I am writing a powerpoint program and I want to copy a song from my 10,000 Maniacs CD onto my computer so I can use it in the presentation. But it is being very unhappy and not letting me do it. Is there a way to copy the song into a .wav format? What gives?
You’ll need a CD digital audio extraction tool, such as cdex or cdparanoia. Drag and drop copying through file managers does not work in general, but the KDE file manager has supported this feature for a while.
I like the CDex mentioned above because it is free and it also allows you to copy partial tracks. But I believe it doesn’t convert to mp3 format, because mp3 encoders usually have licensing costs.
What are you trying to use to rip the CD? Also note that WAV = ~10MB/minute. A four minute song is likely to be 45MB or so in WAV format. Do you really want a 50MB PPT? What 10kM song is it? I can convert it to WMA for you - which has to be office friendly and will only be 1-2MB in size.
Do you have Windows? If so, you can get the latest Windows Media Player that your system allows (I BELIEVE 98 and up will install 9, the latest) and it will rip the CD automatically to WMA format.
And, if you’re so lucky, since PPT is a Microsoft program it will let you use WMA files.
If the Windows Media Player doesn’t do it automatically, put in the CD, open up WMP, and click on “Copy From CD” on the menu on the left.
Also I’m not 100% sure but I think you do need to be using a CDRW drive when doing this. I have never tried it on a CDRom drive.
http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/ - EAC (or exact audio copy) is pretty much the standard for “ripping” songs. You’ll also want to get the LAME encoder which will convert the .wav files to .mp3. Do a search on the net and you should be able to find a compiled version of lame for a win32 environment.
[QUOTE=bhbYou’ll also want to get the LAME encoder which will convert the .wav files to .mp3.[/QUOTE]
But can you embed an MP3 into a PPT? I know WMA works, but don’t know about MP3.
Blornx: CDex does rip to mp3.
ZipperJJ: You don’t need to use a CD-RW drive to rip, you only need one to burn. Well, at any rate, my DVD drive has no problem reading the CDs and I rip them through that.
Rex Fenestrarum: It looks like you can embed mp3s. I kinda glossed it over so I don’t know if it’s exactly precise, but it seems to have the information required.
I’m doing something very similar right now, Phlosphr, and i’m using the dbPoweramp music converter. It takes wav and cda files from CDs and rips them straight to mp3s using the excellent LAME encoder.
You can choose Variable Bit Rate (VBR), or Constant Bit Rate (CBR), with a range of 32-320kbps.
Its really easy to use, and gives great results. As others have suggested, you don’t want to put a huge wav file in your Powerpoint presentation if you can avoid it.
And mp3s can be inserted into Powerpoint no problem. I just tried it to make sure. You just go to:
Insert > Movies and Sounds > Sound from File.
Choose the music file you want, and click “Open” on the dialog box. Powerpoint will then ask you whether you want the sound to play automatically in the presentation, or whether you want to play it by clicking it manually.
Actually, now that i think about it, if you decide that you do want a wav file, you might be able to insert it straight into the Powerpoint presentation from the CD, by using the procedure i’ve described above. After all, when you put something into Powerpoint, the program copies the file and keeps it in the Powerpoint file, so it should just copy the file straight off the disc. This may not work, but it’s worth a shot.
BTW:
dbPoweramp is completely free.