CD Ripper
From Musik
To get to the ripper Right Click a CD drive in your sources/devices list
This easy-to-use part of musikCube lets you extract the contents of any audio cd to your hard disk, letting you listen to it without having the original CD at hand.
Loading the CD To begin extracting, insert the cd in the drive you would like to extract the tracks from. At the left panel, where devices are listed, choose the correct drive from the CD Drive-list. The tracks should appear in the track list on the main panel. If necessary, press the "rescan" button to reload the contents of the cd.
To get the CD ripper screen you must right click on the chosen device. From the list choose Rip. You should now see a screen the same as the screenshot below.
Enter CD information When connected to the Internet, you should try "Lookup CD" to look up your cd on freedb. This is a site that holds information on thousands of cd's, so it's likely that musikCube is able to retrieve it and you won't have to enter everything manually. In case this fails, you will have to enter the info yourself. Press "Edit Track Info" and "Edit Album Info" to fill in everything you need. Remember to press "Save" every time when editing the tracks. The information will be saved in tags. These are data that are added to the music files containing the info, and which will help musikCube keep your music organized. Hint: Fill in as much as you can. It will probably save you time later, and it doesn't use up much space either.
File handling Now you must set the naming conventions, path, etc... musikCube must use. Path sets the folder where the files are extracted, enter a value, or browse to a folder clicking the button next to it, make sure the folder or a parent folder is in MusikCube's synchronization-list. Hint: Try to order your music catalog from the moment you start building it. An example of a good directory scheme is to have a Full albums\artist name\artist name – album-folder, a Compilations\Compilation title-folder and another one where you leave your single tracks.
Rename files using default "Tag-To-Filename" mask is an invaluable feature for ripping cd's and keeping a your files structured, by giving every filename a unified structure. Make sure the box is checked, and press the button next to it. Use the buttons below to define this structure. Hint: Some good structures are "$ARTIST - $TRACK - $TITLE", "$ARTIST - $ALBUM($TRACK ) - $TITLE". Be sure to keep it simple, as all the information is already included in the tags.
Ripping Unless you really have a very special reason you wouldn't want the tags to be filled in, make sure "Write Tag" is checked. When encoding in MP3 (see later), Check "ID3V1" and, if you like, you can always check "ID3V2", but MusikCube is not yet able to read it and ID3V1 normally contains sufficient data. Now choose one of the 3 encoding formats:
- LAME MP3 (Lame Ain't an MP3 Encoder)
This is the best MP3-encoder at the moment. It is open source, and delivers the best sounding MP3's. MP3 is a lossy audio format, which means that there is a small loss in quality when compressing to MP3. It's main advantage is that it is the most wide-spread technology, which can be played on virtually every computer and player, so if you're not sure what you're doing, this is your choice. Specify a Bitrate at which the MP3's are encoded, higher Bitrates produce better sound quality and larger file sizes. Hint: 128kbps is the minimum for decent sound. I recommend using 192kbps for (almost) CD-quality.
- FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec)
As opposed to MP3, this is a lossless format, meaning that the ripped tracks will sound exactly as the original, at the cost of much larger files. If quality is all that counts, and disk space is no problem, this is your codec. Specify the Compression that will be used. Hint: Use the maximum possible compression. This might result in longer encoding times, but the result will be smaller files, as the quality is always lossless.
- OGG Vorbis
OGG is a relatively new lossy format. It is open source, and it's main advantages are the small file size compared to MP3, and it's superior sound quality. The only problem is, just as with FLAC, is that it is not so widely spread, and you might have problems playing it on computers only equipped with, let's say... Windows Media Player. But that's where musikCube comes in, right? Adjust the Quality slider to your preference. Hint: quality 0 is roughly equivalent to 64kbps average, 5 is roughly 160kbps, and 10 gives about 400kbp. For very-near-CD-quality, use 6.
We've arrived at the moment supreme. If you want to partially rip the album, select the tracks, and press "Rip Selected". If you want to rip it entirely, just press "Rip Entire Disc". Now all you have to do is wait for it to complete. All you have to do after the ripping, is "Synchronize" (File->Synchronize) and your freshly ripped files will be added to your library.
(Screenshot Ripper)
