Ripping/converting CD to mp3 with ripperX

Using applications, configuring, problems
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Flash
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Ripping/converting CD to mp3 with ripperX

#1 Post by Flash »

It worked for me, and without too many false starts.

My local library has a lot of books-on-CD. I like to listen to them in my car but I didn't like the idea of carrying the library's CDs around in my car for a week or two. I tried copying the CDs, but that rapidly piled up a lot of CDs. (Some books fill 12 CDs; the average is around 5.) Then I discovered that there are mp3 CD players for cars, and that I could put 3 or 4 books on one mp3 CD. So I bought an mp3 CD, a cheap one that as it turns out only sees a file system one layer deep. That's when I discovered that all commercial wav-to-mp3 conversion programs are for music CDs, not book CDs. They rip and convert to mp3 very well, but their filing arrangements don't suit my purpose. I need to combine 150 files, of 150 tracks from 12 CDs, into one folder, numbered in ordinal sequence, but these programs make that very hard to do. They add playlists and CDDB metadata which frustrate my efforts to arrange and number the tracks the way I want.

So I tried Puppy's ripperX. Somewhat to my surprise, it worked very well. It took a few tries to figure it out, but not many.

Here's how I did it:
  • 1. Increase the pup001 file size (it's now 2 GB.) (Start->Utilities->Resize /root filesystem. You have to repeat several times to make pup001 2 GB!)
    2. Open ripperX from the Start->Multimedia menu
    3. Click on the "Config" gear icon
    4. In the "General" tab, "Wav file", I don't know what the % means in "File name format" so I left it alone. For the "Target Directory" I specified /root/my-documents/music. For the "MP3 file" settings, I again left "File name format" alone, but specified /root/my-documents/music/Name_of_Book for the Target Directory. I initially used space instead of _, but something I tried didn't like that, so I wound up using _. Spaces will probably work fine now, I just haven't tried them yet. Tick "Make Mp3 from existing Wav file." Leave everything else at default values.
    5. In the "Wav" tab, make sure the Ripper plugin is "cdparanoia III." The boxes should all be unticked by default. I ticked "Disable paranoia (will act like cdda)" because otherwise ripperX will get hung up trying to correct a bad patch on the CD, and for an audio book it just doesn't make sense to worry about a few dropouts here and there.
    6. In the "Mp3" tab, my "Encoder plugin" is Lame MP3 Encoder. I set BitRate to 56k, ticked "Use variable bitrate (VBR)," "VBR quality" to 8, unticked "High quality mode" and left the rest alone (no CRC error protection.)
    7. The other tabs I left at their default values, (no boxes were ticked.)
    8. Click OK button to exit config window.
    9. Put a CD in the drive. After the light on the drive goes out, click the "Scan" button in ripperX. Click "Select All Tracks" (or whatever tracks you wish to rip,) tick "rip Wav." (Very important. On my first try at ripping/converting to mp3 I ticked "Encode mp3." RipperX ripped the first track, then started to encode it but apparently got distracted by ripping the second track and never completed encoding the first. Edit: I'm not sure what I changed, but now ripperX rips and converts in one step when I leave "Encode mp3" ticked. The only thing I think I changed was to untick "High quality mode" in the "mp3" tab of the Config window. If this holds, steps 11 and 12 won't be necessary.) Fill out the Artist (Author) and Album (Name of book; I used spaces here.)
    10. Click the "Go" button. Ripper X starts to read the tracks off the CD and into the music folder on the hard drive, as wav files.
    11. When ripperX tells you it's finished ripping the tracks you've chosen, click OK. You can remove the CD from the drive for the next step but it is not necessary.
    12. "Select All Tracks" once again. "Encode mp3" should be ticked by default, but if not, tick it. The Artist and Album windows shouldn't have gone blank, but if they did, fill them back in exactly as before. Click "Go." Since "Make mp3 from existing wav file" was ticked on the "General" tab in "Config," ripperX converts the wav files in the music folder into mp3 files which it puts in the Name_of_Book folder. (The wav files in the music folder should have been deleted after they were converted into mp3 files because "Keep wav files" was left unticked in the ripperX configuration window "General" tab, but instead their file size is simply reduced to 0.)
    13. Repeat the ripping process for the next CD in order. While it is being ripped and the wav files stored in the music folder, you have time to change the track numbers of the mp3 files in the Name_of_Book folder to the correct number sequence, and also add the .mp3 extension. RipperX only puts a number on each track file, without a file descriptor at all, so an mp3 player won't play the file until you add the .mp3 extension. I start with '001.mp3," because it is unlikely a CD track will ever have a number like that, and count up from there.
That's pretty much it for the ripping and encoding. 6 CDs are now in a single folder of 178 MB. I'll do a few more books, each in its own folder, and then try burning them all on an mp3 data CD with Gcombust!
Last edited by Flash on Thu 23 Jun 2005, 13:39, edited 3 times in total.

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Lobster
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Sound

#2 Post by Lobster »

Very interesting Flash

If you read the web site news section for 18 & 19 June 2005 you will see Barry is updating sound. I was also pleased that the beginnings of ogg vorbis support (perhaps with speex?) are being introduced.

Ogg vorbis has some great advantages over mp3
  • Open source
    better sound quality
    better file compression
So if going the mp3 player route in any form - also be aware of ogg vorbis and ensure any player can use this standard (some are mp3 only) I remember telling a friend about this format (same happened with mp3 before it became the norm) and he now uses ogg vorbis

Thanks for sharing the experience - perhaps you can find time to start a Sound section in Puppy (maybe there is one?) Hope so :)

The snack player is tcl and shows the elegance and simplicity and potential of this standard Puppy programmming language

Sound worked for me in Puppy and much to my amazement so did recording
Puppy Raspup 8.2Final 8)
Puppy Links Page http://www.smokey01.com/bruceb/puppy.html :D

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BarryK
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#3 Post by BarryK »

ripperX has to be recompiled i think, to support ogg/vorbis.

...actually, I'm reluctant to do so for now, as ogg/vorbis is not working very well with Gxine, totally hopeless with Snack, as reported in the News page.

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