Ok, I know I’m late to the party here, but what’s the hive recommend CD ripping software these days?

I did a bunch forever ago (like, Windows 98 days) with Audiograbber, and I know Windows does it natively these days. But I’ve no idea what best practice is any more.

Cheers.

I think I asked the very same question on here not too long ago. Someone recommended CDBurnerXP which I’ve been using, ballache free.

That’s going the wrong way…! I want to copy CDs to mp3, not the other way around.

There’s literally hundreds available for free and they all the same good job. iiwm I’d just search Google for ‘free cd ripping software’

DOH

Sorry. Well for that kind of thing I use Wavelab. But something like Audacity would do the job.

iTunes does this very well IME. Just make sure all the settings are er set e.g. MP3 rather than that obscure apple format.

Mediamonkey for me. Rips to virtually every format.

I’ve been using Freerip which works well but it only supports mp3, ogg and FLAC, not mp4a. Instinctively AAC in an mp4 wrapper feels like a better choice than mp3 these days. I suppose many would argue that a rip to FLAC keeps your options open but it’s expensive in disc space.

I like DBPoweramp. It isn’t free but I like it and thought it worth paying for. I find it does a good job of picking the correct ID info and it rips to FLAC and MP3 to different folders exactly like I wanted.

Ages back I spent a while ripping various tracks into various formats and bandwidths- found one where I couldn’t tell any difference between the CD and the rip. Went up a click of bandwidth on general principles, rip it all with WMP. The obsession with lossless, or with which ripping software’s best, all seemed a bit directional cable.

Cheers for all the replies so far. I suppose a secondary question is how to organise it – ie, bitrate, folder format, naming conventions etc.

There’s literally hundreds available

I know, hence the question.

iTunes does this very well

iTunes and I don’t see eye to eye.

Or, i to i.

EAC on Windows. Nothing else I’m aware of does so much to make sure you get perfect rips.

http://wiki.hydrogenaud.io/index.php?title=EAC

What’s nice is that it can run a separate encoding queue – not that modern CPUs take that long, but a few years back when I did several hundred CDs it could read one in a couple of minutes. I just took a big pile with me to the computer and kept feeding them in one after the other. Encoding would take a couple of hours to catch up after each batch.

I still use Audiograbber! But I use WMP for an easier life
Tag&Rename by Soft Pointer is great for doing what it suggests
No doubt there will be loads of other opinions

On naming convention, I went with <artist>/<album>/<track no> <title>

The track number prefix means albums play in the right order. Not sure if I did the right thing with the artist folder because compilation albums end up getting spread out everywhere so you can’t, for example, play the whole Top Gun soundtrack but it does keep the top level folders to an almost manageable size.

Seems sensible.

I’d file soundtracks as an artist of “OST” I reckon.

Theoretically, it should be irrelevant with sensible playback software. But I don’t use anything like that either.

EAC, like wot simon(_g) says

Still use CDex me. Works brill.

Various and OSTs get an artist name of Various – <album> . Otherwise the songs all get split up.

I installed itunes, ripped everything over the course of about 2 weeks and uninstalled it. It’s slow and annoying as CD’s copy really quick so you need to be around to feed it.

iTunes does this very well IME. Just make sure all the settings are er set e.g. MP3 rather than that obscure apple format.

Ah yes, that’ll be AAC, otherwise known as MP4, from the same people as MP3, but a superior codec.
Proprietary format, licenced by Apple, just like MP3, and used by pretty much everyone, except Windows.
Hardly obscure, I could play AAC ripped tracks on a Sony-Ericsson K750i ten years or more ago.
Apple Lossless is also open-source.