CD to MP3

[augustus108]

WOuld I need a good sound card if I want to convert CD to MP3?
ALso, could someone recommend me what is the best free software out there that would let me convert CD to MP3 (bit rate option)?

System Integration...yeah right, thanks to marketing, more confusion

 

[alltaken]

question 1

NO YOU DON'T EVEN NEED A SOUNDCARD

question 2

EAC is the best, its called exact audio copy in the long way.

however all MP3's suck, i personally don't use any lossy formats like MP3 or OGG, or AAC, or WMV i think they all suck to the max. there is a lossless format which will reduce a cd to about 400-450Mb and will be bit for bit accurate. its called FLAC, it is also under the OGG VORBIS development so is open source. another is called monkeys audio which is lossless. but if its for an MP3 player you will need MP3's so i'll shut up now.

p.s. the best and cheapest way to make your music sound better on the computer is NOT good speakers, but instead better encoding.


Alltaken

 

[kinetic_tw]

however all MP3's suck

That's a pretty broad statement. MP3s are lossy sure, but they definately have their niche. It's not really practical to store your CD collection (you folks do PAY for your music, right?) in FLAC format when you're looking at almost 500mb per album.

I use EAC to create MP3s at 320kps constant, and I dont notice many if any compression issues during playback (Of course, my ear is a factor in that as well).

 

[alltaken]

LOL yes the statement "all MP3's suck" was very broad.

however after having my entire collection in MP3, then deciding to convert them to OGG which was a better format, (i was encoding the ogg files at 520Kbps) i compared one of them to a CD and was blown away ot how much sound info you lose.

so i sarted again and encoded with FLAC.

space is cheap a new 120Gb hdd is cheap but once you have encoded in MP3 its gone, but if you encode in FLAC you cna re-encode in whatever format you want.

i also do computer graphics and rendering, i have all my frames for animations in TGA format a loseless image format with an alpha channel. so for a few seconds worth i could have 400Mb of images, rather than losing quality which i think is more important than space.

so yeah its a personal thing of mine to keep the quality rahter than lose it.


Alltaken

<A HREF="http/www.mud-puddle.co.nz" target="_new">http/www.mud-puddle.co.nz</A> its where its all going on

 

[addiarmadar]

MP3 may suck but it is still the most used and in the mainstay for music format...

F-DISK-Format-Reinstal DO DA!! DO DA!!

 

[BunnyStroker]

MP3 may suck but it is still the most used and in the mainstay for music format...

...unless you are one of the thousands of people who use iTunes and download in AAC...

As commercial internet music delivery grows look for MP3 to get phased out in favor of formats that allow for more digital rights and copy protection - e.g. AAC, WMA, etc.

<b>1.4 Ghz AMD T-Bird underclocked to 1 Ghz...just to be safe!</b>

 

[BunnyStroker]

I agree with the suggestion of using EAC. It's freeware and it is the best CD ripper I've found.

EAC interfaces nicely with the LAME encoder, which is currently the way to get the best possible MP3s. You can get the encoder <A HREF="http/mitiok.free.fr/" target="_new">here</A>. If you are unfamiliar with LAME parameters I would suggest ripping to WAV files and encoding with <A HREF="http/www.dors.de/razorlame/index.php" target="_new">RazorLame</A> which comes with some very nice MP3 presets. I suggest the r3mix.net presets for excellent quality VBR MP3s at a good size.

<b>1.4 Ghz AMD T-Bird underclocked to 1 Ghz...just to be safe!</b>