I have to quickly rip to MP3 250 CDs. What's the best way?

[SuperSanta]

Hello-

I got my wife a portable CD player for her car that reads MP3 files on CDR disks. She's got 250 or so CDs that she listens to. I was thinking it would be a nice touch to the Christmas gift to rip all her disks, but I have never done it before and am daunted by the sheer mass of disks she has.

Anyone have any suggestions as to the best way to do it? I have 3 computers that I can work simultaneously to make the job that much quicker.

I just have no idea as to the best software out there. I am willing to pay for the software, but free is always nice. More important to me would be that it would pull the CD name and tracknames off the web and format all the files the same into a naming convention like:
[artist] <albumname> - Trackname.mp3.

Any help would be appreciated!
-SS-

 

[deerslayer]

Welcome to the forums. The two that are probably most popular are CDEX and EAC with LAME encoder. I have used both, and I think the EAC route sounds better.

 

[ahartman]

EAC (rips to .wav) and Lame (encodes to .mp3).

EAC uses CDDB to go out and get the album & track info. You can format the name of the resulting file anyway you want.

 

[Beau]

Welcome to the forums!

The "best" way isn't going to be the most time-efficient way, but it will sound better. Download a copy of Exact Audio Copy and the latest L.A.M.E. encoder (3.43.1 i think), set the encoding settings to --preset extreme %1 %2, and let er rip.

The fastest way would be to download something like CDex, rip with no paranoia mode, and encode with the default encoder on the fly.

 

[MacBaine]

Do a search on google or download.com for "CD ripper" or "CD to MP3" and pick out a freeware program. You probably won't be able to get a shareware/demo program, as they have limitations (such as, only a certain number of files).

 

[Atlantean]

Lame works well... try here for a bunch of free ones/

 

[Alphazero]

Just about every good Jukebox program can get titles for your CDs from CDDB. Take a look at MP3.com's software section.

I use MusicMatch Jukebox, which is excellent, but not free. I'm pretty sure you can rip CDs in the free version, but 250 - that would be a true Christmas miracle.

 

[pulse8]

Go to r3mix.net.


They have a complete tutorial on how to rip and encode quality mp3s.

 

[mpitts]

EAC is fine and dandy, but it isn't going to help the fact that he needs to do this quickly.

 

[ragazzo]

250 cd's to rip? ouch...g'luck and happy holidays

 

[LuNoTiCK]

I also suggest you dont do them one at a time. Rip all the cd's to the hard drive, than encode them. Of course you'll have to do that a few times even with 3 computers, as hard drive space is limited.

 

[SuperSanta]

Wow, thanks everyone for the replies. I wasn't sure a lot of people bother to rip CDs since songs are so easy to get online already ripped and encoded..

I didn't think of the space needed for all those files. I have a few 80 GB drives I got for a tivo I was thinking of updating, might have to open those up to use as temp storage space.

100 disks at 650MB each would be 65GB. Yikes.
200 disks at 650MB each would be 130GB. Yeah, definately cracking open a HD.

Excellent, thanks guys and gals! Let me research the info on the posts you've left already and download what I need to start this tonite. Anyone know about how long it takes to rip and encode a full CD of music to MP3, 128 or 196? Ballpark. each system is in the range of AMD 1Ghz with 256MB ram.

Thanks again for the posts!
-SS-

 

[Antisocial Virge]

I just tried CDEX for the wifes new MP3 car player and it seems great, really fast and simple. It can use the lame encoder also.

Excellent, thanks guys and gals! Let me research the info on the posts you've left already and download what I need to start this tonite. Anyone know about how long it takes to rip and encode a full CD of music to MP3, 128 or 196? Ballpark. each system is in the range of AMD 1Ghz with 256MB ram.

I use VBR on all the encodes and it takes only a couple of minutes to do a whole cd.

 

[Atlantean]

Not too sure how long it would take... maybe 30 seconds a song at 192? You probably want to rip them at 192 so you will get better quality.

 

[Beau]

Originally posted by: SuperSanta
100 disks at 650MB each would be 65GB. Yikes.
200 disks at 650MB each would be 130GB. Yeah, definately cracking open a HD.

That's unencoded. Each disk will take maybe 80 megs using the extreme setting in lame.

 

[GasX]

Originally posted by: pulse8
Go to r3mix.net.


They have a complete tutorial on how to rip and encode quality mp3s.

Exactly - Use EAC to Rip the CDs - this is the labor intensive part because you have to sit there and swap out disks constantly. Then you use RazorLame to bulk convert to MP3 and add ID3 tags.

 

[BD2003]

There is no reason to use ANYTHING but CDex. CDex can encode the Mp3s on the fly, so you dont even need to waste disk space. It already has really high quality settings built in (use R3mix and lame built in). It will access CDDB so the filenames come out correctly. And it will group each CD into its own folder by artist and album.

Suggesting anything else is a waste of time.

 

[SuperSanta]

Beautiful, incredible posts. I heartily thank you all, and will post how things go later tonite.

Man, this is awesome, I can't wait to get in there and do this. She will be so impressed!!

-SS-

 

[Viper GTS]

Originally posted by: BD2003
There is no reason to use ANYTHING but CDex. CDex can encode the Mp3s on the fly, so you dont even need to waste disk space. It already has really high quality settings built in (use R3mix and lame built in). It will access CDDB so the filenames come out correctly. And it will group each CD into its own folder by artist and album.

Suggesting anything else is a waste of time.

CDex's encoding options leave a lot to be desired, unless there's a way to use command line only options with Lame (which I never found).

I recently ripped & encoded 200+ discs using EAC with Lame configured for external compression. I used alt preset extreme settings (via command line), & got excellent results.

CDex's attempts at VBR320 sucked.

Viper GTS

 

[BD2003]

Leave a lot to be desired in what way? The r3mix and alt-extreme presets sound great. Why would the ones from Cdex's be any different than the standard? Besides, he obviously is a man who does not feel the need to tweak each and every mp3 to the max. I'm sure if he was looking to do so, he'd already know what to use. He's trying to rip 250 CDs fast, how can you possibly suggest manually ripping and encoding?

 

[Viper GTS]

Originally posted by: BD2003
Leave a lot to be desired in what way? The r3mix and alt-extreme presets sound great. Why would the ones from Cdex's be any different than the standard? Besides, he obviously is a man who does not feel the need to tweak each and every mp3 to the max. I'm sure if he was looking to do so, he'd already know what to use. He's trying to rip 250 CDs fast, how can you possibly suggest manually ripping and encoding?

I am not suggesting manually ripping and encoding.

EAC supports configuring Lame via command line parameters, whereas CDex does not (not that I could find anyway). In short, I was able to use the alt preset extreme standards with EAC/Lame whereas I was not with CDex/Lame. CBR files ripped/encoded both ways sounded the same (as they should), but I was unable to configure Lame to sound anywhere near as good as the alt preset extreme standard SHOULD sound using CDex's config options.

If you only plan to use CBR, then CDex works great. If you want high quality VBR, then EAC/Lame is the way to go.

Viper GTS

 

[GasX]

Originally posted by: BD2003
He's trying to rip 250 CDs fast, how can you possibly suggest manually ripping and encoding?

RazorLame can do all 250 CD's in one batch. The manual part is switching the Cd's which he will have to do anyway.

 

[GasX]

Also, you mentioned using 3 PCs. Are they on a network? Start the ripping on all 3 PC's. Once you have two or three albums done on each, transfer all the files onto one. Then use that PC for encoding (RazorLame).

 

[Viper GTS]

Originally posted by: Mwilding

Originally posted by: BD2003
He's trying to rip 250 CDs fast, how can you possibly suggest manually ripping and encoding?

RazorLame can do all 250 CD's in one batch. The manual part is switching the Cd's which he will have to do anyway.

You don't even have to do that, you can configure EAC to use Lame & encode as you go. If you're using a high quality setting (like I was) your CPU won't be able to keep up. EAC will set up a queue & continue encoding even after the ripping is done.

Viper GTS

 

[dakels]

There is no real easy way to do this without a jukebox. You will be popping in a new CD for ripping every 10 minutes or so.

You should preset all MP3 formats so you don't have to do it with each new CD. For optimal CD quality without too much size go with:
128kbps Bit rate
44.100 Khz sample rate
Stereo channels

I don't recommend using VBR due to it's inconsistency.

This can be changed to your preference and what you are listening on, but if you don't want to recode them in the future, this format should be very acceptable in most cases. Any higher settings will increase your file size but the audio quality difference will most likely not be discernable to the average listener on the average sound system.

You will be popping in the CD, look up the info on the CDDB (online reference database of all track info, this is manually input by users and not always 100% correct), then use a add all to coverter or covert all command. Depending on your computer's speed, it may convert at about 10-20 seconds per minute of track time. Making a 60 minute CD take about 10-20 minutes. It depends on your CD reader's speed and CPU power/memory.

Expect each CD to take about 10-20. At that sampling and bit rate for the MP3, it will be about 1mb per minute. A 60 minute album should be around 60-80mb of HD space. You complete collection of 250 CD's may take around 18GB of HD space after it has been MP3 encoded at that setting. Each CD-R burned should hold about 700 or so minutes of MP3 encoded music. Many new DVD players and standard stereo or portable CD players can read MP3 on CD-R now. Allowing you roughly 10-12 albums worth of music on one burned CD at about CD-quality audio.