[cellophane]

no pun intended.
Hi guys,
Up til now I just ripped CD's with any old program or got them off (illegal) dl's with 128 kbps encoding. I would load them on my Nitrus and listen away. However, now I have spoiled by (legal) CD QUALITY MUSIC. (WIth good headphones too! you wouldn't believe how crappy a 128 song off a certain p2p site sounds with a shure e2 or e3.) I am now investing in crisp new factory CD's for once and would like to know the best way to rip them. You guys seem to use LAME, my real question is, what is LAME??? I assume I can can VBR encoded mp3's using that program, which would be really nice. Thanks in advance

 

[ls20]

LAME is a CODEC. Encoders that uses the lame codec are CDex and EAC

 

[Music Fanatic]

Lame is an MP3 encoder. Since you want CD quality music, you may be better off with a Monkey Audio (ape) or FLAC encoder.

Lame is a particularly high quality encoder and is open source. At the forum http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/ you can learn more about it. It is open source and has been test thoroughly.

I'd recommend using the alt-preset options with LAME. I think the best one to use is alt-preset-insane although some people think alt-preset-extreme is satisfactory. However, all my new music is being encoded using FLAC -- I prefer lossless compression.

 

[dd3mon]

Quote:

Originally posted by Music Fanatic Lame is an MP3 encoder.

The acronym actually means the exact opposite (however you're still right in it's purpose

).

LAME:

Lame Ain't an MP3 Encoder

I love recursive acronyms. (GNU!)

For those who would question my acronymity (valid point, since I just made up a word) - my source is: LAME's homepage.

-dd3mon

 

[philodox]

yeah, GNU is good as well... "GNU is Not Unix"

music fanatic... I would say it is more alt-preset-standard is good 'standard' quality... alt-preset-extreme is used for 'extreme' situations where standard doesnt cut it... and alt-preset-insane is only used if you are 'insane'... lol

well, I am partially joking there... but only partially... the alt presets were developed by audiophiles at hydrogenaudio... to say that their standard is sub-par quality is incorrect... I think that there are very few recordings out there that you (or anyone else) would notice any difference between extreme and insane...

 

[Music Fanatic]

Quote:

Originally posted by philodox music fanatic... I would say it is more alt-preset-standard is good 'standard' quality... alt-preset-extreme is used for 'extreme' situations where standard doesnt cut it... and alt-preset-insane is only used if you are 'insane'... lol

This is a really controversial point, and I think it depends on the application. For portable music, you may be right. But I want to backup all my recordings.

 

[philodox]

I agree that LAME is not a good solution for making backups... for that definately go lossless... I am a little short on HD space right now, so I dont do this... but when I get a new HD, I will be considering monkeys audio or FLAC for backups...

but for listening on the go through an MP3 player, alt-preset-standard is the way to go IMO... and if you notice painfull problems in any of the recordings, just re-rip and encode alt-preset-extreme... personally I fine insane useless... why not just go lossless at that point?

 

[slunk007]

Chris Myden has a very good tutorial on how to rip CD's using Exact Audio Copy and LAME. There is a little bit of setting up to do, but once you're set, ripping CD's is super easy.

 

[Intrigue]

what's the difference between ripping an mp3 song using the roxio cd creator or using Lame

 

[cellophane]

AHHHHHH!!! I just ripped my CD's to the "uberstandard" and they came out perfect, EXCEPT for one thing - they did not compress! I am stuck with some WAV files which take up a hell of a lot of space on my computer. How can I get these to compress? I dl'd LAME, the recommended version, and put that as the "external compressor" under eac.

I am really stuck on this, please help.
Also, when they ask before ripping, where do you want to put the (wavform? whats that?) files to, it says "disregard filename"? Should I do this, or should I put in something like the album title? My filenames in Windows Explorer come out like 01 - Track01, etc. I would really like it to say the track title . . . HELPPPPP!!!!!!!!
TIA

 

[ls20]

Quote:

Originally posted by Intrigue what's the difference between ripping an mp3 song using the roxio cd creator or using Lame

roxio cd creator uses a codec (compressor) that employs an unfavorable compression scheme/algorithm...

 

[tigre]

Quote:

Originally posted by cellophane AHHHHHH!!! . . . HELPPPPP!!!!!!!! TIA

Compression options should look like this (important: correct path to LAME, if there are spaces in path names use e.g. "c:\my downloads\lame.exe"):

 

[philodox]

another problem you might be having is that you need to leave EAC open even after it is done ripping since it is opening invisible LAME windows in the background that compress the files...

 

[Music Fanatic]

Quote:

Originally posted by cellophane AHHHHHH!!! I just ripped my CD's to the "uberstandard" and they came out perfect, EXCEPT for one thing - they did not compress! I am stuck with some WAV files which take up a hell of a lot of space on my computer. How can I get these to compress? I dl'd LAME, the recommended version, and put that as the "external compressor" under eac. I am really stuck on this, please help.

So, is everything working well now?

 

[cellophane]

Most of the time it works fine . . . when my computer goes to sleep it doesn;t work. A few questions I have are about ID tagging the songs, when I rip a CD it only says track 01, 02, etc . . . no track titles are filled in, and I must fill them in byhand, which is annoying.
Also, does using your computer extensively during compression/ripping create compromised audio quality? Does a computer pausing brfly cause a pop in the song? Some of my files stopped compression mid-song (due to computer trouble) , wich screwed up the file name. I fixed the name then started up lame to finish compression. Is this ok?
Anyone use the ubernet network? CD's are expensive so I'd like to share . . .
Thanks!