[Tfug] CD Ripping

[Don Freeman]

GoldWave http://www.goldwave.com/ is a wave editor that will let you edit
most audio files including MP3's. You can cut and paste them together if
desired and clip out the 2 second header or any other dead space inside the
file. I've used it extensively for cleaning up old vinyl. 



-----Original Message-----
From: tfug-bounces at tfug.org [mailto:tfug-bounces at tfug.org] On Behalf Of Rich
Sent: Tuesday, August 26, 2008 7:24 AM
To: Tucson Free Unix Group
Subject: Re: [Tfug] CD Ripping


On Aug 25, 2008, at 11:05 am, Nate wrote:

> What you are no doubt dealing with is the poor iPod implementation of 
> playing MP3s.  I have had a theory that Apple did it on purpose to 
> make
> MP3 seem like a lesser format their their own AAC.

1. it's not their own -- it's an open format which they extended with their
own DRM 2. iPods still glitch between AAC tracks

> 3. Rip CDs as one track.  I actually do this with most of my 
> electronica CDs, for different reasons.  I put my iPod on shuffle most 
> of the time, and I don't like it coming up with a song in the middle 
> of a mixed CD.
> It will start in the middle of the music, and end in the middle of the 
> music.  CDs mixed by a DJ are meant to be played all the way through 
> in order.  So I rip them that way.  However, for other kinds of music, 
> this would invariable be horrible, because if you wanted to listen to 
> Track 7 of your favorite CD, you'd have to fast forward through tracks 
> 1-6 to get to it.  You might as well use a cassette walkman at that 
> point =).

There's a way around this, but currently, the only software for it exists on
Macs.

AACs can have "chapter" marks in them. This was intended for podcasts, but
works well for the kind of music you're talking about.  
Each chapter can have a title, but the 4th gen iPod only displays ticks in
its play progress bar. "Next track" becomes "next chapter"  
in both iTunes and iPod.

I used to do this manually by exporting the CD tracks as an XML playlist,
then rip the entire CD (or set of tracks) as an AAC file.  
These two would then go to the Apple "ChapterTool", and I'd get a
"chapterized" AAC out.

These days I use a tool called "Join Together" (http://
dougscripts.com/itunes/itinfo/jointogether.php), which takes a bunch of
(preferably AIFF) tracks and sends them to Quicktime for the conversion to a
single chapterized AAC file.

There are at least two ways of doing it on a Mac. I'm sure there must be a
way of getting Quicktime Player on Windows to do the same.

So, given that it's just messing with AACs, and AAC is an open format, there
must be a way of doing this without using proprietary software. I haven't
found it yet, but I'd love to know.

R.


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