New AskWoody Knowledge Base article: How to rip audio CDs, reliably and at highest quality

[woody]

@NetDef has come up with a tour de force – the most thorough guide I’ve seen to ripping audio CDs. He takes you through every step, in meticulous deta
[See the full post at: New AskWoody Knowledge Base article: How to rip audio CDs, reliably and at highest quality]

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Elly, NetDef

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[bbearren]

I’m still using Windows Media Player, it’s already installed.  I set my destination folder years ago.  Just open Windows Media Player, insert a CD, set ripping presets to .flac, rip automatically and eject after ripping.  It preserves all the metadata as well as the album art.  A bunch of CD’s can be ripped in fairly short order.

Create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates, in case you need to start over!

"When you're troubleshooting, start with the simple and proceed to the complex."—M.O. Johns

"Experience is what you get when you're looking for something else."—Sir Thomas Robert Deware

Computer Specs

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[NetDef]

WMP is very good (most of the time) at automatically finding and applying metadata for our libraries.  I used it for a while too.  One feature where WMP especially used to excel was in finding and applying Album cover art to display while playing.  (A topic by the way that I will be addressing “soon(tm)”  in the KB article.)

And I still think WMP may be the best tool for many people, with the least amount of hassle.

I presented an alternate method because what WMP lacks is fine tuned control of how the structure of your libraries are created and managed — and a properly maintained structure makes your library MUCH more useful when you want to play your library on other devices other than your PC.

Also, you know, choice.  🙂

But . . . The number of misses in recent years, where entirely wrong metadata was applied in WMP has risen quite a bit.  Now this hasn’t been a problem for some who’s library looks like a top-40 list.  But for those who’s music tastes run into the eclectic range, and especially in classical and world music, it’s a real problem. Worse, once it makes a mistake, its very hard to fix it for that album in WMP.  (Personal experience.)

On a side note, WMP online metadata services have been discontinued on older platforms.  See https://www.thurrott.com/windows/198508/microsoft-retiring-a-windows-media-player-feature-on-older-windows-versions for information.

~ Group "Weekend" ~

• This reply was modified 6 months, 1 week ago by NetDef.

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Elly, Kirsty

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[NetDef]

Oh, for those reading this thread, BBearren mentions using WMP to encode (rip) CD’s to FLAC.

This is not natively supported in WMP on a new install of Windows (any version.)

But you can easily add FLAC playback and encoding support to WMP.  Get this from the actual source (not some third party) at https://xiph.org/dshow/

You’re looking for the download link on that that page for

Windows 32/64-bit Installer: opencodecs_0.85.17777.exe

Once you’ve installed it, FLAC will show up in the WMP rip options.  And WMP will play FLAC just fine.

I’m posting this because so very many of the codec downloads you will see in a search for FLAC codec / encoder / decoder are for malware sites.

~ Group "Weekend" ~

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Elly

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[bbearren]

NetDef wrote:

Oh, for those reading this thread, BBearren mentions using WMP to encode (rip) CD’s to FLAC. This is not natively supported in  WMP on a new install of Windows (any version.)

I don’t do new/clean installs (any version), I only do updates/upgrades.  So even in Windows 10 2004, WMP still has FLAC natively supported as an optional file format.  I didn’t have to do a thing.

Create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates, in case you need to start over!

"When you're troubleshooting, start with the simple and proceed to the complex."—M.O. Johns

"Experience is what you get when you're looking for something else."—Sir Thomas Robert Deware

Computer Specs

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[bbearren]

NetDef wrote:

I presented an alternate method because what WMP lacks is fine tuned control of how the structure of your libraries are created and managed — and a properly maintained structure makes your library MUCH more useful when you want to play your library on other devices other than your PC.

My default music library is structured (on its dedicated hard drive) by artist/album.  As you know, WMP can present it to me by artist, by album or by genre.

As for playing music from other devices, I have a large playlist copied to my phone’s SD card and to some thumbnail-sized thumb drives; one can put a lot of music on a 16GB drive no bigger than my thumbnail.  It’s completely unobtrusive when plugged in, there’s just a little bump visible.  The radio in my truck will accept bluetooth, aux cable, and has a USB port.  The playlist is rather large and my preference is to have playback shuffled.

NetDef wrote:

On a side note, WMP online metadata services have been discontinued on older platforms.

My platform is Windows 10 2004, and I haven’t encountered any misses yet.

Create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates, in case you need to start over!

"When you're troubleshooting, start with the simple and proceed to the complex."—M.O. Johns

"Experience is what you get when you're looking for something else."—Sir Thomas Robert Deware

Computer Specs

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[Elly]

There are many possible apps for ripping music. @NetDef uses foobar2000, an open source, free app, to do the walk through for ripping CDs… multiple screen shots, with the settings and options highlighted, so it is very easy to follow the instructions.

Over the years I’ve ripped CDs on multiple machines, through multiple apps, with multiple formats. @NetDef gives instructions that result in quality FLAC files, for archiving your music collection… and then has easy steps for converting those to phone/device ready MP3 files.

For those that have juggled getting their favorite music all in one place, in the same format, @NetDef‘s article provides clarity about just how to do that.

Why use FLAC for archiving?

We use it because it’s widely compatible with most advanced music players, and because it’s a true bit for bit copy that can be safely used if we need to convert to other formats.

Rather than ending with my eyes glazed with complexity, I was able to rip a CD (one from a local group, that doesn’t have its music on line, but that is special to me)… I never used FLAC before, but I want my music collection to last as long as I do. Thanks, @NetDef, as this is a great article!

And, once your music collection is archived- back it up!

Non-techy Win 10 Pro and Linux Mint experimenter

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NetDef

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[Microfix]

Excellent write-up from @NetDef from the Windows perspective.
For those of you who use Linux, check out Asunder it’s available in Ubuntu/Debian Repo’s and encompasses the process of ripping CD’s

Saves audio tracks as:
WAV, MP3, Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, Opus, Wavpack, Musepack, AAC, and Monkey’s audio files.
Uses online CDDB to name and tag each track.
Creates M3U playlists
Can encode to multiple formats in one session
Simultaneous rip and encode
Allows for each track to be by a different artist
Doesn’t require a specific linux desktop environment

No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created Pebcak

2 users thanked author for this post.

NetDef, Elly

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[rontpxz81]

I use CDex stiil at it’s highest settings 320 kpbs- good enough for me.  Plus it has extensive settings, and can make a good copy of some damaged discs with it’s extreme settings.

https://cdex.mu/

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[Kathy Stevens]

I will try FLAC when I have a few free minutes.

Thanks @NetDef.

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[oblivion]

My CD ripper of choice for some years has been fre:ac

It’s simple, effective, highly configurable and (as you might guess from the name) free.

 

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