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Before digital downloads and subscription services, the only way for a consumer to create an MP3 was to import audio from the original CD. This process became known as 'ripping'. Though somewhat time consuming, if done properly, CD ripping is still the only way to be fully in control of the results and therefore is the only way to create files that sound and play the way you want them to. An added advantage it offers the greatest flexibility as well as the ability to create a custom digital music collection. A collection that will stay pristine as recorded for years.

It is this 'ripping' process that iTunes is so good at and we'll discuss a few of the settings that will make a better result.

Personalize your collection

To make sense of the trade offs and settings when you rip your CDs you'll first want to consider what your end use will be. Do you mostly listen to your music at home on a very good set of speakers or high end headphones? Is it all about portability for you? Maybe a little of both? Are you an audiophile, techie, gym rat, or like to travel? Then there are always budget considerations, even at today's prices 500 gigabytes will still set you back hundreds and if you're serious you'll need more than 500 gigs.

Before you rip

For starters you'll need your computer with a CD drive, ripping software like iTunes and an internet connection. Beyond that, these key factors are important; Players/Software, Sound Quality, Storage cost,Time and speed.

Player and software - If you're a committed iPod user then iTunes is a perfect solution. However if you want to make sure you'll be able to adapt your collection to the next big thing you will want to create files that not only work with your iPod but make sure you keep either the original CD or an uncompressed AIFF file on a backup hard disk so you can recompress to a different format in the future.

Sound quality - Experts who have spent hours testing the quality of various file formats and different conversion variables agree that a song track ripped at a bit rate of 192 kbps result in a file that provides CD quality sound on your iPod and other MP players. However the loss in data of most compressed formats is significant so if you're serious about sound quality, you should consider ripping at a higher compressed bit rate (up to 300 kbps) or consider a lossless or uncompressed format. These high bit rates or lossless formats don't lend themselves to iPod portability and are best used for keeping a library in tact ready to be compressed to your favorite iPod or music phone. Once you have a pristine library you can use it as your source to compress in a variety of ways never changing the original.

Cost and storage capacity - Even today most of us still don't have enough free hard drive space to accommodate a sizeable CD collection. Even compressed MP3 files will eat up space rapidly so be prepared to lay out several hundred dollars for that 500 Gig backup.This is especially true if you are ripping more than 100 CDs and most especially if you will rip in lossless or at high bit rates. As an example you can plan on 100 CDs ripped at 192 kbps using a minimum of 10 gigabytes of storage. That isn't too bad when you think about it - probably 1500 songs and 80 to 100 hours of listening before you repeat anything. One additional thought, hard drives do fail so if you have gone to time, trouble and expense of putting your entire music collection in lossless format on a drive reserved for your heirs than a backup is always a good idea.

Time and speed - these are considerations when you have a large collection and you plan on adding CDs to your list on a regular basis. Todays average system may take 8-10 minutes to rip a CD. The contributing factors are CPU speed, available free memory, optical drive read/write speed, and the ripping software being used. If you plan on performing other tasks while ripping e.g. browsing the internet,email etc this will also slow the process. We suggest you don't listen while you rip since this too will slow things down.

Best Practices when Ripping

Check the condition of your CD - Consider cleaning dusty or scratched CDs - the scratch removers will help on all but deeply scratched CDs. The better the condition you start with the better your end result.

Music data - make sure you are connected to the internet when ripping since iTunes uses an online database ( Gracenotes CDDB or freedb.org) to get song title, artist and album information. Without this information your play lists are not very user friendly.

Format and bit rate - use the following table to help you decide on setting that are best for your personal use.

Post Ripping

Tagging and grooming - Although your software will do its best to fill in all the song and artist information it still can be maddeningly inconsistent or incomplete. You will need to take a little time to perform manual clean up on your music data also known as ID tags to make sure your music library is easy to browse and use.

Tag information - in iTunes is easy to edit by selecting song or group of songs and then selecting the 'Get Info' command. For example if you have ten albums by U2 some of them may be tagged as ' Alternative and Punk' and other tagged as 'Rock'. In order to make sure they are grouped together by genre in your iTunes browser you would need to change the genre tag. Do it as soon as you're done ripping while everything is fresh in your mind.

Album art and lyrics - The latest iPods have the ability to display both album cover art and song lyrics; however as of this writing this information is not automatically embedded in the file during the ripping process.This requires downloading of the images or text and adding it to the file the same way you would edit song information.

Viewing and playback - we recommend that you review your iTunes preferences and check the boxes that say 'Show genre when browsing' and 'Group compilation when browsing'. This will make finding your music easier.There is also a ' Sound check' box that when enabled will automatically adjust song playback volumes to same sound levels.

Conclusion

Decide what you ultimately want from your music collection. You'll get and keep the quality you prefer and an ease of use that is essential to your enjoyment.

It is always a good idea to experiment on a couple of CDs evaluate quality, time and effort and once you're satisfied tackle your collection. This is best done over a period of time a few CDs at a time. You'll learn as you go and mistakes will be easier to recover from. iTunes offers a great range of choices only experience will get you the most bang for your buck. Enjoy!

-by Dan MacMinn

dmp3 digital LLC