Grabbing file off an audio CD

Muse

Lifer
Jul 11, 2001
40,564
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I work at a radio station (volunteer) and a coworker made a recording of a one hour show to an audio CD. We have a device at the station that creates a CD that you can play in an ordinary CD player. I never use it personally, bringing in an MP3 recorder. However, I want to get a copy of this one hour show he did, so he's leaving me the audio CD to copy. I could bring in my laptop and just make a CD copy, but I'm thinking maybe I can avoid that hassle and just use a Mac there to copy the .cda file from the CD to my flash drive.

1. Could I do that?

2. Could I then burn that .cda file to a CD using Nero and it would play in a CD player?

3. Could I eliminate the process of burning the file to a .cda and just create an MP3 from it somehow?

Thanks for help.
 

kalrith

Diamond Member
Aug 22, 2005
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Can't you just use any CD ripping software to rip an MP3 file (or the format of your choice) from the CD? You could then copy that file to your flash drive. If you're concerned about quality, I think all CD ripping software has a lossless option.
 

Muse

Lifer
Jul 11, 2001
40,564
10,019
136
Can't you just use any CD ripping software to rip an MP3 file (or the format of your choice) from the CD? You could then copy that file to your flash drive. If you're concerned about quality, I think all CD ripping software has a lossless option.
Well, I guess there are various options. My main concern in this one thing is that I'd like to avoid having to bring my PC laptop to the station. Is there a way I can do my processing at home (i.e. create my MP3 at home), firstly (at the station) getting the data from the audio CD using just one of the Mac's at the station, the audio CD and my 4 GB flash drive?
 

kalrith

Diamond Member
Aug 22, 2005
6,628
7
81
The Macs might have built-in software for CD ripping. I know nothing about Macs, but maybe you can click on the CD drive and get some options for that. Also, I would think that they'd have iTunes installed on there.

The only other options are to either burn another copy of the CD and take that home or take the original copy home and bring it back. I'm not sure if either is an option for you.
 

Muse

Lifer
Jul 11, 2001
40,564
10,019
136
The Macs might have built-in software for CD ripping. I know nothing about Macs, but maybe you can click on the CD drive and get some options for that. Also, I would think that they'd have iTunes installed on there.

The only other options are to either burn another copy of the CD and take that home or take the original copy home and bring it back. I'm not sure if either is an option for you.
Yeah, it was cool for me to take it home and that's what I did. I'm going to rip to MP3. Did a little search and came up with a bunch of hits. Guess I'll DL CDex and use it.

Edit: Looks like I already have version 1.50 installed, from last February. I'll use that.
 
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ChaiBabbaChai

Golden Member
Dec 16, 2005
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Yeah CDex is good, I like dBpoweramp more but it's not free. By the way, .cda is not a file you can copy and play. CD Audio (see where .cda comes from?) need to be ripped to either .WAV (the full lossless file) or an encoded format (lossy) such as .mp3 .m4a .flac .ape among others
 

Muse

Lifer
Jul 11, 2001
40,564
10,019
136
Yeah CDex is good, I like dBpoweramp more but it's not free. By the way, .cda is not a file you can copy and play. CD Audio (see where .cda comes from?) need to be ripped to either .WAV (the full lossless file) or an encoded format (lossy) such as .mp3 .m4a .flac .ape among others
I ripped it to WAV and then ripped the WAV to MP3. CDex was pretty easy to use, intuitive, no need to dive into Help. However, I had to bring the disc home and I need to remember to bring with when I go into the station tomorrow.
 
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