CD to MP3

[big_treacle]

Does anyone know a good tool I can download that will let me rip CD's to MP3? I've only got MS media play 9 & just discovered that it will only allow you to copy a CD to some weird Windows Media Audio format or something which I don't want.
Cheers

[egomeister]

I use cdex and it does the job nicely. It allows you to connect to a CD Database so that al the track names etc are correct too.

Available from here: www.cdex.n3.net/



>> Edited by egomeister on Tuesday 3rd June 12:11

[robp]

Search some of the old forums.

I seem to remember people saying there is a downloadable crack for Windows Media Player to make it rip to MP3.

[big_treacle]

According to the old threads there you can set the registry up so that media player will copy to mp3 format. Sounds like more hassle than just downloading something else!

I'll try that cdex thing.

cheers for your help

[fatsteve]

www.musicmatch.com

Download the basic one free. Does the job nicely!

[Mr E]

I use Easy CD extractor.

You can find it (and just about anything else you want) on CNets www.download.com

It's a bit slow, but gets good results.

[duntonsr]

The best, quickest, most reliable I have found is AudioGrabber, which you should find via google. Well worth paying the $30 for.


Steve

[Bodo]

Dunno, if that's what you're looking for, but I post that for the record:

Since I don't need my old Pentium 3 on the desktop, I hid it under my desk, still connected to the network.
I've installed Linux without graphical UI, so it doesn't use too much RAM.
When the PC boots up, it starts GRIP, a scrpt that to handle audio-cd files.

GRIP¹ starts a ripper (cdparanoia²), when an audio CD is inserted into the drive; calls the FREEDB³, and creates automatically a folder named after the CD. It then rips all songs from CD, calling the right names from FREEDB, compresses all songs to *.ogg with OGGENC⁴ (to mp3, it would use LAME⁵). After the entire CD's been ripped, it ejects the tray, so I can see that I can put in the next one

That computer acts as storage and music server for the entire network. Next plan is to implement a WiFi handheld computer as a remote contol with track listing

1 small application with graphical interface to configure http://nostatic.org/grip/
2 high-end CD ripper www.xiph.org/paranoia/
3 database, which collects CD, Artist and track titles www.freedb.org/
4 free compression technique, more advanced than mp3 www.vorbis.com/
5 mp3 compression tool, only free when used for research purposes http://lame.sourceforge.net/

>> Edited by Bodo on Tuesday 3rd June 23:45

[big_treacle]

I used cdex last night and it did the job very well once i'd set it up properly. Used the LAME encoder at 160kbs which seems to give a pretty reasonable quality without making the files too big.

[tomash]

I'm a bit late to this one but if you want absolutely top quality for your music conversion then get hold of EAC its freeware but its the best ripper available as it is able to compensate for the drive you use to get perfect reproduction.
It is used by the music industry for conversion to mp3.