Music ripping/playing software....
- Thread starter AeoNGriM
- Start date
What's wrong with the quality, 320kb/s isn't bad quality.
However, here's an excellent piece of software for ripping and converting most audio formats.
www.dvdvideosoft.com
However, here's an excellent piece of software for ripping and converting most audio formats.
www.dvdvideosoft.com
WMP uses an outdated MP3 encoder, hence 320 from WMP is of lesser quality than the likes of LAME for example. Of course they may have caught up now but when I used to use WMP it was poor.
As always I'll recommend Exact Audio Copy, free software and with a bit of tweaking can rip better than any other software I've come across, it locks the drive then verifies the rip, you can then convert to any format you like (MP3, AAC, FLAC, etc). I've had issues with certain CDs ripping and overlapping each other where as EAC is perfect every time.
As always I'll recommend Exact Audio Copy, free software and with a bit of tweaking can rip better than any other software I've come across, it locks the drive then verifies the rip, you can then convert to any format you like (MP3, AAC, FLAC, etc). I've had issues with certain CDs ripping and overlapping each other where as EAC is perfect every time.
please ignore this post. this software is so bad it makes WMP look good.
i can only assume Emphacy is on the payroll?
as always, i recommend anything that can verify with accuraterip
dbpoweramp (not free but has a full functional 21 day trial)
foobar2000
EAC
cue tools
of the free ones, cue tools is probably the easiest to use because it uses the superior musicbrainz over freedb for tag look ups and comes with all codecs already bundled and configured.
Last edited:
As I have said in another post not long ago:
And to follow on from marc's post above, EAC does support musicbrainz. I've however not found musicbrainz to be all that useful all of the time, so I switch between musicbrainz and the freedb sources.
In terms of playing, Foobar is still great, but I absolutely loathe their playlist implementation and as such have recently started using MediaMonkey.
And to follow on from marc's post above, EAC does support musicbrainz. I've however not found musicbrainz to be all that useful all of the time, so I switch between musicbrainz and the freedb sources.
In terms of playing, Foobar is still great, but I absolutely loathe their playlist implementation and as such have recently started using MediaMonkey.
Last edited:
Foobar2000 is a love hate thing I think, when I first started using it (coming from Winamp) I disliked it a lot. Now I swear by it 
For those who like eye candy there are plenty of skins, for those (like me) who want a functional library rather than an awkward one that you can't really see, Columns UI is a dream. I actually prefer Foobars playlist style, but as I say, Marmite.
For those who like eye candy there are plenty of skins, for those (like me) who want a functional library rather than an awkward one that you can't really see, Columns UI is a dream. I actually prefer Foobars playlist style, but as I say, Marmite.
Me:
dbpoweramp or EAC.
foobar2000.
By the by: I've just noticed I've been using foobar 0.9.6.9, the last version before 1.0. Thought I might as well update to 1.1.5. I was concerned about my config and plugins, but the update went without a hitch. Even auto-updated some of them! Luxury!
Last edited:
Auraomega, to be fair I haven't played much with the UI setup of Foobar, just kinda took one of the options it offers by default.
In the years of using PCs, I've found that even though it's rather interesting customising stuff, I eventually get tired of it and most importantly tend to forget to back stuff like that up (when moving machines) or find it doesn't work with new versions of software
I would be interested in being pointed to some good UI setups.
In terms of playlists, the thing for me, on the UI setup that I use, is that you have to send stuff to "Active Playlist". Sometimes that active playlist happens to be a playlist that I've been building up with random tracks from all over the library. As I don't have a habit of saving a playlist every time I add something (because there is no such need when using something like Winamp), I had lost some playlists with 15+ new tracks added to them because I just sent something to active playlist which in turn cleared everything else there
In the years of using PCs, I've found that even though it's rather interesting customising stuff, I eventually get tired of it and most importantly tend to forget to back stuff like that up (when moving machines) or find it doesn't work with new versions of software
I would be interested in being pointed to some good UI setups.
In terms of playlists, the thing for me, on the UI setup that I use, is that you have to send stuff to "Active Playlist". Sometimes that active playlist happens to be a playlist that I've been building up with random tracks from all over the library. As I don't have a habit of saving a playlist every time I add something (because there is no such need when using something like Winamp), I had lost some playlists with 15+ new tracks added to them because I just sent something to active playlist which in turn cleared everything else there
like most windows applications, foobar2000 has edit>undo (or ctrl-z) which reverts any changes made to the playlist.
also, rather than using the context menu/double clicking in a library viewer, you can simply drag/drop to anywhere in the playlist. or if you have playlist tabs enabled, you can drag to any other playlist or drag over a blank area and a new playlist will be created.
also, rather than using the context menu/double clicking in a library viewer, you can simply drag/drop to anywhere in the playlist. or if you have playlist tabs enabled, you can drag to any other playlist or drag over a blank area and a new playlist will be created.
Last edited:
What can I say, I didn't use the undo function with the playlists in foobar, not even sure that worked. In terms of dragging stuff about, that's not usability. I agree you can drag stuff about and that's fine, but when you have a playlists tab that's already 3 rows deep, trying to drag yet another album to it that doesn't replace a playlists contents entirely is just a pain. The playlist functions in the likes of Winamp or MediaMonkey are much better.
Anyway, enough of derailing the original thread I think
Anyway, enough of derailing the original thread I think
undo is new to version 1 i think.
and you can always look in the preferences for whatever library viewer you're using. for example, i use EsPlaylist (the artists column on the left) and it has more options than you can shake a stick at.
and you can always look in the preferences for whatever library viewer you're using. for example, i use EsPlaylist (the artists column on the left) and it has more options than you can shake a stick at.
My Foobar pales in comparison, however I don't really spend much time looking at it 
Pretty much all the issues you've stated don't actually exist in Foobar if you do a bit of tweaking, as for backing up stuff, I used the portable option in the installer so all I ever have to do is copy/paste my folder and it works again, you can even have the address of files relative to your install (so if you're saving something within the structure such as a converter, it works no matter what). This makes life super easy for me as I have all my music (>100gb) on a second hard drive.
Pretty much all the issues you've stated don't actually exist in Foobar if you do a bit of tweaking, as for backing up stuff, I used the portable option in the installer so all I ever have to do is copy/paste my folder and it works again, you can even have the address of files relative to your install (so if you're saving something within the structure such as a converter, it works no matter what). This makes life super easy for me as I have all my music (>100gb) on a second hard drive.
To be fair marc, I've not really used anything that doesn't come as standard by the foobar install other than getting the "Now Playing" function to work with Pidgin / MSN.
Will have to check out this EsPlaylist. And yeh I had been running pre v1 for the most part. Quite liking your white layout too.
Will have to check out this EsPlaylist. And yeh I had been running pre v1 for the most part. Quite liking your white layout too.