Ripping CDs

I much prefer dBpoweramp over XLD on the Mac.....

 

Agreed. It's what I use, but it's definitely worth reading guides carefully. Ultimately, I think it's worth the trouble. Both its features and the detail of its logs makes XLD A+++ in my book. Unless you have a totally oddball drive, it also detects your drive's sample offset correction automatically against its database. I have (no joke) seven or eight drives and they've all been detected automatically.

 

So during the thick of the pandemic I decided to get my music library in order. I first got all my music in one place instead of scattered about. Then I decided which versions to keep and got rid of duplicates. This created one "source of truth" to work off of. I then duplicated this in case anything went wrong during this all as something always happens.

For ease i converted all my lossless files that were not flac, into flac. Then i reripped ALL of my CDs. I had an older pc with a panasonic bluray drive. I was going to use EAC but i decided to try dbpoweramp. DB won me over.

It was easy to set up, easy to make changes, worked very well, and i got everything done during the trial period. Though if i didnt i would have paid their fee to buy it.

Notes:

• I used the setup instructions here. It was very easy. https://www.dbpoweramp.com/cd-ripper-setup-guide.htm
• All the built in music id stuff worked very well and anything that didnt fit i put it in manually with ease.
• Some busted up CDs somehow ripped and ID'ed perfectly. Sometimes it would take 2-3 runs on that track. If it didnt go after the 3rd shot I then took it off accurip, ripped it as is, and listened to it to confirm if it was worth keeping or not.
• Some brand new out of the wrapper CDs just would have a track or two that were fussy and needed a dumb rip.
• SUBMIT YOUR DATA AND YOUR RIPS!

After this i picked up all the riff raff, random downloads, and mp3 mayhem from the past 15 years and hit it with mp3tag to get everything in line.

More notes:

• This was great for WFH. Pop a cd in between meetings.
• Get a system of file organization. For me it was. Artist > Album > track# + track name
• Get your tags in order. Once they are most everything else can be automated.
• I love album art. I like the biggest best highest resolution possible. I found it best to keep those good files in a seperate folder then make a smaller 500x500 copy that can be easily queued by devices. My lumin takes over 1 minute to load all album art and i dont have that much music.

 

I recently have been messing around with a few CDPs and it is obvious to me old cds had much stricter standards. I would go as far to say, the center hole on a master, maybe even the press used. But from what I have observed from cds printed at the inception and a few months back. Factories matter, lead-out and lead in areas, and even subcodes on the cd. it is surprising how fast older cds read.

 

I haven't actually ripped a cd in ages, albeit a lot more recent than the last time I ripped vinyl!

My ears are not demanding these days, but I think that the linux command-line ripper abcde (a better cd extractor) does cater for those that are, with cdparanoia and stuff.

For Linux users who don't mind typing instead of clicking, it is worth a look.

 

I had mixed results, and age didnt seem to matter. Old CDs that went only at 2x then the next old one, same artist would go max 100000x and be done in seconds. Some of the unopened cds were also from years ago.

I wouldnt be surprised if they got less strict though. Some CDs even were just cracked for no reason. Sitting in their untouched case was too much.

I did notice the lead in and lead outs got picker on these rips, almost like so s tracks start a milisecond late.

 

Vote for EAC. I have a few months to rip through some CD's I had sitting in storage before I go out on the road again, so I have my main PC and my small workstation ripping nonstop, since secure mode is so slow. I've always been an EAC user (as has everyone I know IRL that rips or owns CD's), so surprised to see so much dbpoweramp love here. Using $20 LG Ultra Slim Portable DVD Writers. Not the most durable units (one of mine died in transit last month), but hard to beat for the price.

 

If dB didnt have a free trial or i had to rip more than that trial would of allowed for i would of been on EAC. EAC setup can be a pain, but it is a one time pain.

 

At the dawn of CDs, in the era of very-much-ruinable vinyl, they were hailed as indestructible. Hah, bloody hah.

Of course, back then, people hadn't started to think seriously about the environmental aspects of indestructible plastic. Now, we have the worst of both worlds: audio/data-wise, they are very much destructible, but I guess those discs will last forever.

 

More than a few of my visually pristine store bought discs are now unreadable. Ripping these discs is just as much about disaster recovery as it is playback convenience.

 

Still using EAC to FLAC then Foobar2k for final tagging with MusicBrainz DB. I originally ripped all of my CDs to FLAC with CUE as complete CD images. Benefits were that I could recreate the original CD if my original CD got damaged. Problem is only a few players can seek within the FLAC+CUE to simulate individual tracks. I have started doing track split FLAC with CUE. Not sure if this will be able to recreate the original CD to the last bit, but works with more software.

 

Yes, and many cds look to have holes in their data layer. Like these little burn mark looking holes start to develop after time.

I know they made archive grade CDs but I never looked into it. And now that is not needed.


@Xen most of my tagging was from musicbrainz DB. I found them to be the most accurate and they were able to find the most.

 

Several ROMs and hundreds of CDs later...
EAC (Secure Mode/Test & Copy) >> DBPower/Foobar . EAC secure copy can be painfully slow wwith error recovery. Burst mode is available but impacts the rip quality. OTOH, Direct CD playback SQ eats up any of these ripped files.

 

I like the Ply & Board logo sticking out