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Is this a good plan for making an MP3 collection?

MichaelD

MichaelD

Lifer
Hi all,

Since I've got my FTP up, and my IP relatively stable (thank you, FreePing) I'm going to start on the monumental task of ripping/encoding my 250-some-odd CDs to put up on the server. Up until very recently, I didn't know you had to rip the tracks first, then encode to MP3...what a newbie...😛 Shows you how new I am at this.

Just b/c I paid around $14 per CD doesn't mean you shouldn't be able to copy it for free, right? 😉

Per The FAQ (yeah man, I read the FAQ!:Q) I found out that Lame is the best proggy, for QUALITY MP3s. I also found out that Exact Audio Copy is excellent for ripping from CD to .wav.

I am a complete newbie when it comes to this. Never used Napster or Kazaa. Don't own a portable MP3 player. (Blasphemy, I know!) But I'm willing to learn.

Are these proggys good choices on my part? Thanks.
 
I use Musicmatch to rip my CD's. Goes right from CD -> Mp3. Doesn't give you 320kbps unless you buy it though! I rip at 160kbps (CD Quality)
 
Yep... Exact Audio Copy and LAME are excellent tools...

After you set them up (which is very easy to do), all you need to do is simply insert an audio CD, click a button and let it rip & encode all the songs into mp3's....

Very easy to use...
 
I use Exact Audio Copy
And you can download LAME here
Text
unzip this file ^^ and put it onto your hard drive, EAC will find it for you 🙂
 
Screw Musicmatch! CDex all the way!!! It uses LAME and does the same thing, track -> .mp3, and a lot more (CDDB, partial tracks, VBR, etc.)
 
This is how I did it when I ripped my 200+ CD's recently.

Use EAC to rip it. Be sure to use a good directory structure. I recommend /Artist/Album/Track #-Track Name. EAC can interface with CDDB (either that or FreeDB) to download this info easily and quickly (alt-g in EAC).

Use Razor Lame to setup batch encoding of the .wav files you ripped with EAC. Razor Lame is just a front end to Lame that gives you a nice GUI to make things easier.

Of course LAME is the encoder of choice.

And to finish it, use Tag and Rename to put in the ID3 tags.

Now the specifics. Rip using EAC with a good directory structure. Just rip a bunch of CD's all at once, don't encode them. And overnight, run Razor Lame to encode them all. Then using pattern matching (this is why the directory structure is important), add the ID3 tags using Tag and Rename.

Hope that helps.
 
Originally posted by: BCYL
Yep... Exact Audio Copy and LAME are excellent tools...

After you set them up (which is very easy to do), all you need to do is simply insert an audio CD, click a button and let it rip & encode all the songs into mp3's....

Very easy to use...
Click to expand...


OK, humor the neophyte here. I am under the impression that I have to:

1. Rip from CD to .wav or .wmp using Exact Audio Copy. Save that file to disc.

THEN

2. Take file out of folder from step one, use LAME, create MP3 from file created in step one


After you stop laughing...am I incorrect?
 
Originally posted by: nord1899
This is how I did it when I ripped my 200+ CD's recently.

Use EAC to rip it. Be sure to use a good directory structure. I recommend /Artist/Album/Track #-Track Name. EAC can interface with CDDB (either that or FreeDB) to download this info easily and quickly (alt-g in EAC).

Use Razor Lame to setup batch encoding of the .wav files you ripped with EAC. Razor Lame is just a front end to Lame that gives you a nice GUI to make things easier.

Of course LAME is the encoder of choice.

And to finish it, use Tag and Rename to put in the ID3 tags.

Now the specifics. Rip using EAC with a good directory structure. Just rip a bunch of CD's all at once, don't encode them. And overnight, run Razor Lame to encode them all. Then using pattern matching (this is why the directory structure is important), add the ID3 tags using Tag and Rename.

Hope that helps.
Click to expand...

Whoa. You posted while I was typing my previous post that you answered all my questions in. 😕 Thanks very much nord1899! Good stuff there!

 
Originally posted by: WHSLacrossekid
I use Musicmatch to rip my CD's. Goes right from CD -> Mp3. Doesn't give you 320kbps unless you buy it though! I rip at 160kbps (CD Quality)
Click to expand...
MichaelD two suggestions: always use the "high" quality setting, and try different bitrates on something complex to find out what seems like "CD quality" to you -- for me, even 192kbps is only "near CD quality" so I'm trying out 256kbps to see how happy I am with it. Storage is cheap and 128kbps is craptastic 😉
 
Originally posted by: Electric Amish
You should be able to rip directly from the CD to MP3.

CDex allows that, anyway.
Click to expand...
Indeed. Takes about 5 minutes to rip an entire CD directly to mp3 for me.

 
I think I've got it, but I need clarification on one thing:

Does Razorlame REPLACE Lame 3.92 or is Razorlame an ADDON for Lame 3.92.

IOW, after I install EAC, do I install 3.92, then razor, or just razor?
 
So you guys are saying that CDEX definitely makes better sounding MP3s than Musicmatch Jukebox? No flames! 😉

I was thinking of re-encoding my CDs, since I did them all at 160kbps. Would it be worth it if I used CDEX instead? TIA-
 
Originally posted by: MichaelD
I think I've got it, but I need clarification on one thing:
Does Razorlame REPLACE Lame 3.92 or is Razorlame an ADDON for Lame 3.92.
IOW, after I install EAC, do I install 3.92, then razor, or just razor?
Click to expand...
Install 3.92 (and Razorlame if you want it) before EAC not after, then EAC will find the LAME dll during its setup process. EAC doesn't need razorlame and I haven't used rl, so no idea whether it is worth installing.

 
www.r3mix.net should help.

I use EAC and lame with --alt preset standard. Produces mp3s around 192kpb, with really high quality and conserves space. They know more about it, I just spent some time reading their forums and settled on that
 
Originally posted by: MazerRackham
So you guys are saying that CDEX definitely makes better sounding MP3s than Musicmatch Jukebox? No flames! 😉

I was thinking of re-encoding my CDs, since I did them all at 160kbps. Would it be worth it if I used CDEX instead? TIA-
Click to expand...

I don't know. All I know is that it's free and really small and unobtrusive.


I want to know why y'all are copying from the CD to the HD and then converting to MP3. Seems like a lot of wasted effort.

amish
 
Originally posted by: DaveSimmons
Originally posted by: MichaelD
I think I've got it, but I need clarification on one thing:
Does Razorlame REPLACE Lame 3.92 or is Razorlame an ADDON for Lame 3.92.
IOW, after I install EAC, do I install 3.92, then razor, or just razor?
Click to expand...
Install 3.92 (and Razorlame if you want it) before EAC not after, then EAC will find the LAME dll during its setup process. EAC doesn't need razorlame and I haven't used rl, so no idea whether it is worth installing.
Click to expand...

True, EAC can send the .wav files straight to LAME so you would not need to use Razor LAME. This is good if you only rip/encode one cd or so.

But when you are doing 200+ CD's, using Razor LAME speeds things up. Because you basically can rip a lot of CD's to .wav (HDD space dependant) and then batch encode them later with RL.

For example, say it takes you 10 minutes combined to rip + encode a full CD together. But it only takes 5 minutes to rip the CD. So you rip as many CD's as you can and then while you are away from your computer, you batch encode them. What I did was rip when I got home from work for an hour or three (took me on average about 6 minutes to rip a CD), and then I setup Razor LAME to encode all the .wavs and started it right before I went to sleep. By the time I got up, all the .wavs would be encoded to .mp3.

Hope that helps in clarification as to what Razor Lame is used for.
 
Originally posted by: MazerRackham
So you guys are saying that CDEX definitely makes better sounding MP3s than Musicmatch Jukebox? No flames! 😉

I was thinking of re-encoding my CDs, since I did them all at 160kbps. Would it be worth it if I used CDEX instead? TIA-
Click to expand...

Personally, I found EAC to do a better job at ripping than CDex. My mp3's sounded cleaner that way.
 
Can you make the batch encoding delete the .wavs after it finishes encoding them to .mp3?
And in a slightly off topic note, what's good for doing all this stuff in ogg?
rolleye.gif
😀
 
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