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Hi there folks, im not a techie guy by nature so I must ask your advice. Im planning on buying a 20gb portable mp3 player in the next week or so, but I want to start copying my CDs to my computer so I can be ready to transfer them to the player.

What is the best free mp3 ripper program out there at the mo and where can I get it?

Thanks,

Doc

Windows Media Player. I shit thee not. It makes WMA files out of your CD tracks. Then you just convert them to Mp3's using any conversion program. Just do a Google Search.

I'm sorry, but I respectfully must argue against YT300000's recommendation. Transcoding between WMA and MP3 should never be done, as it sends the sound quality to hell due to it introducing encoding errors from both codecs into the stream.

I'd recommend CDex using the LAME encoder plugin (set to --alt-preset standard or --alt-preset extreme) and CDParanoia turned on (it has error checking and correction). The rip rate is slower, but the audio is pretty much guaranteed to come out decent. Exact Audio Copy is also a good program (it's what I use), but a bit harder to use than CDex.

EDIT: Though if you're ripping for use in a portable, "--alt-preset standard" is preferable due to the smaller filesize.

Datana wrote:I'm sorry, but I respectfully must argue against YT300000's recommendation. Transcoding between WMA and MP3 should never be done, as it sends the sound quality to hell due to it introducing encoding errors from both codecs into the stream.

I find that WMA Editing Studio (or something similar, don't remember exact name) works very well, with excellent quality. Then again, I have not that great speakers, so maybe it's just my standards.

YT300000 wrote:I find that WMA Editing Studio (or something similar, don't remember exact name) works very well, with excellent quality. Then again, I have not that great speakers, so maybe it's just my standards.

I tend to use headphones much of the time (too many people around), and it's pretty easy to pick out a transcoded MP3 on those. They also show up if you burn a CD with a transcoded track and play it back in a CD player with good speakers. On standard PC speakers, it doesn't show up nearly as much, but I mentioned the transcoding issues specifically because DocHorror said he was going to use a portable (and hence, probably headphones).

Is the program you're using Active WMA Studio?

Ah, here it is. The program is Advanced WMA Workshop.

Regardless, you're still wasting time and decreasing quality if you rip to anything WMA (unless you use lossless mode) and transcode to MP3.

Use Exact Audio Copy in conjunction with LAME using the --alt-preset standard option. It will automatically compensate for read errors that your CD reader may find on the disc. In addition, it will automatically tag your files with information if you tell it to use freeDB (the competitor to CDDB)

I use CDex and would recommend it. It's pretty easy to use and you get great sounding mp3's from it.

I like grip. Mind you, you need Linux for that.

Whatever you do, please for the love of Goddess, DON'T USE WMA!!!

Everytime I play one (even one I test-converted from an old WAV I snarfed from the Internet!) it pops open a browser window pointing at

http://drmlicense.one.microsoft.com/pdr ... ?challenge = Reallyfuckinglongstringofletters that needs a line break, EIN! ~Heavy D

and then REFUSES TO PLAY THE WMA! Fuck you RIAA.

IBM. I Blame Micro$oft.

I use Easy CD-DA Extractor 6.

It has LAME, Fraunhofer (up to 56k, google for the Radium codec) Ogg, WMA, Monkey's Audio, and some other formats built in. The interface is simple and easy to use. It'll automatically ID3 tag your rips.

Of course a good ripper program needs a good CD drive to rip from.
One word: Plextor.

Musicmatch works for me.

http://www.musicmatch.com

Einhander Sn0m4n wrote:Whatever you do, please for the love of Goddess, DON'T USE WMA!!!

Everytime I play one (even one I test-converted from an old WAV I snarfed from the Internet!) it pops open a browser window pointing at

http://drmlicense.one.microsoft.com/pdr ... ?challenge = Reallyfuckinglongstringofletters that needs a line break, EIN! ~Heavy D

and then REFUSES TO PLAY THE WMA! Fuck you RIAA.

IBM. I Blame Micro$oft.

Well, if you can *use* and earlier version of medial player and then use unfuck to remove the security bs form the file...

But we know that will never happen as most people are using MP 8 or higher by now...

EmperorMing wrote:

Einhander Sn0m4n wrote:<SNIP Anti-WMA Rant> Fuck you RIAA.

IBM. I Blame Micro$oft.

Well, if you can *use* and earlier version of medial player and then use unfuck to remove the security bs form the file...

But we know that will never happen as most people are using MP 8 or higher by now...

What's Unfuck? I just delete the offending WMA and get a nice fat unDRMed MP3 off Kazaa within minutes...