mp3 conversion

thelad

My mate has bought a top of the range TV/Sound system and wants to transfer his 1000 cds and Audio Cassettes to PC in MP3 format, Can someone suggest the best programme to do this?? Preferrably one that will automatically rip and retain all the track listings etc and also organise the music?
Also he will need ggod software for ripping the Audio Tapes but will ne need some kind of Audio Card or will the standard Audio Ports work for capturing the sound?
Thanks in advance

TerrorFirmer

For the CD's, XP does a decent job of ripping, and it auto updates the track listings and the track names when you connect to the net

SickBoy

Chechout Audiograbber
It will do the tapes too but it's a little bit tricky

Explosive_Cornflake

Exact Audio Copier is what i would Recommend. Set it up right, and it'll put everything into the folder you want it too.
I recomend EAC cuz it's supposed to be the dogs Pyjamas for ripping.
As long as your online it'll get the titles for you.
I'm sure someone else will Recommend something else, but that's just my 2c's

Mutant_Fruit

It all depends. If he wants error-free ripping, he should get Exact Audio Copy and use Secure mode. Its slow, but error free. It does the best job on CD's with (any) scratches on em, be they big or small. Most ripping programs are built for speed, and they're all the same qualitywise. But they all fall down when it comes to cd's with scratches. You end up with "pops" in your music.

EDIT: EAC can be set to extract music to ANY folder structure you could imagine (nearly). Such as e:\Music\<Genre>\<Artist>\(<Album_Year>) <Album_Title>\<Track_Num>. <Track_Title>

Any half decent ripper allows you to do this though.

Mr. Presentable

http://cdexos.sourceforge.net/

This is your man. It's free, easy and does the job.

zep

As suggested earlier, EAC for ripping is a must. But along with this you need a convertor as EAC is just the ripper part. Lame with Razorlame is my recommendation for the compression. The best version of lame is 3.90.3, the only problem is that it really needs to be set-up right to give the best results. Someone new to this software may fine it a pain to set-up. Razorlame is the GUI for Lame. Hope this helps.

Giblet

For Tapes:
Record a stream using your Audio input at the highest rating possible, use a sound editing tool to create tracks and use LAME to compress to -Alt Preset Extreme (-APS)
Try the Goldwave trial (http://www.goldwave.com) for audio stream recording.

For CDs:
Use EAC, Secure mode and then use LAME for compression. Use -Alt Preset Standard (-aps) or -Alt Preset Extreme (-APE). For truly lossless audio use FLAC.

In EAC press ALT+G to get the proper titles. Then use the freeware program CDTAG to tag them to the standard format.

Mutant_Fruit

Giblet wrote:

In EAC press ALT+G to get the proper titles. Then use the freeware program CDTAG to tag them to the standard format.

Or just let EAC tag them.... you can control all tags, filenamr and directory structure from EAC. Theres no need to use an external app.

thelad

Thanks for the info lads (-;

gaizka71

Has anyone used nero for ripping it does a good job...

Explosive_Cornflake

I used to use it ages ago, after something else i used, one of the first rippers, what was that caleed, anyway, long story short, nero pissed me off, wasn't great quality, records scractehs and so on, and i didn't know till months later until i listened to the discs. And it always defaults to mp3 pro on me, and that's a big bag of sh1te. Anyway, haven't used nero in ages, but if i'm ripping now a days, it's EAC that i use.

Mutant_Fruit

Nero is just as good as any ripping program built for speed. But EAC is built for secure ripping, not speed, which is what makes it better if you want a quality rip. Where Nero/MusicMatch/iTunes might feck up on a scratched CD, EAC won't.

Giblet

CDTag creates the SFV and NFO files, also EAC can mess up, but will give you reports, and you can use CRC to check.

Mutant_Fruit

Giblet wrote:

also EAC can mess up, but will give you reports.

If EAC can't rip it, nothing can. Thats the way i look at it, and i've never been proven wrong. There are some that EAC can't rip, but generally if you have a really good CD reader, and set it to 1x, you can get pretty much anything ripped, even some badly scratched cd's.

Creamy Goodness

Giblet wrote:

CDTag creates the SFV and NFO files, also EAC can mess up, but will give you reports, and you can use CRC to check.

just out of pure curosity what do these files do?


also i use EAC and haven't come across one cd that it hasn't ripped (i've ripped about 100 cd's)

Giblet

SFV is a Simple File Verificator, basically. You can check to see if any files are corrupt or missing. A NFO file displays information about the album.

Mutant_Fruit

SFV's are all well and good, just for those of ye who don't know what they are, they are only useful if you are transporting the MP3's via the internet or other such things and want to double check they didn't get corrupted along the route.

They can't tell if the song is full of skips due to an improperly ripped scratched disc.

thelad

just an update on this, m8 has no internet connection in house, is there anywhere I can download a full database with all the cd titles already in there??
Cheers

DemonOfTheFall

http://www.freedb.org/

Go to the download section and download the database. Then you can point EAC at the database and get all your info from it.

thelad

that's brill!! Thanks