[OT] CD to MP3

[DerianCypher]

well, with all the talk of mood music for games I've decided I'm going to be playing music off my laptop for my group. The thing is, I have a lot of CDs I like that I can use, but I want them in MP3 form. Does anyone have a link to a good [read: free] program that will take cds and make mp3s out of them?

 

[Mortaneus]

Grab the free trial version of audiocatalyst from here: http://www.xingtech.com/

 

[Agnostic Paladin]

http://www.cdex.n3.net/

 

[Fast Learner]

Or even RealOne. http://www.real.com

 

[Kibo]

Gah just get musicmatch.

Or you could go all spiffy and get Ogg Vorbis apps. Higher compression and quality, so "they" say. Or even windows media does a pretty decent job, with at least what you seem to be after.

 

[galaga88]

Go to r3mix.net and they have instructions for setting up EAC (Exact Audio Copy) with LAME. Both are free, and most excellent for ripping CD's to MP3 format. Lame is often considered among the top encoders quality-wise.

 

[BadMojo]

Go to r3mix.net and they have instructions for setting up EAC (Exact Audio Copy) with LAME. Both are free, and most excellent for ripping CD's to MP3 format. Lame is often considered among the top encoders quality-wise.

I use the EAC/LAME combo and I can definitely vouch for the quality. The only negative to EAC/LAME is that it takes a bit of work to set it up properly. Of course, the instructions on r3mix.net are excellent so the set-up isn't difficult, just a bit time consuming.

IMHO, the time it takes setting up the software is well worth it when you consider the quality of the MP3's it produces.

 

[Taloras]

I use MusicMatch Jukebox. Its very good, easy to use, and i havent had any problems, except for the few mp3s i made before i upgraded seem to be a little screwy (when they start, the track time shows them starting 50+ seconds into the song, but its at the beginning of the song)

 

[hong]

Agreed, MMJB is excellent. If you're going to be ripping CDs regularly, it might be a good idea to upgrade to the full version, which gives faster ripping times.

 

[Psionicist]

CDEX is a nice ripper: http://cdex.sourceforge.net/

To convert the WAVs to MP3, do LAME. Accept no substitutes. You can download a nice GUI for LAME known as RazorLAME, so you don't have to work in a scarry DOS/Console environment