The best way to rip an audio cd?

der kopfder kopf
Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
I have noticed that iTunes does not do the best of jobs at the actual ripping of an audio cd. Often, I'll find clicks, skips and pops in the rip, which I don't think should be there. I do like the converting offered by iTunes (right now, I'm experimenting with AAC @ 192 kbps for perfect quality). However, convering a click will still give you a click. Does anybody know a better way to rip audio off of an audio cd? A way that has does some integrity checking or something like that?



[excuse me for posting this here, but I thought this belonged here best]
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 29
    not unlike myselfnot unlike myself Posts: 2,037member
    Some people use this. (AAChoo)



    I find iTunes does a 'good enough' job. But if you are *really* picky you might try buying this. (N2MP3)



    Good luck!
  • Reply 2 of 29
    der kopfder kopf Posts: 2,275member
    Well, that seems dandy enough, but I'm not really looking for encoding alternatives. Rather, I'm looking for an app that will just park the music from a cd in AIFF on my HD, and let me do the encoding in iTunes afterwards. Really just a basic cd copier, but a good one.
  • Reply 3 of 29
    not unlike myselfnot unlike myself Posts: 2,037member
    Audio Recorder *may* do this.



    Final Cut Pro has a handy feature (part of the OS X Audio Plugins) which does it.



    Many versions of Toast (Jam) can do it too.



    Might also try QT Pro. Best of luck!



    EDIT: This was 'partially' discussed here. If the guy was still a member you could get in touch but.... ::shrugs::
  • Reply 4 of 29
    lucaluca Posts: 3,833member
    iTunes can do that. Just tell it to import in AIFF format. Then if you want to convert any file to AAC or MP3 (or WAV if you want even) you can do that and it'll make a new file and keep the old one.
  • Reply 5 of 29
    not unlike myselfnot unlike myself Posts: 2,037member
    Luca, I think he was dissatisfied with iTunes encoding. (I thought the included all it's encoding) I may be wrong though...
  • Reply 6 of 29
    der kopfder kopf Posts: 2,275member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Not Unlike Myself

    Luca, I think he was dissatisfied with iTunes encoding. (I thought the included all it's encoding) I may be wrong though...



    No, you're right. I have always had problems with iTunes and less than brand spanking new scratch free cds.
  • Reply 7 of 29
    1337_5l4xx0r1337_5l4xx0r Posts: 1,558member
    It sounds like what you want is something like cdparanoia on linux. To my knowledge, there isn't such a piece of software for OSX.



    edit: The point being that all rippers on OSX are probably equivalent. I may be wrong here, though.
  • Reply 8 of 29
    brussellbrussell Posts: 9,812member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by der Kopf

    No, you're right. I have always had problems with iTunes and less than brand spanking new scratch free cds.



    Me too, but I'm not sure it's iTunes so much as the disk drive itself. I've had more problems ripping on my PowerBook than on an iMac, for example. I wonder if you'd have better luck first importing as AIFF, or even just copying the CD to your hard drive, and then compressing into MP3/AAC directly from your hard drive. I don't know, but it's worth a shot if you're having trouble with a particular CD.
  • Reply 9 of 29
    der kopfder kopf Posts: 2,275member
    I actually tried a procedure I concocted with Disk Copy, where I made a new 'image from volume or folder' (that volume being the audio cd I wanted to copy). Listening to it, I have to say that the quality was the best I managed so far (not many pops, funny to note that these pops sound EXACTLY like pops on a phono album would sound, which made me wonder if it wasn't recorded like that on the cd - Seventeen Seconds by the Cure, recorded in 1980 - but after playing it on my trusty stereo - the thing must be 14 years old already - I had to conclude it wasn't).



    I also tried ripping with Audion, but that gave horrible results.



    I actually encountered references to an app called audiocdrescue, which reads your cd a couple of times. The only problem being that the developer's site is apparently gone, and the app is nowhere to be found (this supposing that it even works). \
  • Reply 10 of 29
    gargoylegargoyle Posts: 660member
    Errrm I must have miss read, but here goes.



    1.) Put in CD.



    2.) Close iTunes (if it loaded automatically).



    3.) Double Click the CD's icon.



    4.) Trag desired tracks to some place on the HD.



    5.) Wait while you copy your selected tracks to HD in aiff format.
  • Reply 11 of 29
    der kopfder kopf Posts: 2,275member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Gargoyle

    Errrm I must have miss read, but here goes.



    1.) Put in CD.



    2.) Close iTunes (if it loaded automatically).



    3.) Double Click the CD's icon.



    4.) Trag desired tracks to some place on the HD.



    5.) Wait while you copy your selected tracks to HD in aiff format.



    Exactly. That's no biggie. The problem is that OS X apparently doesn't care to much about the quality/integrity of the audio files as it copies them. A little scratch (cause the scratches on the cd I'm having issues with are relatively mild) will give me a pop soon enough. So, I want a ripping application that will do its best to create the best copy possible of the cd.



    Anybody have the shareware application AudioCDRescue? I guess it's okay to share unregistered versions of shareware, no? So please, if anybody does, I'd like to give it a test run.
  • Reply 12 of 29
    der kopfder kopf Posts: 2,275member
    I have found an app that is tailored to my demanding needs: Exact Audio Copy. Big downside: it is Windows only. And it seems that it will take a LOT of time to rip the cd in Virtual PC. (It's in the first track right now, and it claims 4:22:40 remaining). I'm wondering if I should buy a horribly cheap pIII box or something to use EAC on.



    \



    EDIT: Oh, and it rips to WAV. Is this a 'lesser' or 'lossy' format (if used without compression)? Should I worry? I'm kind of an AIFF fan, and, as a mac user, reasonably wary as it comes to the typically Windows formats (wav, avi, asf, wmv, ...).
  • Reply 13 of 29
    der kopfder kopf Posts: 2,275member
    Okay, problem solved, for now. It appears that Virtual PC (6) cannot write decently to a shared folder (mounting in the guest OS -windows- as a network drive). I created a new drive - a D drive - and the copying speed has picked up to 7x, which is enough for me.



    Also, the wavs I ripped to the shared folder were completely empty when I tried to play them in Quicktime/iTunes.



    I'm still wondering if this app will deliver. It's cracked up to be really good \
  • Reply 14 of 29
    der kopfder kopf Posts: 2,275member
    Crap. There must be something wrong somewhere: it rips empty audio tracks... Help?
  • Reply 15 of 29
    roborobo Posts: 469member
    Here is the app you want: http://xcdroast.org/



    It uses cdparanoia to do error-corrected cd audio rips. It runs in Apple's X11 environment, but works very well.







    Cheers,



    -robo
  • Reply 16 of 29
    der kopfder kopf Posts: 2,275member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by robo

    Here is the app you want: http://xcdroast.org/



    It uses cdparanoia to do error-corrected cd audio rips. It runs in Apple's X11 environment, but works very well.







    Cheers,



    -robo



    I could kiss you! I've been looking for this ALL day long [yes, I'm that neurotic]. I have even looked into buying a PC for the sole purpose of being able to run Exact Audio Copy. I was even downloading the Yellow Dog Linux iso while I read your post, for the sole purpose of running cdparanoia. If you ever pass these parts, you'll have to let me buy you a beer, or two, or maybe even a small keg.
  • Reply 17 of 29
    gardenofearthlydelightsgardenofearthlydelights Posts: 963member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by der Kopf

    Exactly. That's no biggie. The problem is that OS X apparently doesn't care to much about the quality/integrity of the audio files as it copies them. A little scratch (cause the scratches on the cd I'm having issues with are relatively mild) will give me a pop soon enough. So, I want a ripping application that will do its best to create the best copy possible of the cd.



    Anybody have the shareware application AudioCDRescue? I guess it's okay to share unregistered versions of shareware, no? So please, if anybody does, I'd like to give it a test run.



    hmmm... interesting. How does a regular CD player handle missing data (like from a scratch)? I thought I remember reading 20 years ago is did just basic interpolation. This doesn't help for a CD-ROM drive, though.

    Quote:

    Oh, and it rips to WAV. Is this a 'lesser' or 'lossy' format (if used without compression)? Should I worry? I'm kind of an AIFF fan, and, as a mac user, reasonably wary as it comes to the typically Windows formats (wav, avi, asf, wmv, ...).



    WAV for Windows is AIFF for Macs.
  • Reply 18 of 29
    stupider...likeafoxstupider...likeafox Posts: 1,618member
    There is a Mac OS X native wrapper round these command line tools (cdda2wav with libparanoia).



    It's been a while since I used it but I think it is MissingMediaBurner available from here:



    http://homepage.mac.com/rnc/
  • Reply 19 of 29
    matsumatsu Posts: 6,558member
    I thought Toast allowed for exact copies. The info is digital, is it not? If I make a disc image and then burn that image to a new disc, should not this new disc contain exactly the same set of 1's and 0's? Confused?
  • Reply 20 of 29
    gardenofearthlydelightsgardenofearthlydelights Posts: 963member
    For alternative MP3 encoding, you could also try LAME with iTunes. There's a script that goes with iTunes, so that it works very similarly to iTunes.



    I haven't compared this with AAC, but I like the fact it's just *.mp3, making it more compatible.
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