract from your cd to wav, then use a front end ripper with LAME to convert to 320 cbr mp3, then a convertor to look up the names and do the renameing. Good Luck to you. I'd say the most important part of the whole project is use Lame to convert to mp3. If you have a problem with space, my second choice would be using all of the above, but change 320cbr to 320vbr, that will cut your space in half, and you won't lose that much quality.

A big reason for ripping your CD's would be that a CD can get destroyed.
In that case if you have ripped it to MP3 it is also destroyed! MP3 is a lossy format that will degrade the quality of your CD and it will be heard on a good system!
If you rip the CD's to Flac you will have an exact copy of the CD but save some space. Flac is to music what zip and rar is to data files. It does some compression but does not take away anything!!!
If you burn a flac to a CD it will be an replica of the CD!
There are a few VERY good freeware programs for ripping. Alot lot of people swear by EAC personally I use dbPowerAmp which also handles ape, m4a and other lossless formats. It also will connect to FreeDB to tag all the files.
As CD's will go bad (when is not known at the moment) the best way to keep your collection intact for you and tou children is to rip them in flac and then make a copy to a HD that you don't use and store that for safety!! You can use any HD for that! A HD not in use can't go bad but a new HD for that purpose won't set you back many bucks

If yr after quality, Exact Audio Copy (http://exactaudiocopy.de/) is the way to go. It uses elaborate error correction, and is now paired with the AccurateRip database, to ensure you get an exact, bit for bit copy of any CD you try to copy.

If there are any errors in yr rip, it will tell you exactly where they are.

If yr going to all the trouble to copy every one of yr CDs, save 'em as WAV files, and compress 'em when you port 'em to yr iPod.

That's my two cents.

Cheers,

Tommy B

Uh, what happened to iTunes? It's easy, it'll get track names and artwork, what's wrong with it? It just so simple, I don't know why this is even a forum...

I haven't looked through all the replies as this is a long thread, but the best ripper is EAC (Exact Audio Copy), which takes a bit more configuring to get right compared to simpler programs, but does an excellent job, and there are many resources on the internet that can help you get started with it. If you browse forums for audiophiles, you'll find the program has high regard.

As for what to rip to, v2 or v0 is a good choice for MP3s, but if you have an abundance of hard disk drive space (hundreds upon hundreds of gigabytes, and are willing to sacrifice storage space for quality), and do not plan to use this large collection on a portable media player or any other device that is compatible only with lossy formats like mp3, then you should give consideration to ripping your entire collection to FLAC. If you do that, the music collection on your computer will be identical to the CDs (FLAC is a lossless format--and thus CD quality). Of course, with FLAC, file sizes are often 5 times as large as more common lossy formats like mp3, but there is another benefit to ripping to FLAC other than preserving audio quality--you can always convert to mp3 later (such as to put mp3s on a portable mp3 player), and of course converting hundreds or thousands of FLACs already on your computer to mp3s may take a while, but certainly doesn't require your attention--there are many programs that will just convert-convert-convert in succession as many files as you like.

Additionally, disk storage scales up at a pretty consistent rate and it if you are really interested in being able to play all of your collection at home at the same quality as CD, it isn't really that expensive to invest in a couple terabyte drives, maybe even in a RAID array--knowing that you won't ever have to rip your collection again in the future as mp3 falls out of favor.

Personally I don't rip or listen to music in FLAC yet because I don't feel like 'starting over' with my computer's resident music collection, but if I were starting over today, I would rip to FLAC.

It comes at a premium, but the quality is second-to-none and it's future-proof.

my advice would be to use lossless compression on your cds - Monkey's Audio or FLAC. You get a significant degree of compression and you can regenerate the original quality (.wav) file(s) anytime. If you wish to experiment with greater compression on any given piece of music for a mobile device, for instance, you can do so using the original .wav file(s) until you are satisfied with the size vs. audio quality parameters.

It is very bothersome having to encode each song separately from LPs. False starts and the hassle of choosing each track manually can drive you nuts! The built-in splitter is an inexact science because you can have gaps or the beginning/end of songs cut off. Believe me - with 28,000 titles, I have lived this! Use Audiograbber to encode the whole side of the LP. Then, use CoolEdit or the awesome Soundforge to visually split the tracks exactly where you want them. Unfortunately, both are not free. There are also many free Wave and MP3 splitters available.

Hi Dan,

Okay - I'm an recent (2 or so years) Apple convert, so this will be a bit Apple centric, but the same principles apply.

It sounds to me that you are trying to create a digital archive of your music, as oppose a quick rip to listen on your iPod.

If you are creating an archive, then you need to be doing it at the highest possible level - you can always convert DOWN (quality) to MP3, but you CAN'T convert UP from MP3.

In which case, ideally, you should just copy the CD onto a hard drive and not convert at all. However, there are three main arguments against this; first, you already had a master copy (the CD), so do you really need another copy at that quality level? Probably not.

Second, with lossless compression (FLAC or Apple Lossless) it is VERY difficult to distinguish between CD and a lossless version on the same equipment. Golden eared audiophiles will swear they hear the difference and good for them. But if your listening in the kitchen, living room or dinning room - even on good kit - you're not going to notice.

Third, space. Even with the plummeting price of external HDDs, 700,000 meg (700meg per album multiplied by 1000 albums) is a lot of space - you'd get it on a terabyte drive, but what about a back up? A 40 to 60 % saving on that is worthwhile.

The only other thing I would add is - back it up! Seriously - BACK IT UP! Whatever external or Network Attached Storage (NAS) you decide on, buy two and back everything up to the second one. If you lose your whole music collection for some reason, with a back up you will hardly miss a step. Without you will be telling the story for years to come!

So - in summary - if its a archive - use a lossless compression tool. Store it on an external drive or NAS and back it up.

FWIW - I use a iTunes to rip to Apple Lossless and back up to a Seagate external, which is networked on an Airport Extreme. Using an Apple Airport Express, I send my music from my MacBook in one room to my stereo in another. I've wired up my house so there is music in every room, but you could easily (and I might have done this had they been around at the time) buy multiple Airport Expresses and connect them to powered speakers round the house.

Not sure how that would work on a PC though!

Cheers

Afriend of ours ripped thousands of mp3 files to DVD's. sound is great, titles, etc. all available. I believe he used Nero. He divided the DVD's in the middle because alot of mp3 players couldn't read the whole DVD.

I did mine on my iMac also; stored alot on external hard drive, burned the others

I too have an extensive CD and Vinyl Album collection and I've been faced with this same problem in the past. After trying several different freeware solutions I finally stumbled across a suite of applications sold by Blaze Audio (www.blazeaudio.com) that serves ALL the necessary functions. You can opt to rip your selections via analog ripping or digital ripping and your files can be output to .WAV format or .MP3 with the ability to specify any bandwidth of your choosing, and any .MP3 file tags you deem necessary.

You also have available a host of supporting applications which can come in quite handy when assembling your your collection into CD's or rearranging your .MP3 files.

It's reasonably priced and your upgrades are free.

Hi Dan,

I've been doing this for many years and probably have 10 times what you are attempting to achieve, so I have LOTS of time invested as will you also. I'm an organization nut. I guess it's the old days BBS SysOp in me.

After reviewing the many suggestions offered you by other readers (I just got a tickle from CNET about your question and it's right up my alley) must agree that for someone just starting out on this serious journey, and that's what it will be, that Audiograbber is your best bet with the LAME audio codec if you want LOSSY(smaller MP3 format) or AudioGrabber with FLAC if you want to go LOSSLESS(larger FLAC exact CD copy format @ 1/2 the size of a CD).

I'm certain some will be redundant and some eye openers, but all learned from mistakes, trial and testing. That's what we're attempting to help you avoid along with wasted time and effort.

First and foremost, with a large collection of anything, backups become an issue and should be VERY IMPORTANT to you.

Cd's, DVDs and tape just don't cut it anymore. Way too much work and time, not to mention SLOOOOOOOOOOOW. You are going to be spending a LOT of time on this project and don't want to get 3/4's of the way through and possibly hundreds of hours of work only to have a drive go belly up on you and all that effort lost. BACKUP REGULARLY!!! I can't stress that enough...

Those who fail to plan, plan to fail...

With that in mind, get your system infrastructure right before you even start. Make the modest investment in a set of good high speed(7200rpm minimum with 16MB cache), reliable 500GB drives(minimum) because you have to think about down the road and need room to grow. I've lost count of the number of mp3's I have amassed over the years ripping my collection, etc. but I can tell you I have a dedicated 500GB drive that lives only for backing up 3 other 250Giggers where my music media lives and another for my video and they backup once per month. So I always have two copies and if one goes bye-bye I'm not left crying in my beer as I have in the past when the inevitable happens and it always does without fail. Drives die, they're mechanical and if you have anything of importance from family photos or video to mega music collections this is the first order of business. Get your system ready for the task... Did I mention Backing Up???

With your media system ready for loading you need software.

That's been discussed and I agree with the majority of folks here although I don't us it personally, I like WinAMP because of the low memory footprint and most importantly, the folder structure can be precisely controlled and that leads into a subject later on in the response, but AudioGrabber will work fine with the codec plug-in of your choice.

Format, what are you expecting your music to sound like on your various devices?

I for one have an MP3 CD player in my car, IPod, a Windows Media box integrated into my home entertainment system for ripping video, audio as well as playing all throughout my home simultaneously, including my yard area's where we entertain and play during the summer months. So for me MP3 works in all worlds, although it is a LOSSY format, I've discovered that ripping at a CBR (constant Bit Rate) of 224 bits, straight STEREO not JOINT STEREO, produces a good balance between file size and audio quality. Some folks like 256bits, but I found that I couldn't tell the difference in my home or car, but I wouldn't rip at any lower bit rate than 224.

My test was simple. I ripped one of my favorite Led Zep tracks in every MP3 bit rate, both JOINT STEREO and straight STEREO, burned a CD and tested in my home and car audio systems and the above settings gave me the best of all worlds and was faithful to the original with no perceptible loss in audio quality. Some folks like Joint Stereo. I don't like it, it changes the separation to my ears, but that's a personal preference.

Something else to keep in mind when deciding formats and quality is once your collection is complete you will be able to create custom native Cd's from your MP3 collection and the audio quality will be only as good as what you rip at. You have to think about the future because you only want to do this once! Did I mention backups???

On the other hand if you can't compromise on audio quality and HAVE TO HAVE CD quality, FLAC LOSSLESS ripping is the way to go and the defacto format for purist these days. The file size is generally 7 to 10 fold of MP3, but still only 50% of native pure CDA track file sizes. On the negative side, you lose the transferability of your media to other devices and probably other computers unless the codecs are installed on them for decoding. This is a great archiving of original materials format and the one I use for making copies of original Cd's so I have backups of my most cherished Cd's.

I've found that, on average a typical CD ripped to my preferred settings yields on average about 70-90MB per (6-12 tracks)CD. That's an awful lot of Cd's on a 500GB drive! My total backup drive is holding about 300GB(compressed) of MP3 CD backups. I stopped counting and worrying about the actual number of mp3's after it hit 10,000... I just keep an eye on drive space remaining and upgrade when needed. I like having all my media one mouse click away. It's nice and was worth all the time and effort up front...

Next is organization, one of the most neglected responsibilities behind backing up regularly. Starting off with a plan and well thought out strategy at the beginning will save lots of heartache and wasted time down the road.

Here's where WinAMP shines. It is totally configurable how you want to structure your folder and file naming and like the others uses FreedB for inserting ID3 tag info and file naming. I recommend the following folder structure for future ease of maintenance and finding what you want.

ARTIST-|
|
ALBUM-|
|
TRACKS

Next file naming. I recommend and found this to be the best naming convention because it sorts well in most Os's and makes searching easy:

Artist - Album - Track # - Track Title.mp3

Here are my WinAMP custom setting options strings you can cut and paste into preferences. It creates the folder structure and naming conventions above during the ripping process.

Advanced Song Title Display string:
[%artist% - ][$abbr(%album%,18) - ][%tracknumber% - ]$if2(%title%,$filepart(%filename%))

CD Ripping Naming Convention:
<Artist>/<Album>/<Artist> - <Album> - ## - <Title>

Other than that, have I mentioned Backups?

I hope this is helpful to you and helps the other folks reading this get off on the right foot so that down the road you can enjoy the fruits of your efforts even more.

Cheers,

Prey