ripping music CDs??

[albireo13]

I am starting a separate thread since I am curious about how best to rip music CDs.

I have a few hundred music CDs. In my quest to declutter my house I am looking to move all my music to a NAS or HDD and stream. I just don't use a CD player anymore.

We have a Sonos system for music, with speakers throughout the house.
It works great an we love it. I would use that as our streaming platform.

Anyway, the challenge is ripping the CDs. Any recommendations for CD ripping services?

Also, I have seen streaming NAS devices that can rip a CD with the touch of a button (Brennan B2). That also looks attractive.

Would love to hear what other folks have settled on.

 

[Lawrencewendall]

Been awhile since I've done it, IIRC, Window 10 Media Player has the ability to do it. I think you add the tracks to your library and then export them out to a file.

 

[Jerry1]

I chose this:

https://www.dbpoweramp.com/

They have a free trial so if you can get it all done in a few weeks, it’s free. Personally, I went ahead and paid for it because I appreciated the software and was good with supporting the company. Worked very well for me. I ripped all my CDs and ripped to both FLAC (lossless) and mp3 at the same time. Made it so I only had to handle each CD one time. I saved the FLAC for my backup version and I copied all my MP3’s onto a flash drive. The flash drive is in my truck. So all my music on one flash drive - pretty cool.

Unfortunately, I’ve come to realize that the whole effort was probably a waste of time because all I listen to now is streamed music. Oh well, it’s there if I want it in the future.

 

[Sunset]

I did it myself, as my desktop has a CD drive and it was pretty quick and easy.
I used some free software to do it.
I recommend saving to a lossless and mp3 format as stated above.

Also set the bit rate high enough to have quality sound, especially as OP uses a Sonos system.

 

[OldShooter]

I use AnyBurn to rip and MP3Gain to standardize the levels. I typically play my library of songs using random play and don't want the levels all over the place.

 

[Ramen]

Years ago I shipped my CDs off to a place that ripped them for me, loaded the files into my MP3 player, and saved copies to a USB thumb drive. It all went smoothly and took a couple of weeks. I don't recall which service, but you can search for them. I would never want to spend the time to rip a few hundred CDs myself.

 

[Mauser]

Ripping CDs is simple and painless - lots of software options to do that. The toughest things to deal with are making a choice about archive format (space vs. ultimate sound quality) and library maintenance combined with playback options (just in the home, mobile devices, etc). This can quickly turn into a VERY long discussion.

Once upon a time I used M$ Media Player for everything: ripping, library, AND playback - it was easy and I liked the UI and functionality. But that all changed with W10, and I was rudely reminded that you just cannot trust M$ for anything.

So I converted everything to FLAC lossless format, and now I use free Audacity for all the ripping and file editing. I use free MusicBee for the library and playback combined with the DLNA function of my NAS server for easy access and control from my mobile phone. In my home, all the music played from the NAS library is transmitted by wireless LAN to my fairly high-end stereo system.

This software has tons of options that can make it very flexible to do just about anything you want. With the right defaults configured, ripping CDs can be as simple ans loading the disk into the computer tray and just waiting for it to be ejected when the rip is done.

I also use Audacity for ripping tapes and vinyl, but that takes a lot more time and effort. It can also get very tedious if the records are not in pristine condition and you desire to manually clean up surface noises.

 

[MRG]

I used Microsoft Media. Only thing was I ripped most asynchronous and some titles are jacked because of that, comes up "unknown artist". No big deal for our Wrangler, Tesla doesn't like it as well. I need to redo them.

 

[Ian S]

I've always liked CDex for ripping CD's. https://cdex.mu/

 

[timo2]

I used this free program called 'exact audio copy'. It worked really well. https://www.exactaudiocopy.de/

 

[davebarnes]

The important action is to rip to FLAC.
This becomes your new master copy which you want to save in 3 places (local and remote).
Then you convert to the desired play format—which could be FLAC, Apple Lossless, or MP3, etc.
Some software will allow you to rip to multiple formats at once.
Ripping takes very little time.
What takes a lot of time—if you decide to do it—is adding cover art and lyrics.

Remember, storage is cheap. Expect each album to use about 300MB for FLAC. This means your 200 albums are a whopping 60GB.

 

[mountainsoft]

I haven't ripped CD's in a while, but I like "EZ CD Audio Converter" from https://www.poikosoft.com/

These days I mostly use it to convert songs I buy from iTunes to MP3 files that I can play on my car stereo.

 

[albireo13]

We have an iMAC as our computer so will need to check on SW compatibility.

 

[braumeister]

This article is a little dated, but it's a good overview:

How to Rip Audio CDs to Your PC or Mac

 

[statsman]

I used this free program called 'exact audio copy'. It worked really well. https://www.exactaudiocopy.de/

Same here. It works well for me. It can be a bit tricky to set up the database lookup to populate the track information on retail music CDs.

 

[Animorph]

I used Apple iTunes to rip CD's. And add another vote for ripping to FLAC as well as MP3. Also be sure to verify there are no errors. Some of my original rips did not read the disk error free. Storage isn't so precious anymore that you have to save space on music files. FLAC is actually playable on quite a few of my devices.

Might be worth it to spring for a fast eternal CD/DVD/Blu-ray drive if you'd like to save a little time.

 

[GalaxyBoy]

We have an iMAC as our computer so will need to check on SW compatibility.

Apple Music (formerly iTunes) will do it.

Import songs from CDs into Music on Mac

Others can probably speak better as to whether this is the "best" option or not. Years ago I ripped my CDs to iTunes in Win-doze but have since migrated to an iMac.

Edit to add: of course you'll need to connect a CD drive to your iMac. If you don't have one, they're cheap; or, you can connect to a computer with a CD drive, even a Windows laptop.

 

[Qs Laptop]

I was pleasantly surprised to learn my 2018 Ram 1500 can play FLAC files. The factory stereo can read tags, display album art, and respond to voice commands, just like it can do with mp3 files. My previous 2015 Ram 1500 could not play FLAC files.

There is nothing I own now that plays mp3 files that can't play FLAC files. So goodbye to ripping files into mp3 format.

 

[CoolRich59]

I would never want to spend the time to rip a few hundred CDs myself.

This. I did it once and would gladly pay a (reasonable) fee rather than do it again.

On a similar note, I recently moved from Spotify to Apple Music. I had over a hundred playlists to transfer. My son told me about an app (SongShift) that could transfer playlists pretty effortlessly. Even though I was able to transfer all my playlists during the app's free trial period, I still paid for a subscription as a way of thanking the developer.

 

[f35phixer]

I used Apple iTunes to rip CD's. And add another vote for ripping to FLAC as well as MP3. Also be sure to verify there are no errors. Some of my original rips did not read the disk error free. Storage isn't so precious anymore that you have to save space on music files. FLAC is actually playable on quite a few of my devices.

Might be worth it to spring for a fast eternal CD/DVD/Blu-ray drive if you'd like to save a little time.

i used Itunes also, lets be honest, some CDs might have TWO songs i really liked others i copied the whole album. Now i have all 2422 songs on my phone, walking i put on shuffle and get my great mix of music. in car or house too....

 

[yakers]

When I retired in 08 one of my first projects was to rip all my CDs to my computer and records too. All now resident on my Mac, did lossless verson and convert indivual songs to MP3s when I want to share them. Wired SONOS system is great, use songs on desktop and also love Pandora.

 

[KarenC]

Same here. It works well for me. It can be a bit tricky to set up the database lookup to populate the track information on retail music CDs.

I used the same program when I was on Windows. When I migrated to using a Mac, I switched to using XLD.

 

[DayDreaming]

I'm running linux and used K3b to rip my collection of 953 CDs.
It was a bit tedious but didn't really take all that long and I'm glad I did it.
Now if I buy a new (or used) CD, the first thing I do is rip it.


I ripped everything to FLAC, and that's my master.
I use a simple script to convert those FLAC files to MP3 for a memory stick for my car, which needs MP3.

 

[mistermike40]

I've always liked CDex for ripping CD's. https://cdex.mu/

I've used CDex for many years. Simple and intuitive, with great results. Plus it's free and open source (if you're interested in perusing the code).

 

[Animorph]

i used Itunes also, lets be honest, some CDs might have TWO songs i really liked others i copied the whole album. Now i have all 2422 songs on my phone, walking i put on shuffle and get my great mix of music. in car or house too....

Back in the good old days I never bought an album without liking three songs on it. Crossed my fingers on the rest, with mostly good results. Now it's all just songs unless I get close enough to a full album. I've star rated everything so I can play something like my 4-star and higher songs that I haven't played recently using iTunes.

The amount of time it takes is not too bad if you have something else to do while the conversion is happening. No need to sit in front of the computer doing everything in one sitting. But it does argue for doing rips in a lossless format so that you won't have to do it again.