What is the best program to encode CDs to MP3s?

[xboxweasel]

I know, I know...but for the convenience...

I have always had problems making my own MP3s. I always hear noise / scratches / blips / distortion.

What program do you suggest? Winamp? Audiograbber? What codec is best? I hear Lame mentioned a lot. And what settings are better? Variable, fixed, 320kbps?

I would really like to convert some of my CDs into MP3s.

PS: MP3s that I received from others (friends, internet download, etc) do not all exhibit these same problems.

 

[MDS]

There are two steps:
1. The actual 'ripping' of the tracks (digital audio extraction). If you have a relatively new cd or dvd drive, it will be accurate and you can use any program that you want to do the extraction: WinAmp, Windows Media Player, Nero, whatever. Because I often edit audio ripped from a CD, I just use my audio editor - Sound Forge. No doubt someone will mention Exact Audio Copy and it is free and works fine but does no better than any other program that can extract the audio - its most touted feature is actually done in the firmware of modern drives.

2. The encoding to mp3. Commercial programs tend to use the Fraunhoffer encoder (Fraunhoffer is the inventor of the mp3 format). Shareware and Freeware programs often use LAME, which is itself open source software. Lots of blind tests have been conducted comparing encoders and LAME always does well but I personally never notice any difference between its encodes and Fraunhoffer encodes. LAME does have zillions of settings you can vary to get the best possible sound (to your ears of course).

Fixed vs Variable: Fixed bitrate is universally supported by all players. Variable bit rate can result in slightly smaller files and a higher average bit rate, but most players cannot correctly calculate the length of the file. LAME actually supports a hack to put that info in the header, but only players that were designed to work with LAME will even know to look for that field in the header.

As for bitrate to use, if you use fixed be sure to use at least 192 kbps. 256 kbps is considered absolutely transparent to the source. 320 kbps is an absolute waste of extra space and will be identical to 256 kbps. I settled on 192 kbps as good enough as I could only tell the difference between 192 and 256 on 1 song out of 5000.

So basically just pick one - the results will be acceptable no matter what.

 

[nav]

I know, I know...but for the convenience...

You can always encode them in a lossless format (such as FLAC) if you're truly worried about fidelity. (I do, an I'm not even an audio-voodoo kind of guy.)

I have always had problems making my own MP3s. I always hear noise / scratches / blips / distortion.

Maybe your encoder is less a part of the problem than the ripping program? Hi-Fi Windows folks seem to like EAC (I've never tried it). I tend to just use CD Paranoia (which is used by CDex -- a ripping/encoding/tagging suite -- in Windows and by most Unix/Linux-land rippers).

A truly poor CDROM drive will have more problems than a decent one in reading audio CDs bit-for-bit perfectly. Have you looked into a new CDROM drive? If so, I'll make some recommendations and post some references on this too.

What program do you suggest? Winamp? Audiograbber? What codec is best? I hear Lame mentioned a lot. And what settings are better? Variable, fixed, 320kbps?

LAME is a great encoder. If setup properly, variable rate encodings should be preferable in a quality to file size ratio. Check out HydrogenAudio.org for some recommended settings.

 

[Hi Ho]

I prefer the WMA format at 192k since it is virtually identical to the source. I use Windows Media Player 11 for everything music related and it works great.

 

[xboxweasel]

I prefer the WMA format ...

I want to stick with the MP3 format. For portability. Most car CD players and HT DVD players can read MP3 discs.

flac

I think I will stay away from flac. Too huge. I don't have endless HDD storage, but I have a lot of CDs I would like to store on my PC.

LAME

I found LAME. Now I need a program to use it with. I remember reading something about Fraunhoffer and how they wanted to sue everyone for using the MP3 format (portable MP3 players, car CD/MP3 players, PCs, HT DVD/CD/MP3 players, etc, etc). I guess they owned the rights and let everyone use it before they decided to act. Sounds like a typical lawyer move.

PC hardware

I have been through many CD/DVD drives. I even recently upgrade the whole PC. I have attempted to make MP3 on various occations. Usually doing 10-20 dics at a time. I won't use the PC for anything else at that time to ensure the encoding software has full use of the processor. When I get around to finally listening to them I realize they are filled with noise. I have done this a few times now and kind of given up on it.

Thanks for all the info.

 

[twiggy]

I prefer the WMA format at 192k since it is virtually identical to the source. I use Windows Media Player 11 for everything music related and it works great.

Hey Hi HO, I cant seem to private message you so I am posting my question to you here. I saw several months ago you bought a onkyo tx-88 at a thrift store. Do you still have it? my email is gilbertstuff@tds.net Thanks!

 

[JustEd]

Bit rate depends on the particular piece of music

I am using iTunes and started with the default 128 and wound up redoing most everything to 192 kbps. Unlike an earlier responder I can really tell a difference from the sorce material and 192 kpbs on much of my music collection. I just ripped the soundtrack from "Antartica" with music by Vangelis using Apples lossless encoding. That is the only time I could really say the computer file sounded as good as the source. I am using an outboard usb soundcard/da converter and running the music off the computer into the same system I listen to my CDs on. I have found that sometimes a piece played in iTunes will just not sound right and so it gets re ripped into their AAC format at 224 or 256 kbps. In my case the larger file size does not mean much as my 160 gig hd still only has 114 gigs available. And there are some video files that can be moved to the back up drive if need be.

If I really want to listen closely to the music then the lossless or 224/256 kbps is in order. I also have ripped MP3's in windows and had very similar results at their bit rates.

You might be trying to make a silk purse out of sows ear if you think a particular progam is going to magically make everything ripped at 160 kbps sound just like the source material.

Hard drives are cheap now, so don't be afraid to pump up the sampling rate if the particular piece of music could benefit from it.

Oh, btw, the thing I like best about iTunes is the ability to give each file its own equalizer and level settings. Some of my CD's are old Rockers and the original transition from tape to CD did not re-equalize the sound as it should have been for CDs. I dialed in my own RIAA setting on the equalizer and then told the program which files to apply it to...like magic. I have not experienced a problem of poorly equalized sound on newly released commercial CDs for some years now.

 

[Hi Ho]

Unlike an earlier responder I can really tell a difference from the sorce material and 192 kpbs on much of my music collection.

There is a difference between 192k AAC (Itunes) and 192k WMA (Windows Media). Windows Media is superior.

Twiggy, you need to confirm your email address before you can send PM's.

 

[supervij]

I use two different programs. The first is an old version of dBpowerAMP Music Converter. It's the old version cos that's when it was free. It embeds into your right click button and converts to and from wav and mp3, either blade or lame, at fixed or variable bitrate, anywhere from 32 to 320 kb/s. I don't think the program is free anymore, but you may be able to find an older version of it somewhere.

The other program I use is called CDex, which I use when I want to extract sections from a CD as one mp3 (or as one wav). For example, I can use it to create a single mp3 of an entire album. Or if several tracks run together, I can use CDex to create a single mp3 of these tracks, with no gap in between them.

By the way, for anyone interested, I found a nice free mp3 editing program called mp3DirectCut. I use it mainly for editing out long silences at the end of some tracks, or joining mp3s together, creating fades, stuff like that. Easy to use, too.

cheers,
supervij

 

[JustEd]

Yes

There is a difference between 192k AAC (Itunes) and 192k WMA (Windows Media). Windows Media is superior.

Not getting into an argument about mp3 vs AAC but was referring to both formats. I have used Windows Media Player and some of the DVD burning software to rip DVD's, not only iTunes.

Still it pretty much depends on the particular piece of music. If you can't hear a difference, as someone else said, then don't bother with a higher sampling rate.

Ed

 

[stratman]

Try MediaMonkey.com, it might be what you're looking for.

 

[googdot]

I'd look into iTunes just for its flexibility and portability - easy to rip, maintain, burn, etc. and go with mp3 192 or above - preferably 256, which i feel is a good compromise of file size/quality. the new version 7.0 is pretty cool, although there are a few bugs to work out yet. of course, if you ever get an ipod you're already sorted as well.

btw, how's kitchener these days? i grew up there but haven't been back in years

 

[xboxweasel]

I'd look into iTunes...

I am not a iPod/iTunes fan. Yet. Maybe never. My girlfriend got a nano. But you just can't dump mp3's over to it. You have to use iTunes to transfer the files. That sucks. But I found a crack to generate the database manually.

btw, how's kitchener these days? i grew up there but haven't been back in years

Okay. Traffic really sucks. Lots of roundabouts are popping up. Houses are going up all over the place. Well, you could call them houses. More like shoe boxes on very small lots. Octoberfest is in full swing. That's good is you drink beer and listen to funny music.

 

[Davidt1]

I use two different programs. The first is an old version of dBpowerAMP Music Converter. It's the old version cos that's when it was free. It embeds into your right click button and converts to and from wav and mp3, either blade or lame, at fixed or variable bitrate, anywhere from 32 to 320 kb/s. I don't think the program is free anymore, but you may be able to find an older version of it somewhere.

The other program I use is called CDex, which I use when I want to extract sections from a CD as one mp3 (or as one wav). For example, I can use it to create a single mp3 of an entire album. Or if several tracks run together, I can use CDex to create a single mp3 of these tracks, with no gap in between them.

By the way, for anyone interested, I found a nice free mp3 editing program called mp3DirectCut. I use it mainly for editing out long silences at the end of some tracks, or joining mp3s together, creating fades, stuff like that. Easy to use, too.

cheers,
supervij

I also use dBpowerAmp. It's the easiest and most reliable program I have used, and I have used many. In fact, I found it superior to CDex. dBpowerAmp is able to extract data from scratched cds, whereas CDex fails.

 

[maytagman]

if I remember correctly iTunes just rips to wav and then uses a LAME bastardization to encode to MP3. If you use the custom setting under iTunes' import section you can crank it up to 256kbps, which should be more than enough unless you're a golden-eared one, in which case you probably would shun digital formats altogether. The only reason I use iTunes over anything else is its CDDB support is ridiculously better than any other tool I've used. I think I've ripped 100 CDs and only 2 or so have been missing track data.

 

[PH0ENIX]

I use Exact Audio Copy with Lame 3.93 to rip my CDs to MP3. It was one of the best reviewed programs to extract audio from CDs when I was looking around, and it's freeware. It uses a free CDDB database that's pretty good. Good luck.