ripping music music

[Fatty]

don't do it very often, but if i wanna share a song with someone and i rip it off a cd it presents me with a 31 mb .wma file.

 

kinda large.

 

how to convert to mp3?

[pavid]

Ummm, trying moving the decimal place over 1. <slinks away before Fatty can get me>

[stutters]

if you only do this once a blue moon, might be overkill. for the junkies, here's how to rip the perfect mp3 from cd*:

 

http://www.ubernet.org/?p=UberGuide

 

fatty - if you want to skip the reading and just do a one time rip (128kbps quality), get exact audio guide, install it, and re-rip the track from cd.

 

if you have the wav, you can encode it to MP3. this won't let you convert a WMA -> MP3.

 

 

 

*for personal backup only

[pavid]

Went Goggling and found this - http://www.jakeludington.com/ask_jake/2005...wma_to_mp3.html

The site suggests using I-Tunes (which is free) and tells you how to do it.

[shep48]

I use musicmatch and its free

[Norguard]

Fatty, you rip using Windows Media Player, right?

 

It's not exactly a power-user program, and it won't give you quite the same quality as, say Exact Audio Copy and LAME for ripping and .mp3 encoding, but there is a way to get more than reasonable .mp3s from WMP10.

 

Here's how:

 

Maximize WMP, so that you can see the toolbar up top.

 

Go to Tools/Options/Rip Music

 

Under "Rip Settings", use the pulldown menu to select "mp3".

 

Move the slider to select: 128kbps/192kbps/256kbps/320kbps

 

Yer set.

 

I did a quick size test for you too, Fats, using Age of Electric's "Enya" (4:53):

 

128kbps = 4.47MB = ~895kB/Minute

192kbps = 6.71MB = ~1.34MB/Minute

256kbps = 8.95MB = ~1.79MB/Minute

320kbps = 11.1MB = ~2.22MB/Minute

 

The sizes aren't bad for a 5 minute song, and the rates will almost always be 100% consistant. If the song has a lot of transients/splosives ("S"s, snares or highhats) rip at 320 or 256. If not, or you don't particularly care, rip at 192 or 256. I can't stand listening to anything lower than 192, unless it's on bad speakers anyway, or I have no other choice.

Edited August 22, 2005 by Norguard

[appalachian_fox]

If you're using Windows Media Player and want to stick with it, go to Tools | Options, go to the Rip Music tab, and check your settings. I use WMA VBR in the office with the quality slider set in the middle and have no complaints about quality (Audiophiles need not apply, my ears are not that discerning) and I usually rip a whole CD for just a few MB more.

 

I also believe there is an MP3 option, but I have never tried it, so if you are set on MP3s instead of set on WMP, there is plenty of other good advice here...they just involve other programs.

 

Speaking of which, is Winamp still any good? Haven't used it in awhile, but it used to be pretty efficient once you figured out how to navigate the menu system.

[dwEEziL]

Say it with me everyone... CDex.

 

http://cdexos.sourceforge.net/

[dwEEziL]

Fox, Winamp is ok. Winamp 5 is supposed to be the best of Winamp2 (THE best for audio based on the price...free (and even better than most pay-for products)) and Winamp3 (which introduced video playback as well...although not too well...what do you expect...Justin Frankel, the maker of Winamp 2 (and earlier) had no part in the development of Winamp3).

 

For me, I still use Winamp5 for audio and the occassional video clip, but typically for videos, I use VLC from www.videolan.org.

[stutters]

Say it with me everyone... CDex.

 

http://cdexos.sourceforge.net/

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

no no no. eac + lame = audio ecstacy.

 

then again, looks like your tool does transcoding, which solves (one of) fatty's problems.

 

p.s. transcoding is a sign of the apocolypse.

[appalachian_fox]

Mmmm, VLC...*drools*

 

I believe the Google video client (video.google.com) is pretty much VLC. I don't like to have issues with codecs.

Edited August 22, 2005 by appalachian_fox