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Topic: New member questions about Ripping CD to MP3 (Read 13144 times) previous topic - next topic
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New member questions about Ripping CD to MP3

I used to remember this being so easy, but that was almost 10 years ago. Reason I'm getting back into it. Had most of my music on another PC with limited space, and it crashed big time about 2 months ago. All of my music was ripped from CD's using windows media player to 128 bit MP3's.
Well I built a new PC running Win7 64 bit and now I would like to Rip my CD's again, using something that sounds as close to the original I can get. I would like to still stay with MP3's because of ease of compatibility.
I tried EAC and found it just wasn't that easy to use. Right now I have CDex and Audacity, as well as MP3Gain, which I must say is a fantastic program.
But I'm running into all sorts of issues. I rip with Media Player 12 I think it is to WAV lossless, and then take it into Audacity for my older recordings (70's and 80's), then export using Lame MP3 and then go to MP3Gain to normalize the recordings.
Somewhere along the way I lose the tags, and half the time I go back into Media Player to listen to them I lose the cover art and sometimes the MP3 files don't play at all. I ripped Roots to Branches by Jethro Tull last nigh and when I got back to media player it wouldn't play them. But heres the strange part, after trying 3 times to play them and about 15 - 20 minutes, they started working, it almost seemed If it took that long to update the files. I'm on DSL and I can't believe t could take that long.
Please fill me in on the best way to do what I'm doing, because I must be doing something really wrong. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

New member questions about Ripping CD to MP3

Reply #1 –
Quote from: bsmooth on
But I'm running into all sorts of issues. I rip with Media Player 12 I think it is to WAV lossless, and then take it into Audacity for my older recordings (70's and 80's), then export using Lame MP3 and then go to MP3Gain to normalize the recordings.
Somewhere along the way I lose the tags, and half the time I go back into Media Player to listen to them I lose the cover art and sometimes the MP3 files don't play at all.


I think the problem is that there isn't a real standard way to put tags in wav files. 

If you found EAC difficult I suggest dbpoweramp (from dbpoweramp.com).  The ripper isn't free, but not really expensive either, and there's a free trial period so you don't have to pay until you see if you like it.

You can rip to FLAC (lossless) for archiving then convert to mp3, or just direct to mp3.  The tags should carry through.

New member questions about Ripping CD to MP3

Reply #2 –
Maybe we could help you out with EAC. What guide were you using? What errors did you get? If you have an EAC log, please post it.

You might also want to check out foobar2000 as a ripper.

New member questions about Ripping CD to MP3

Reply #3 –
In addition to twostar's request for a little more detail on your EAC experience, what are you using Audacity for?
"Not sure what the question is, but the answer is probably no."

New member questions about Ripping CD to MP3

Reply #4 –
I was using Audacity for changing the Wav files to MP3 files using the Lame library that you can get for Audacity. I posted this question on the EAC forums, and was told there working on it.
"First when I have a CD in the drive and try and use the EAC player and stop it playing using the stop button I get a big red X and get an error. After that the player won't work again.
I have tried the program twice, once setup as using Flac and the other MP3's. When I had it set for Flac and tried to burn MP3's all I got was wav files. Also tried to set the command line to burn mp3's after I put in the Lame MP3 files."
As I said If you have suggestions on what I should use that would be great.

I also use Audacity for playing with older recordings that sounded dull or to tinny sounding. Some have basically no bass at all either so I get to play recoding engineer too. I used to do this all the time way back in the days of Reel to Reel recorders, different kinds of tapes and old tube amps as well. Did the same thing with Cassettes using a Nakamichi Deck. Just because there called Digital recordings doesn't mean there perfect by any means.
Especially when recording engineers basis for a good recording relies on My CD must be just as loud as someone elses. Ok maybe the recording starts out great but in the mix down it gets trashed. I'm sure you know what I'm talking about . But it sure was a wakeup call for me.
I'm just trying to find the best way to transfer my CD's to my Hard drive, keeping all the Tags intact, and maybe make a couple Mixed CD's along the way I can play on my DVD player for my home system.

New member questions about Ripping CD to MP3

Reply #5 –
Quote from: bsmooth on
I was using Audacity for changing the Wav files to MP3 files using the Lame library that you can get for Audacity. I posted this question on the EAC forums, and was told there working on it.


You don't need Audacity.  Have your ripper encoder to mp3 (e.g. eac, cdex, etc).  That way tags will be preserved. 

New member questions about Ripping CD to MP3

Reply #6 –
Quote from: bsmooth on
I was using Audacity for changing the Wav files to MP3 files using the Lame library that you can get for Audacity. I posted this question on the EAC forums, and was told there working on it.
"First when I have a CD in the drive and try and use the EAC player and stop it playing using the stop button I get a big red X and get an error. After that the player won't work again.
I have tried the program twice, once setup as using Flac and the other MP3's. When I had it set for Flac and tried to burn MP3's all I got was wav files. Also tried to set the command line to burn mp3's after I put in the Lame MP3 files."
Working on what? And you need to understand the distinction between ripping (a CD to audio files of whichever type) and burning (audio files to a new CD) because it makes it difficult to understand what you mean.

Quote
As I said If you have suggestions on what I should use that would be great.
Have you tried Hydrogenaudio wiki’s EAC guides?

New member questions about Ripping CD to MP3

Reply #7 –
@bsmooth, if you rip to FLAC with EAC, the tags will be preserved when you import the FLAC into Audacity and then export to MP3.

For files that you don't want to do any tweaking to, saratoga's suggestion to rip straight to MP3 will save you quite a bit of time, and seeing as EAC can store multiple profiles, you can set one up for ripping to FLAC and one for ripping to MP3 via LAME and then just switch between them as needed.
"Not sure what the question is, but the answer is probably no."

New member questions about Ripping CD to MP3

Reply #8 –
Quote
All of my music was ripped from CD's using windows media player to 128 bit MP3's.

Which is precisely why as DonP suggested, rip to flac or other lossless format..This way you don't have to re-rip again in the future..Just use the lossless tracks to convert > whatever lossy or other lossless format of your choice, while preserving tags..
You can actually rip to mutli formats using dBpoweramp..

New member questions about Ripping CD to MP3

Reply #9 –
Sorry just used the wrong terms I meant ripping MP3's. But as I said I had multiple problems using EAC:
"First when I have a CD in the drive and try and use the EAC player and stop it playing using the stop button I get a big red X and get an error. After that the player won't work again.
I have tried the program twice, once setup as using Flac and the other MP3's. When I had it set for Flac and tried to rip MP3's all I got was wav files. Also tried to set the command line to burn mp3's after I put in the Lame MP3 files."

So far I'm having to spend lots of time and have lost tags and had to go to Wav and then to MP3 using Audacity, because I couldn't get EAC to work right.
As I said before sounds like a simple process, but so far it isn't. EAC has been a pain, definately not the asiest program to use, especially the command line.
I'm willing to try EAC again, but its pretty frustrating to use.

New member questions about Ripping CD to MP3

Reply #10 –
You’ve still not specified which guides for EAC you were using, so it’s difficult to draw conclusions as to what might be going wrong. I linked this site’s own earlier, which are well-researched and should be quite easy to apply; did you try them at all?

New member questions about Ripping CD to MP3

Reply #11 –
I was here and did try the guide, but I haven't been through it all. Very frustrating program to use, which is one of the reasons I deleted it completly off my PC. I'm sure its a great program, although CDex seems to be much easier to use, although its doesn't seem to preserve Tags very well at all. Ages ago I used to use Roxio to do my burning, but its turned into a bloated whale of a program.
I think there was also a guide at the EAC site, but it wasn't of much use to me at all.
Do you just rip all your CD's to your PC without making any changes at all, because some of the recordings are better than others.

New member questions about Ripping CD to MP3

Reply #12 –
Quote
I'm sure its a great program, although CDex seems to be much easier to use
As long as your CDs are in good condition, and you're not getting rip errors, your choice of software isnt that critical.  But, I don't think CDex supports AccurateRip[/u], and I don't know if it reports read errors or not.  (The main reason I switched to EAC from whatever I was using was because my old software wasn't reporting errors, and I never knew there was a problem until I heard something wrong...)

Quote
...although its doesn't seem to preserve Tags very well at all.
I'm not sure what you mean by "preserving" tags.  There are no tags on the CD.  The information gets pulled from an online database and the tags are written when the file is written.  (I don't know if these programs use the same database.)  Sometmes there are errors or typos in the database, and sometimes you might not like the "style".    This is another benefit to keeping a tagged "master archive"... You can correct the tags as-needed and use a consistant style.

Quote
Do you just rip all your CD's to your PC without making any changes at all, because some of the recordings are better than others.
Very-very rarely do I feel the need to "remaster" a CD.  When I do, I'm usually just boosting the highs on an old 1950's or 1960's recording.    If there is talking at the beginning/end of a track, sometimes I'll edit that out and if it's a "live" recording, I'll fade-in and fade-out the crowd noise on the individual tracks.

Quote
Ages ago I used to use Roxio to do my burning, but its turned into a bloated whale of a program.
What's burning got to do with it? 

New member questions about Ripping CD to MP3

Reply #13 –
Well I put EAC back in my PC again. I set it (for now) to extract into MP3's during the install. I only mentioned burning as I may want to make some compilation CD's or even DVD's at a later date once I get all my music on my PC. I would like to set up EAC to preserve tags, so I can later use the MP3's in Windows Media player.

New member questions about Ripping CD to MP3

Reply #14 –
Ok it now works like it supposed to. I think the original EAC file may have been corrupted. So excuse my comments earlier. However it seems to be very slow writing files. Yes I went the way of quality over speed, but its taking forever, and all my CD's are scratchfree, so is there a way to speed things up?
Also I am putting the files in My Music folder as a location, but when the files extract, they don't extract to the Artist or name of Album. I other words I extracted The album Deluxe by Better Than Ezra. So I would like the files to be C:\Users\Bruce\Music\Better Than Ezra\Deluxe. Is there a way to do that with EAC other than getting the folders ready ahead of time before I put the Mp3 files in?

New member questions about Ripping CD to MP3

Reply #15 –
Again you seem to be confusing reading and writing. If you mean that EAC is slow ripping your discs then we need to know what settings you are using. Most people seem to select settings that are much slower than necessary.

You can easily have EAC write the files in a directory structure such as you mention, but you need to set that up.

New member questions about Ripping CD to MP3

Reply #16 –
Ok where do I find those settings?, Then I'll post them here.

New member questions about Ripping CD to MP3

Reply #17 –
Quote from: DVDdoug on
But, I don't think CDex supports AccurateRip[/u], and I don't know if it reports read errors or not.

It doesn't support AccurateRip. And the only "error-reporting" it has ever given is a "X" that means something went wrong with the rip.

Although for some discs that are impossible for EAC to rip error-free trying CDex with the "Paranoia, Full" ripping method enabled can sometimes get an audible error-free rip - if luck is on ones side.

New member questions about Ripping CD to MP3

Reply #18 –
Quote from: bsmooth on
Ok where do I find those settings?, Then I'll post them here.

Open EAC options dialog by pressing F9. Go to the Tools tab. You should see this.

Tick Automatically write status report after extraction.

Rip a CD again. You should find a log file in the folder where your ripped MP3s are. Post the contents here and we'll take a look.

New member questions about Ripping CD to MP3

Reply #19 –
Ok thanks very much, I'll do that tonight. I did look at the speed, not sure if it was reading or writing, but it was around 7x If I recall. I also noticed sometimes I don't get cover art, not quite sure why at this point.
I did two rips of the same song though, one using windows media player and one using EAC, both using 256 bit rate, and the EAC one sounded much better.

New member questions about Ripping CD to MP3

Reply #20 –
Quote from: bsmooth on
I did two rips of the same song though, one using windows media player and one using EAC, both using 256 bit rate, and the EAC one sounded much better.

If you really did hear a difference (which I doubt) then that is not a difference in ripping. At best you might hear a very slight difference in mp3 encoder quality, but at 256 kbps that is also unlikely.

New member questions about Ripping CD to MP3

Reply #21 –
Not only did I hear it, but I had my wife listen as well , and she could hear a difference also. I thought maybe I had my Window media Player set differnetly for ripping quality, but it was the same. I definately think theres a difference in encoder quality. Thats the reason I wanted to switch over from ripping in WMP.
Thats what I love about the little 2.1 Klipsches I have, they do sound very well, not as good as the floor standing ones of course.

New member questions about Ripping CD to MP3

Reply #22 –
You need to provide objective evidence through a series of double blind tests.  Further posts about sound quality without objective evidence supporting your claims will be binned.  Please read TOS #8 if you have any questions:

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=3974

New member questions about Ripping CD to MP3

Reply #23 –
Quote from: bsmooth on
I thought maybe I had my Window media Player set differnetly for ripping quality, but it was the same.

It's been documented before that WMP can alter the ripped audio prior to encoding, with normalization (a change in level) actually being enabled by default in some instances.

Be sure to check all the settings in WMP, not just the bitrate.
"Not sure what the question is, but the answer is probably no."

New member questions about Ripping CD to MP3

Reply #24 –
Only 2 things I checked in WMP and that was what type of file, and what the quality was, so i had it set to MP3 and 256 bit rate. As far as what it sounds like, I suppose as long as it sounds good to me thats all I or anyone else needs to know. "Different strokes as they say for different folks"
Wasn't meant to start arguments, I've seen enough flame wars to know why #8 is in place, and they(flaming) never seem to accomplish much anyways.
Thanks for the heads up on #8