ripping cds

That's a great question


For what it's worth, I do it this way:

I rip the entire album into WAV format, with an appended ID3 tag. I use AudioGrabber, and in fact, have the download available on my sites (it's in the public domain).

Then, I choose the tracks I want, and encode to 320 kbps MP3, with album art, et. al., to another drive. The WAVs stay on one drive, and only the MP3s I will play, go to the working drive.


The bennies I see from that:

I always have the original WAV copies on one drive for re-encoding (backed up of course).

I don't have a ton of filler on my working drives.

I never touch the original album/CD more than once.


My working set of material, never contains more than a few thousand tracks, which keeps my software working robustly, yet I have basically any track I will ever play.


Just my way of doing things...

Edit to add:

I listen to every track on my working drive, in its entirety, prior to playing before an audience. That's why I get the big bucks

Every time I try to rip a CD, it breaks and I'm forced to replace it. I've also cut myself a couple of times.


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Every time I try to rip a CD, it breaks and I'm forced to replace it. I've also cut myself a couple of times.

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I see you found the eggnog Hank -- I thought I hid it pretty well...

I just rip the top songs on the album which are added to the road set. The filler songs get left behind.

I'm somewhat like Rick in that I store all the WAV files. However, I don't cherry pick the music I bring out with me. I like the flexibility of choosing whether a play a request vs. not having a particular song and not being able to play it. I rip every song off every CD, store the WAV and every so often convert WAVs to MP3 and move them to my laptop.

Request Line Productions said:

Every time I try to rip a CD, it breaks and I'm forced to replace it. I've also cut myself a couple of times.


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I find that if you soak them in acetone for a little while they are much easier to rip, but have a tendency to stick to your fingers....

I rip only what i need.If someone come to me with request and i dont have the song i dont have the song-so what-nowbody is going to die.

I rip the hits, and sometimes a few other tracks that I enjoy. I bring about 2000 songs to the party, and at least "most" of them could be used.

Fred Stewart said:

If it's any help, we're CD based and make comps.

We buy the originals and compile 'em when possible. The originals are stored away for archive. The comps consist of tracks that are most likely to be requested and/or be useful. Many greatest hits sets only use part of an 80 minute CDR.

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So, really, if you went the CD mp3 route, you could literally show up with about 15 CDs.

SImple Database..... and print out a sheet for each disc.

One thing I love about the CD Mix 2 is the ability to jump 10 songs with a touch of a button. The CD Mix 3 is the same, but adds mp3.... I wish I had spent the extra $100....