[Stuart Wright]

Welcome to the new Music forum.
I wanted to recommend Audiograbber for capturing your CDs to MP3. I grab on my main PC and then dump all my MP3s onto a removable hard drive which I take downstairs and plug into my HCPC for hifi playback.
Audiograbber is excellent. Pop the CD in, hit the CDDB button, and your tracks are all titled. Hit the grab button and a new folder is created, your tracks are saved with the right titles and Audiograbber even creates you a tracklist m3u file when it's done. Excellent software.
I can't tell the difference between the original CD and mp3s when captured at 192kb/s.
http://www.audiograbber.com-us.net/

[bh]

Nice idea of using a removable hard-drive as a cheap version of a soundserver .


Spectre, is it worth adding the url for Audiograbber? I didn't add it to my reply since I wasn't sure about the link and the T&Cs.

[alanrob]

I use CDex - www.cdex.n3.net to grab my CD's to MP3's.
Very easy to use and it's free

Glad to see we have a Music section now Let's hope we all make good use of it.

[MarkB]

What about mp3PRO???

Hmmm....audiograbber! Well if you want quick and average quality mP3s....

It all depends on the encoder (the compression/encoding algorythm that is used in the software). There are several different types and some are better than others.

I would recommend using a LAME 3.90 based program as LAME is by far the best MP3 codec and can be used in many programs.

You should use Exact audio copy software. This is a very smart and free piece of software that includes a CDDB and includes LAME in it. This program will give the best results by far. Gets rid of crackles and pops and calibrates your CD etc... (see link below).

But if you want quality then 128 Constant Bitrate is near CD quality, whereas 256 CBR is the best for MP3. 192 VBR is a close second if space is tight. I could ramble on about the technology.... but i wont.

Have a gander at:

http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/

http://www.r3mix.net/ <- good for analysis of many mp3 encoders

[The Dude]

with you IceCool... EAC really does the business.

I generally use straight wav copies for playback on my HiFi system, but the LAME engine does a great job of reproducing good quality MP3s for my portable player..

Also, EAC can normally read even the most badly damaged CDs in secure mode.
Takes ages, but can save you shelling out on a new CD

I have a couple which wont even spin up on my Cd Player, but EAC has produced perfect wav files of what i thought was a trashed CD..

I've used CDEx a lot too, that also has LAME support and is a bit easier to use than EAC

Yeah CDex rocks

[Brogan]

Got to agree with ice cool.
I use EAC and LAME and it's supposed to be (one of) the best at this.

[StevieDvd]

Spent Sunday investigating MP3 rippers. Usually use EAC but my new aim was putting the mp3's on my PDA for portable listening where space is more of a premium.

I've tried WMA in the past but bought the mp3pro addon for Nero to see if that's any good. On my PC they both seem fine but I am having difficulty finding an mp3pro player on Pocketpc.

After buying the Nero addon found a freebie mp3pro codec! from Thomson.

Though I'm using a good set of headphones I'm not sure the PC output is good enough to really highlight the difference between mp3, mp3pro and wma. Perhaps when my cmoy amp arrives that will help.

Anyone got any experience of mp3pro? Is it worth it?

I know mp3 players will play mp3pro files though not all will play the extra 'pro' bit.

Steve

[monsieurblack]

Originally Posted by Brogan

Got to agree with ice cool.
I use EAC and LAME and it's supposed to be (one of) the best at this.

me too!
had no probs before and transfered most of my cd's [vbr]
if i'm totally honest i wasn't too sure exactly how to use it at first and had to follow a pretty comprehensive 'how to' / 'getting started' guide and after that, well, its just plain sailing
burn baby
burn
monsieurblack

[The Dude]

I've never tried mp3pro.. must have a go.

StevieDVD.. as you're already familiar with EAC i'd find it hard to imagine anything doing a better job..

Have you had a play around in the 'compression settings' menu..?

You've got full control over bitrate etc, so can go as small as you like if you don't think the PDA is outputting at high quality..

As far as comparisons go, on my MP3 stick i cant tell any difference between EAC and CDEx mp3's ripped at the same bitrate settings, using LAME engine..

That would suggest to me that as long as you're using LAME you're getting the full potential of what MP3 can offer..

[StevieDvd]

Yep, would need to check which version of Lame I'm using but I usually stick to 128k/bs for portable mp3 usage. I guess I could buy a larger compact flash card and keep using the same settings but I thought new technology and all that might allow the same quality at a smaller filesize.

[JohnG]

Audiograbber can use Lame as well. I've used audiograbber with lame to produce great sounding mp3s. I've also used Audiograbber to convert to wav files for use on the PC only - obviously these are better !

[GrahamC]

I use Lame and Audiograbber set at 320bs constant.

[Setenza]

I use Cakewalk Media Works for all MP3 conversion. The interface is very intuitive.

[Fordy]

what about Itunes?

Good and free and available on both mac and pc

[SimonO]

I've downloaded Audiograbber and added the LAME .dll... Any MP3 gurus out there care to explain the pros/cons of the various LAME settings..? I've got Bitrate (constant v's various flavours of variable bitrate), Quality (mono, joint stereo, stereo, dual stereo and then voice, low, normal, high)..?

I'm after acceptable quality via my AV system rather than any portable device...