Going way back I used DBPoweramp. Its still out there but there doesn’t appear to be a scaled down free version anymore. I just want something to turn my CD’s into MP3’s, tag them correctly etc.
Im sure this is pretty standard stuff, but to date myself…I started a project in 2001 to turn my thousands of CD’s into MP3’s. Got about 10% through and got sidetracked sometime in 2002.
Maybe Windows Media or ITunes is good for this now, idk.
I used Exact Audio Copy for this.
Yeah, iTunes or Windows Media Player can both do this easily now.
Just make sure in iTunes or Windows Media Player that you are ripping to MP3 and not ACC or WMV. Those might be the default file formats for those applications. But you can easily change.
I also use EAC to rip the audio data from CD:
I use the add-on called LAME to do the conversion to MP3. As far as I know you still have to download LAME separately from EAC but EAC will try to automatically find the LAME files it needs to do the ripping and MP3 encoding all in one go. EAC also checks an Internet database to get track and artist names and add those to the appropriate places in the MP3 file.
LAME downloads:
http://www.rarewares.org/mp3-lame-bundle.php
In most cases, if you copy a music CD in your computer’s CDROM drive to iTunes, iTunes will automatically identify the name of the artist(s), album, and songs as well as retrieve the album cover artwork, and convert each song to mp3.
True, although the “tag them correctly” part doesn’t always work for more obscure CDs.
Windows media player has a rip cd button that works well.
yes, it’s pretty much a standard feature now, the ability to rip CD’s.
The downside of iTunes is it arranges files essentially the way it wants, but if you plan to make iTunes your media library manager, then let 'er rip (so to speak).
Thanks all.
Before I start this, are there any advantages between iTunes and Media Player?
Do you have an iPhone or ipad that you want to use to play your music? I you do the iTunes is probably the easiest way to go.
Most other music players are set up to work somewhat well with iTunes because it so dominant. Windows Media Player is not so dominant so support for importing libraries from Window Media Play is not as supported. But the reality is with a small amount of effort you can easily use either with just about anything.
That’s not the ripping software’s fault, that just means the artists never bothered with CD-TEXT encoding on the CD AND nobody bothered to submit the album to CDDB. You can manually enter the track info or try a FreeDB plugin/ripper: http://www.freedb.org/en/applications__freedb_aware_applications.9.html
CD ripping is so commonplace now it’s really a standard feature. It doesn’t matter which program you want to use unless you’re an audiophile who cares about unhearable bits. Gazpacho’s explanation for the two of them was a good one.
iTunes has much better support for podcasts and the Genius Playlist, whereas WMP is just sort of a dumb and ugly player but that still works just fine for basic CD ripping.
In my opinion, CD ripping and managing MP3 files is a huge hassle. Unless you have non-mainstream music tastes or just don’t want to spend more money, it’s a lot easier just to sign up for Google Music or Spotify or similar and pay $10/mo to get access to pretty much all the major labels’ music. You can stream or download them as you please, and never bother with a CD or files again.
Do note that if you use WMP to rip, you can play your music in iTunes and sync to your phone no problem. And if you use iTunes you can play your music in WMP no problem.
Some people aren’t aware of this.