CD Ripping

bleepandbooster

Had a new computer a few months ago and have been ripping my CD collection onto the HD via Windows Media and recently onto iTunes. But I have about 12 CD's that sound awful ! All my CD's are the real deal and in good condition. The operating system is Windows 64. I have played the CD's in the car and they sound fine. I have also checked via MS Fixit to see if the drivers are up to date and they are.

So has anyone had a problem and what was the solution ?

Cofion
David

fiesta04

You will get replies if you repost in Techie board.

Cheers

taliesin

fiesta has a point - this could well be a tech issue involving your hardware.

Ripping is not quite as simple an operation as it often seems. Despite the old Sony adverts implying that CDs are perfect, a lot can go wrong in reading them. Personally, I use EAC for ripping. It usually produces perfect copies and tells me if there are errors, but most people consider that overkill. However, reading web pages about AccurateRip, HydrogenAudio and EAC will tell you more than you ever wanted to know about the process and what can go wrong.

TLDR version - if the CDs themselves are fine, it's possible although unlikely that you have a faulty reader in the computer. (Even if it reads data CDs correctly - audio and data discs are encoded differently).

If the reader is OK, one possibility is that you have inappropriate settings in either Windows Media or iTunes. The settings that give very small output files (low bitrates) are suitable only for speech or very "lo-fi" music - mp3 and wma formats compress files by throwing some of the music away that they think you are less likely to hear, and if you ask them to compress the files too far, they land up throwing away music you really do hear. Most people find that the point where they can hear the difference corresponds to bitrates around 128kb/s. If you have the bitrate set to lower than this (that is, the target size CD size less than 56MB) you are likely to hear the effect.

Another possibility is that, if you saved your files in Windows' format (wma) or mp3 and told iTunes to convert them to its own format, that can also introduce distortions, especially if either involves high compression.

bleepandbooster

Thanks both for you help ........... But I have posted on the techie board this afternoon and the board is so busy that it drops like a stone unless you keep bumping ! I was thinking this board it may stick around a little longer !

I have Googled the problem and some seem to think it is an Anti Piracy thing !

Cofion
David

jamesperrett

If it is an anti-piracy thing then more sophisticated software like EAC will ignore the additional section on the CD that is causing the problem and extract the audio with full quality.

James.

kirky666

Why don't you try a different program to see if the effect is different. I've always used CDEX which is free and never had a problem with it. It automatically tells you of errors as well