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Simple, Spam free, reliable MP3 ripper

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Perryg114

Senior member
I am looking for a simple MP3 ripper that I can install more than once that actually works. I don't mind paying for it but don't want to have to buy a new license for every install. This something I would most likely put on one machine but would like it to work when I upgrade that machine. I am using win 7 and will probably use it till they kick me out.

Perry
 
It looks like CDEX is still a thing. It's been awhile since I've used it, but it got the job done nicely, whether I was encoding to MP3(via LAME) or FLAC.
Free software: GNU GPL.

Setting it up was the toughest part, mainly to get the naming scheme just right. These are what I used:

LAME's config string, if using the external encoder option; otherwise, just use the internal MP3 encoder:
Code: 
-m s --replaygain-accurate -q 0 -b 256 -p --ta "%a" --tt "%t" --tl "%b" --ty "%y" --tn "%tn" --tg "%g" --id3v2-only --pad-id3v2 %1 %2

        %1 = input filename
        %2 = output filename
        %3 = bit rate in bits/sec
        %4 = bit rate in Kbits/sec
        %a = Artist name
        %b = Album name
        %t = Track name
        %g = Genre string
        %y = Year
        %tn = Track Number (with leading zero)
        %tt = Total number of tracks (with leading zero)
FLAC's:
Code: 
-8 -m -e -p %1 -V -f --replay-gain -T Artist="%a" -T Album="%b" -T Title="%t" -T Date="%y" -T Genre="%g" -T Tracknumber="%tn" -o "%2"

        %1 = input filename
        %2 = output filename
        %3 = bit rate in bits/sec
        %4 = bit rate in Kbits/sec
        %a = Artist name
        %b = Album name
        %t = Track name
        %g = Genre string
        %y = Year
        %tn = Track Number (with leading zero)
        %tt = Total number of tracks (with leading zero)
 
I use Exact Audio Copy (free) and it works quite well. I have installed and messed with dBpoweramp (paid) on family members' computers. I found dBpoweramp a little simpler to use, but EAC works fine for me. Both work well.
 
krose said:
Exact Audio Copy. Free and works extremely well.
Click to expand...

Manticorps said:
I use Exact Audio Copy (free) and it works quite well. I have installed and messed with dBpoweramp (paid) on family members' computers. I found dBpoweramp a little simpler to use, but EAC works fine for me. Both work well.
Click to expand...

This here. I've been using EAC for so many years. It is simple to use, but has all the depth you could possibly need, and just works. No need to reinvent the wheel when this works so well.
 
Glad I am not the only one who still uses Cdex. It's old but still works perfectly, and came out way before ads were a "thing."
 
EAC really should be the only answer.

It's called Exact Audio Copy for a reason. Initial setup can be a bear the very first time you do it (and it's only really a bear if you're completely unfamiliar with these sorts of tools), but there are plenty of pages on getting it set up. And once that's done, it's good to go.
 
sweenish said:
It's called Exact Audio Copy for a reason.
Click to expand...
:thumbsup:

Realistically, the odd read error here or there isn't really going to make much difference in terms of fundamental playability, but since "doing it right the first time" adds at most a couple of minutes to the total ripping time for a disc, I've never seen a reason to use anything but EAC either. And while I'd agree it's not quite just "plug-and-play" (at least not to get its best performance), I wouldn't call initial set-up a bear, unless maybe you're the sort of person who complains in Amazon reviews (and returns products) because you sometimes have to - gasp - download a driver from a website* or change a setting or two instead of just having your product automagically perform up to whatever unreasonable expectations you conjured up for it out of thin air.:\ But no one here does that, right?:biggrin:

_________________________
* After calling customer service or posting a question on Amazon to find it, because no normal human being could ever possibly figure out such a thing for themselves...🙄
 
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About EAC: My opinion is that, if I wanted to take the time for such an exact copy, I wouldn't be ripping to MP3 in the first place. Now pairing EAC with FLAC: that would be a better fit.
 
It's given me flawless rips of scratched discs.

I don't care what format you pair it with. I will always use it for that alone.

And it's not really "taking the time" once it's set up, either. It's literally Alt + G to get metadata, and two clicks. I don't know what you imagine it doing to say "taking the time." It's just the superior program for the job.
 
Ketchup said:
About EAC: My opinion is that, if I wanted to take the time for such an exact copy, I wouldn't be ripping to MP3 in the first place. Now pairing EAC with FLAC: that would be a better fit.
Click to expand...
Unless you're tweaking the WAV before compressing it (and even doing, doing more than very, very minor tweaks), it doesn't - why, or even how, would it? - take any longer than any other rip...
 
Mike64, are you aware that MP3 is a lossy format?

Having said that, I think ketchup is splitting hairs, unless EAC's default mp3 encoding settings aren't very quality-orientated and someone hasn't taken the time to have a reasonable idea of the swings and roundabouts of mp3 encoding.

---

Related-ish question to the OP - cdex doesn't embed album art in mp3s. Does anyone have a software recommendation for Windows that can do this for my whole mp3 collection without a lot of faffing around or ad/spyware?
 
I've been an EAC user since the early days of CD ripping, and I still have it on my machine.

Having said that, I don't at all regret my investment in dBpoweramp. It uses more sources for metadata and cover art, and can rip to multiple formats simultaneously. If you're ripping to MP3, why not rip to FLAC at the same time and have a lossless copy for your library? Then, if you want to convert to AAC at some point (a better codec IMO), you can easily do that in dBpoweramp. It's both multi-core and multi-threaded, so on my i7-4790K it uses all 8 threads to create lossy files from my lossless FLAC archives. Takes about 30 seconds per album.
 
EAC is my favorite, but I've played with MediaMonkey and Foobar2000's ripping abilities. All good choices, check em out 🙂
 
I don't rip much but if I did I'd probably use EAC to flac then convert that to whatever lossy formats I'd need using foobar2000's converter. It's a pretty nice and sane GUI frontend.

For aac I'll use qaac[1] (Apple's aac encoder) in CVBR mode which is probably the best aac encoder currently based on abx testing. For mp3 you really only have lame[2] and for vorbis you have aoTuV based oggenc2[3].

[1] https://sites.google.com/site/qaacpage/
[2] http://www.rarewares.org/mp3-lame-bundle.php
[3] http://www.rarewares.org/ogg-oggenc.php#oggenc-aotuv
 
Mike64 said:
Unless you're tweaking the WAV before compressing it (and even doing, doing more than very, very minor tweaks), it doesn't - why, or even how, would it? - take any longer than any other rip...
Click to expand...

EAC on it's highest quality settings take a lot longer to rip CDs because, IIRC, it rips the track twice and compares them, if they are not bit-for-bit exact copies of each other it does it again until they are. This is why things like calibrating jitter correction is important.
 
jkauff said:
I've been an EAC user since the early days of CD ripping, and I still have it on my machine.

Having said that, I don't at all regret my investment in dBpoweramp. It uses more sources for metadata and cover art, and can rip to multiple formats simultaneously. If you're ripping to MP3, why not rip to FLAC at the same time and have a lossless copy for your library? Then, if you want to convert to AAC at some point (a better codec IMO), you can easily do that in dBpoweramp. It's both multi-core and multi-threaded, so on my i7-4790K it uses all 8 threads to create lossy files from my lossless FLAC archives. Takes about 30 seconds per album.
Click to expand...

foobar is also multi-threaded. FLAC conversions are nothing in either program.
 
SMOGZINN said:
EAC on it's highest quality settings take a lot longer to rip CDs because, IIRC, it rips the track twice and compares them, if they are not bit-for-bit exact copies of each other it does it again until they are. This is why things like calibrating jitter correction is important.
Click to expand...
Yes, that's a point. EAC doesn't necessarily read everything twice, but you do need an optical drive somewhat more sophisticated than the garden-variety to avoid it. I suppose, strictly speaking, EAC does take "longer" but I guess the bottom line to me is that the amount of time it takes is really a non-issue. If I were ripping a whole stack of CDs at once it could become an issue, but as it is, I just pop a disc into the drive and set it to ripping while I"m doing other things on the computer anyway and since it's not like it takes "forever" in any event, I just don't really notice exactly how long it does take...
 
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jkauff said:
and can rip to multiple formats simultaneously
Click to expand...
That sounds pretty cool, though not quite enough to make me want to pay semi-real money for it when EAC serves my purposes for free. You can of course compress EAC's primary WAV output to any number of other formats quite easily [ETA: EAC has a built-in "external compressor" interface], but you do have to do it one at a time...

TheRyuu said:
I don't rip much but if I did I'd probably use EAC to flac then convert that to whatever lossy formats I'd need using foobar2000's converter. It's a pretty nice and sane GUI frontend.
Click to expand...
I haven't used foobar2000 at all in a long time, and then only tried it briefly so I really can't compare it to EAC myself, but EAC can use all the converters you mentioned, too, and it's quick enough to save/load different profiles (for any/all of EAC's possible settings) so switching between them isn't a big deal (no deal, really, just a couple of mouse clicks.)
 
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