Rip'ing Music / Portable Music Players

[Vayanla]

For Christmas my wife and I got our kids inexpensive portable mp3 players and a few CD's to start their collections.

I spent yesterday afternoon "learnin" the new devices and how they work. The ones that we got are basically just 1GB USB drives that happen to play whatever is loaded on them that has an extension that it recognizes. It's pretty cool - the kids can even use them to take their homework back and forth to school! (Yea!! no more burning CD's when they're already late for school!).

I wound up downloading Windows Media Player 11 - which seemed to do what we needed. I rip'd the music with the default settings.

So my questions are:

What software do some of you all use to rip / manage your collections?

What rip/music qualities do you use?

Any other advice you can offer to someone who's really never rip'd or tried to manage their music collection electronically?!

[Erudite]

I have a Dell DJ. I used to use the Musicmatch software that it was shipped with, until I realized it was crap. Now I just manage it with the latest version of RealPlayer. It works very well for me.

I'm not at home (in the somewhat sunny state of North Carolina at the moment), but I think I have mine set to rip at 128. For me, it's a good balance of sound quality and space.

[Charinida]

What software do some of you all use to rip / manage your collections?

What rip/music qualities do you use?

Any other advice you can offer to someone who's really never rip'd or tried to manage their music collection electronically?!

The software I used are Music Matchbox Deluxe (PC) and iTunes (PC/Mac). Never really used the Window's media player for ripping.

I have WinAMP but don't think I used it for ripping.

I tend to go for 128b for music. 64b for dialog (eg, audiobooks/speeches). Then again, my hearing isn't too great but just the idea of a higher quality is good.

I have presently two MP3 players, although I wouldn't really consider iTunes to be MP3 with their format. The other player I have besides the iPod is a Creative Zen (anyone?) which playes MP3s.

As for managing, I let iTunes set up the Artist/Title/Track, and set up playlists if need be (say, Faves, or most played).

With Musicmatch, I could have had Kanji and other stuff in the titles, but for some reason, iTunes doesn't like it (mutters).

/me tries to think of other things but is late for work!

[Serani]

At 1GB, I doubt, for your kids, that they'll run out of space, but something to consider is that radio quality (and what I broadcast at back when I DJ'ed) is 54k. That's what you hear when you turn on your car stereo. You'll get twice on the 1GB stick at that quality and it's probably plenty for your kids.

As for what to rip with...err...I have Winamp Pro, which will rip to mp3 (Pro is $20, downloaded), partially because I tend to avoid MS whenever possible and partially because I still like Winamp after all these years (even though they're owned by AOL now). However, another alternative is dBpowerAMP (http://www.dbpoweramp.com/) which has 30 free days that you can convert files to mp3 without having to buy anything. The mp3 license after the trial is $14. This utility also allows you to convert through Windows Explorer with a right-click option.

Lastly, ripping does not always give you the same volume levels for each song. MP3Gain (http://mp3gain.sourceforge.net/) is a free download from sourceforge that allows you to normalize the volume for all of your mp3s (so you're not messing with the volume constantly). You give it a directory, tell it at what level to put the volume at (90%, IIRC) and walk away. For large drives (i.e., my 40gb), it took all night. 1GB will probably only take an hour or two.

Good luck!

[EricStratton]

To rip music from CDs I use CDEX (http://sourceforge.net/projects/cdexos/). It's been around a long time, it's free, and, at the time that I started using it, it was hands down the best out there. Now almost all programs (like WinAmp or WMP) can do it but I'm sticking w/ CDEX. I just use all the defaults when I rip.

To manage my collection, I use Windows Explorer. :p I have a folder called "Songs". In it, I have folders for individual artists, then in those are folders for individual albums. That's my great system.

[leng]

I use the app which came with my Creative Media Player. It seems adequate. I generally rip at 128. In good conditions I can hear a degredation at that quality c/f the original CD, but generally I play mp3s in hostile environments so the loss of quality doesn't matter. At 64 I definitely hear a marked difference. Above 160 I can't hear any difference between source and rip when played through my PC sound card.

[Shiz]

128 is the bare bones minimum. Don't even bother ripping at less.

[leng]

128 is the bare bones minimum. Don't even bother ripping at less.
Actually, 64 is perfectly adequate for spoken-word material. I use my mp3 player a lot for long journeys and I generally rip audiobooks etc at 64 to reduce space and extend battery life.

[Shiz]

Fair enough. I have never converted anything but music to mp3.

[Sylvene]

Heh... I do it the other way around. I'm ripping from CD and up-sampling. Making my files larger. :p

[leng]

Heh... I do it the other way around. I'm ripping from CD and up-sampling. Making my files larger. :p
How much difference does that really make? I've seen glowing reviews of upsamplers, but they generally cost a fortune and I suspect you need top end kit and golden ears to really appreciate it.

I'm just naturally suspicious of anything which purports to put something back into a data stream which was not there in the first place. Speaking of which, has anyone any live experience of the Creative X-fi (http://www.x-fi.com/)

[Draknor]

I use whatever Itunes default might be. It sounds fine and I haven't even put an appreciable dent in my 60gb storage space.

[RJO]

Straight up itunes user here... its just so simple I wouldn't have it any other way...

[Sagar]

I generally use iTunes also. Windows Media player seems to do a fine job also.

[leng]

I generally use iTunes also. Windows Media player seems to do a fine job also.
I just ripped a bunch of CDs (to .wav - no encoding) using Windows Media player. I sampled half a dozen tracks afterwards and two of them were faulty (sound glitches which were not on the original disks). Reripped with WinAmp with no problems.

I won't use iTunes because I absolutely refuse to have anything to do with DRM encumbered music.

[Zyzzyx]

When I was trying to manage my MP3s, was just through Windows Explorer and played with WinAmp. But no portable tunes to be played here. At the computer I'm still using Pandora. Gives me a nice selection of tunes, and tosses some new stuff in occasionally. I've still got a meager 4gb or so of MP3s, but its been years since I added anything to that. And can't remember the last time I actually bought a CD (though most likely it would've been a Joe Satriani CD).

But I guess I don't fit with the new practice of always having music with you wherever you go. Heck, some of my favorite long drives have been in a car without a stereo. Doesn't bother me to head out on a four hour bike ride, no tunes.



I just ripped a bunch of CDs (to .wav - no encoding) using Windows Media player. I sampled half a dozen tracks afterwards and two of them were faulty (sound glitches which were not on the original disks). Reripped with WinAmp with no problems.
And you... you get back to your Linux system! :cool:

[leng]

But I guess I don't fit with the new practice of always having music with you wherever you go. Heck, some of my favorite long drives have been in a car without a stereo. Doesn't bother me to head out on a four hour bike ride, no tunes.
I don't listen to music when I'm driving as it tends to put me to sleep, which is NOT a good thing.

Some interesting info on mp3 encoders can be found on the links offered here:
http://www.mp3-converter.com/encoders/mp3_encoder_reviews.htm

[Charinida]

I won't use iTunes because I absolutely refuse to have anything to do with DRM encumbered music.

Uh, does burning the iTune d/loaded songs to a CD-RW to be ripped help overcome that, when using a non-iTune ripper?

[Quervo]

I have a Kingston KPX 100 It is a 1G onboard with a miniSD slot that can use a 2G that i know of as of now... I just move it over to the SD and it plays anything I put on it.

[leng]

Uh, does burning the iTune d/loaded songs to a CD-RW to be ripped help overcome that, when using a non-iTune ripper?
According to the blurb, you can actually burn directly to mp3 CDs. However, I have no idea what the bitrates/quality is like. Does anyone know what the iTunes AAC bitrate is for music? I know it is 32K for audiobooks which is pretty low even given the advantages of AAC over MP3 at low bitrates.

Having said that, I'm not sure I can be bothered with all the palava. I'd rather have a reference copy of the material (original CD) so that I can use lossless transport locally and play it on good quality equipment without worrying about what artefacts all the encoding/transcoding has introduced. Plus currently everything I encode is in one format which makes life really easy.

To answer my own question. Poking around on the web suggests that iTunes mainly uses 128K for its music, and that even given that their encoding codec is superior to those available to home users the result is still well less than CD quality (they need to up it to 192K to get even close). Of course, this assumes you are using decent playback equipment. Played on a iPod using earbuds you probably couldn't tell the difference.

[Draknor]

Played on my car stereo - which is probably the best equipment I have - I can't tell the difference between a ripped CD or my IPod.

But, then again, it isn't all that important to me, so I'd imagine there's a few nuances I'm missing.

[Vayanla]

Well, for my birthday (http://www.legendsofwestwood.org/forum/showthread.php?t=10502), my wife (erm, I mean I) bought me a Sansa c250 (http://www.sandisk.com/Products/Item%282063%29-SDMX7-2048-Sansa_c250_MP3_Player_2GB.aspx) mp3/wma player. While c|NET (http://reviews.cnet.com/SanDisk_Sansa_c250_2GB/4505-6490_7-32078916.html) didn't have many good things to say about it, I'm in love. The music quality, as far as I can tell, is just as good as my personal CD player - with my mid priced / quality sony ear bud headphones.

It has a proprietary interface (read: custom USB cable) - which means I'd better not lose the one that came with it. It worked with no additional software required when I plugged it into my computer. Windows Media 11 recognized it right away. (I opted to take the easy way out and just use the software I'm comfortable with using for now - I'll pony up to something better per the suggestions above once I get a better handle on this "new fangled" technology).

It came w/ 2gb internal and I also bought a 2gb microSD card - for a total capacity of 4gb - which will hold my ENTIRE (rather small) music collection! Perhaps this will give me reason to grow it for the first time in ... oh, I don't know 10 years or so. (Horray for record industry profits, lol).

The only weird thing is that WMP sees it as two separate devices. One for the internal 2gb and one for the microSD 2gb. I suppose that's OK - it just may make keeping the device sync'd all that more difficult as now I have to remember where I put things or I may wind up with duplicate music on it.

I appreciate all of your comments and help in this thread - it made me realize that there are litterally countless options of devices and software for personal music out there. It made the selection a bit daunting - but for today, I'm happy! :)

[Sylvene]

How much difference does that really make? I've seen glowing reviews of upsamplers, but they generally cost a fortune and I suspect you need top end kit and golden ears to really appreciate it.

I'm just naturally suspicious of anything which purports to put something back into a data stream which was not there in the first place. Speaking of which, has anyone any live experience of the Creative X-fi (http://www.x-fi.com/)

Leng, I use free-ware. It's 2:30am now... just back from picking up bro & family from airport... so I'll PM you the names of the programs when I get up. ;)

For some badly recorded music, nothing's going to make it sound better. The same for well recorded music. The rest of the 80% out there, it does make a difference, as long as your equipment has the resolution to.. um.. well, yah... pretty much top end kit.