free cd ripper sw?

jman0

What do people use to rip a audio CD, so they have all the tracks as .mp3?
I can use Nero for this but the sound quailty of the resultant mp3 is sh!tty.
Can anybody recommend any freebies?

note: i am not advocating pirating, as i am specifically referring to copying my own purchased CD to my hard drive so i don't have to have the CD in the tray to play the tracks, this is entirely legal.

Chalk

eac or cdex

google for them

Xterminator

I reccomend cdex!

X

NotMe

FreeRip2

kaimera

dbpoweramp.

Orion

Definitely CDEX. Started using it recently - it's excellent.

sceptre

jman0 wrote:

Can anybody recommend any freebies?

I reckon it doesn't matter a horses ass what you use as the front end (all the suggestions so far have been front end, use dbPowerAmp myself lately) as long as you use LAME as the backend/encoder. Free as well. And bloody good. At least stay away from that old Xing encoder. Awful. Awful enough that I'll probably be able to spot it if you're sitting next to me on the bus.

this is entirely legal.

No it isn't (not in this country or the UK) but I don't care (I'd even go so far as to say that the particular section of Irish copyright law that can be applied to prohibit you ripping your own CDs to your own portable player is never going to be enforced with regard to ripping your own CDs to your own portable player).

Orion

sceptre wrote:

No it isn't (not in this country or the UK) but I don't care (I'd even go so far as to say that the particular section of Irish copyright law that can be applied to prohibit you ripping your own CDs to your own portable player is never going to be enforced with regard to ripping your own CDs to your own portable player).

Explain please. As far as I can tell taking a copy of a CD that you legally own for your own personal use is perfectly allowable under the fair usage clauses of copyright legislation in both the UK and Ireland. It would make an interesting test case. Prohibiting copying of recordings of music that you purchased would imply that you do not own the recording - a very gray area at best. Even if the argument is that you have purchased a license to listen to the music would not work - you'd still be licensing to the same music.

I think you might be confusing DRMA with Irish law. Ireland is not part of the US and therefore DRMA does not apply here - no matter what the music industry says.

Obviously sharing that copy with anyone else is completely illegal.


<edited to add please>

Creamy Goodness

eac is the only one to use if you care about quality

sceptre

Macros42 wrote:

Explain. As far as I can tell taking a copy of a CD that you legally own for your own personal use is perfectly allowable under the fair usage clauses of copyright legislation in both the UK and Ireland.

Link me to one of these fair usage clauses that allow you to do this if you wouldn't mind. They don't exist. As you said, this is not the United States. They do exist there.

Alternatively you could just read this page (especially this post which will save you trawling for stuff) of another thread and I suppose this older post as well. I'd love to be able to take the time out to explain but I'm lazy and it's not all that much on-topic for this thread (and yes, I know I unfortunately (sorry for the interlude, jman0) took it towards the nasty land of offtopickness while the OP is still looking for opinion) & no offence but I don't tend to "explain" things on command without a 'please' (if I'd wanted to explain the law ab initio to people willy-nilly I'd have become a law lecturer).



To make it up to jman0, a few links. dbPowerAmp Music Converter. LAME comes built-in. Bucketload of other programs (most free & should include everything recommended by everyone else) listed here. I'd recommend ripping using variable bitrate and the preset standard for LAME or the preset extreme if you're particularly picky about sound. There's also a preset insane but that's basically the same as a constant bitrate of 320kps. You'll save a large amount of space if you choose one of the other options. I find -standard perfectly nice for almost everything.

Orion

edited my previous post to include please - It wasn't meant to be a command

I'll have a read of those posts before I respond (if I do - it is OT as you correctly stated). I have looked at this before and the conclusion was that a personal copy is fair and legal use but I'll read the links you posted.

[edit]
http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/ZZA28Y2000S50.html - this is linked in one of your links:

(4) In this Part, "fair dealing" means the making use of a literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work, film, sound recording, broadcast, cable programme, non-electronic original database or typographical arrangement of a published edition which has already been lawfully made available to the public, for a purpose and to an extent which will not unreasonably prejudice the interests of the owner of the copyright.

Orion

I was going to read those threads in work tomorrow but I got curious. I think we're going to have to agree to disagree here until there actually is a test case in Ireland (if ever).

The list I posted above is a fair usage clause. There are other posts in the threads you linked to which contradict what you are saying (with links to the relevant legislation). In one post you say "Show me where it says that (because it doesn't)". For something to be illegal is must be stated that it is illegal specifically - or else it's not. The presumption is legality unless legislated for otherwise.

Anyway - let's not argue about this here. We can start a new thread or you can pm me and we can have a friendly discussion about it. Or else we can just wait for the first 12 year old to be taken to court for using an iPod

Steve

cormie

This guide will get you up and running in 5 minutes giving you the best quality MP3 ripping for your specific PC using Exact Audio Copy and the LAME code.

I've heard from many different forums on many different topics that this is definitely the best way to transfer music onto your pc.

jman0

sceptre wrote:

To make it up to jman0, a few links. dbPowerAmp Music Converter. LAME comes built-in. Bucketload of other programs (most free & should include everything recommended by everyone else) listed here. I'd recommend ripping using variable bitrate and the preset standard for LAME or the preset extreme if you're particularly picky about sound. There's also a preset insane but that's basically the same as a constant bitrate of 320kps. You'll save a large amount of space if you choose one of the other options. I find -standard perfectly nice for almost everything.

Ok cheers but you know i'm getting confused. Too much information, too many links in this thread.
I've downloaded dbPowerAmp Music Converter, am i good to go?
It's got LAME built in right?

sceptre

Macros42 wrote:

Anyway - let's not argue about this here. We can start a new thread or you can pm me and we can have a friendly discussion about it. Or else we can just wait for the first 12 year old to be taken to court for using an iPod

Let's do one of those. I like the last option as the potentially funniest but it'll come up as thread in its own right one of the days. And we'll all continue ripping music for convenience in any event.

sceptre

jman0 wrote:

I've downloaded dbPowerAmp Music Converter, am i good to go? It's got LAME built in right?

It should do (it says it does) and it was when I grabbed it.

For ripping Cds as opposed to converting existing files you'll be looking for the shortcut named dMC Audio CD Input in the dbPowerAmp folder in your Start menu. The Options button includes the folder to rip to, file name format, the handiest place to select MP3 (Lame) for output ("Rip To") which is what I'd recommend using (the Settings button next to that will enable you to select the compression, I'd recommend at clicking Advanced Options and selecting Variable Bitrate, quality set to "high" on the slider bar and preset quality "normal" or "high" (normal should be fine) on the drop down menu). Click OK out of that and you can just hit the "Rip" button at the top of the screen and it'll do all the work itself.

Aleternatively for a one-time setting, you can click the little arrow icon next to the rip button and click "Rip with options".

Now, something I forgot. dbPowerAmp, like most CD rippers uses an ASPI layer for Windows to access the CD. If you're running Windows 2000 or Windows XP you may well not have an ASPI layer installed. Hava a look at this page if that's a problem. And obviously feel free to post back if you do need this and you're having hassle getting it installed. Get it right the first time and you'll never have to rip your CD again. And because LAME is very very good but slower than some other codecs of lesser quality (you'll notice it's slower but it really is worth it) you'll only want to do them all once.