Best way to rip MP3s from about 300-400 CDs ?

Clocker

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Hi Guys-
I was never really into this but now I have my brother-in-laws collection of about 400 CDs. I want to rip most of them. What is the best program to use for ripping? What's the smartest bit-rate to choose for the MP3s? What other tips can you give me?

See my sig for the drives I have. I also have a 250GB external firewire drive I'll be using for storage/backup in addition to my two 160GB drives. If there's something better for me to use that will save me time, I might invest in it (hardware wise). Just let me know..

Thanks,
CxP
 

Stereodude

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Assuming you only want to do this once, and you want to make sure you've done everything as correctly as possible, these instructions are for you.

Use EAC and Lame 3.97beta2

http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/ <-- EAC

http://www.rarewares.org/mp3.html <-get LAME 3.97 beta 2 ACM, don't get any alphas.

Unzip LAME somewhere, and install EAC. Let EAC go through it's configuration wizard (make sure you tell it you want accuracy over speed). When it's done, press F11 to go to the compression options. Pick the External compressor tab. Check "Use external program for compression" pick "user defined encoder" and point it to the LAME.exe in the spot you unzipped LAME. You can set anything you want for the bitrate, it ignores this. I check "delete .wav after compression". I also prefer to let EAC add an ID3 tag, so I check that as well. For the additional command line options, this is where you have a choice. Personally, I use "-V 1 --vbr-new %s %d" (less the quotes). The quality number is after the V.

This thread http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=28124 has more information on recommended LAME settings. I found V 1 to be transparent, and I don't really worry about file size too much. I got over 400 cds compressed to about 40gigs using that setting. It tends to average around 225kbit/sec.

On the ID3 Tag tab I check "use ID3v1.1 instead of 1.0" and "additionally write ID3V2 tags..."

Next, download and install the Accuraterip plugin. http://www.accuraterip.com/ You will need to copy a file from the install directory to the EAC directory. The next time you start EAC it should start an accuraterip setup dialog prompting you to put in a few discs and it will test them (you'll want to pick discs that are very popular). It will automatically set up the offset in EAC to account for your CD/DVD drive.

Now you're pretty much all set, so grab your first disc toss it in the drive, let it get the titles from the freedb and then select all the tracks on the disc, right click and select, "test and copy selected tracks", then "compressed" or use SHIFT + F6. Point it to where you want to save them, and viola.

After ripping is done compare a report from accuraterip should pop up telling you if your rip matches other rips of the same disc, or not, and how confident it is that you rip is right, or wrong. It may also tell you that your disc is not in the database. Click ok to get back to the main EAC window. If it says your disc isn't found, or tells you that your disc doesn't match the one in the database, or if it tells you that one of the tracks doesn't match, compare the read and test CRC. If they match you're good to go (in the case of the disc not found, or your rip may be different from the one found in the database). Usually, if all the tracks check out in accuraterip except one but the CRC matches (often it doesn't) I will take the disc out of the drive and make sure the bottom isn't scratched or damaged. Sometimes I will pick just that track and test and copy that track again, or try it in another drive. Sometimes you just can't get one track to match, but the Test and Read CRC match, so you move on.

This will allow you to ensure your mp3 rips are as error free as possible, and they'll be high quality so you won't find yourself wishing you used a higher quality compression setting later, or finding glitches in the mp3 files.

Also, if you have a dual core, or hyperthreaded PC (which it doesn't look like you do), you can set EAC to queue compression in the background while it rips. (under EAC Options, tools tab, "On extraction, start external compressors..."). This will speed things up, but if you are running single core, it can mess up your ripping because the mp3 compressor uses all the CPU.

Other options worth checking are "automatically access online freedb database", Set the error recovery to high. I like to set my naming convention to "%N - %T" (no quotes) and "%N - %A - %T" for various artist discs.
 

Clocker

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I think I just found an excuse to get one of those X2 cpus. :)

Thanks for all the info. I should be able to finish this up in about 2 months. :)
 

ddrueding

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One other thing that helps a lot is to get 4 optical drives (EAC will run multiple instances to multiple drives). My fileserver has 4 BenQ DW1625 DVD-RW drives in it with the latest aftermarket firmware (speeds ripping significantly). I rip to a RAID-0 of raptors and then move them to my storage array. Get one of these and be done in a weekend.
 

Clocker

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Good advice, just got a Benq drive. I think my Toshiba DVDROM 10x is a crappy ripper. I may or may not keep it. If I keep it, I'll have three drives ripping but I think I may just run two drives since the CPU will only be dual core.
 

Clocker

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Stereodude-
Is there a way to have EAC automatically get the titles from freedb or do you always have to hit Alt+G to have the program get the titles for the CD?

Thanks,
C
 

Stereodude

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Clocker said:
Stereodude-
Is there a way to have EAC automatically get the titles from freedb or do you always have to hit Alt+G to have the program get the titles for the CD?

Thanks,
C
Press F9, then check the box that says, "On unknown CDs," then pick "automatically access online freedb database".
 

Clocker

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Stereodude said:
I like to set my naming convention to "%N - %T" (no quotes) and "%N - %A - %T" for various artist discs.

Is there any format in mp3 file naming that is better than another (from a compatability standpoint) with the various players that are out there?

I like the file name format of 'Artist - Title - Year' but don't want to use it if it will screw anything up for any players that are out there...

Thanks,
C
 

Clocker

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Stereodude said:
Press F9, then check the box that says, "On unknown CDs," then pick "automatically access online freedb database".

yeah...I've done that but I still have to hit Alt+G to get the names from FreeDB. :-(
 

Stereodude

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Clocker said:
yeah...I've done that but I still have to hit Alt+G to get the names from FreeDB. :-(
Don't know...

It works on my PC. If I put an unknown disc it will automatically get the info.

Do you have autorun or auto insert notification turned off?
 

Clocker

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I don't have either disabled. Weird.

Oh well, Alt+G isn't that hard...

C
 

ddrueding

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I use Artist-Title for my tracks, additional information is included in the ID3 info.

If I was smarter, I would use Artist-Album-Track-Title; that way you can have multiple versions of the same song, and play albums in order automatically.
 

Clocker

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The Benq 1625 and 1650 don't support C2 error reporting. Is that a problem in any way?

Thanks,
C
 

ddrueding

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In other words, I've never encountered an issue, and that's with a really high-end soundcard (ask Merc) and really nice speakers. Digitally perfect? Maybe not, but I've never had any reason to doubt it.
 

Clocker

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Stereodude said:
Personally, I use "-V 1 --vbr-new %s %d" (less the quotes). The quality number is after the V.


What does the %s %d mean?

No luck finding it a hydrogenaudio.org...

Thanks,
C
 

Pradeep

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%s is a placeholder for source filename, and %d is placeholder for destination filename
 

Clocker

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My ripping is complete. There's about 5800 tracks and 34GB of music there. If anyone is interest in trying AllPeers, let me know. Only problem is that AllPeers limits to 300 files I think until a future release.

Upgrading to 1Mb upload is just a phone call away, if needed.

http://www.kevandshan.com/MUSIC.html
 
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