JP’s Guide to Ripping and Playing MP3s

by JP Coetzee. 18 Aug 2006.

Playing MP3s

Windows Media Player does a fine job with MP3s (to my ropey old ears). Excellent alternatives are:

Foobar

A simple, small MP3 player. It doesn’t play videos etc. Supports MP4, AAC and many other standards including lossless (FLAC etc).

Winamp

Many people think WinAmp is better than Windows Media Player because it is more user friendly and has a plug-in architecture which allows you to expand its capabilities. WinAmp Version 5.13 has just been released and it’s chuffing excellent. You can even rip CDs to MP3s with WinAmp if you have a suitable serial for the Pro version…

Some plugins for Winamp:

  • MEXP. Very useful MP3 organiser; also very powerful tag editor and file renamer (can operate on multiple files).
  • Softamp Virtual Sound. This is a DSP plugin, which gives an effective spatial effect with headphones.
  • Visit the WinAmp website for more plugins.

1by1

The smallest MP3 player of all, 91kb and very capable. Other formats supported by plugins.

Ripping CDs to MP3s

Ripping your CDs to MP3 will save a whole lot of space on your HD. Internet wisdom would indicate that the best CD ripper is EAC. Similarly the best MP3 encoder is LAME (look for the beat and download the bundle) or http://mitiok.cjb.net/

EAC-bundle at http://files.arvex.de/ is an excellent EAC install that will install the latest version of EAC, all required codecs (including FLAC) and compression profiles for you automatically. Tweaking them as you like the first time (filename, bitrate etc) is easy.

A useful tutorial on using EAC can be found here: http://www.music-reviewed.com/guides.php. It has a section on “Configuring EAC For Ripping To Lossless”.

EAC with LAME

  1. Download the EAC bundle and install it.
  2. Make a shortcut somewhere pointing to EAC.EXE
  3. Start EAC. Now you’ll have to frig around with some of EAC’s settings to optimise it.
  4. Select EAC > Drive Options > OK and go through the subsequent tabs, allowing EAC to sniff around your CD-ROM to find out the best way to rip.
  5. Select EAC > EAC Options > Filename and set naming scheme (my personal choice) to %N - %T
  6. Select EAC > Compression Options > External Compression, tick “Use external Program”.
  7. In same tab, point to the program “lame.exe” in the EAC installation directory C:\Program Files\EAC.
  8. In same tab, additional command line parameters, enter the following (make sure you get the whole line):–alt-preset standard -B 128 –verboseThis is VBR (Variable Bit Rate) tweaked to max out at 128kbps so the MP3s don’t get too big. It’s still near-CD quality (to my ropy old ears).

Adjusting MP3 Gain

For some reason all CD rippers seem to create MP3s which clip when decoded and played back - it’s probably to do with the need to maximise dynamic range on encoding. If you listen to MP3s with headphones you will sometimes hear this clipping as small clicks, which can sound like rain or crackly vinyl if the MP3 has been encoded very loudly. Other times you might hear other distortions in the bass frequencies.

This can be reduced without reducing the encoded dynamic range by making use of a field in the MP3 file format, which tells the decoder how loud to play it. MP3s which are adjusted in this way sound much better.

The best software to do this is MP3Gain. Install this software and follow the instructions below to remove clipping (and see the help file). If you’re ripping complete CDs you will want to use “Album Gain”, not “Track Gain”.

  1. Start MP3Gain.
  2. Set ‘Target “Normal” volume’ box to 89dB (the default). 89dB has been widely found to be the best for reducing audio distortion while preserving dynamic range. If you find the final volume low, try increasing this value, but be aware you may be introducing distortion.
  3. Click the “Folder” button
  4. Navigate to the folder you wish to adjust and click OK.
  5. Select “Analysis” > “Album Analysis” (or use the 3rd button from the left and select “Album Analysis” from the drop-down menu). MP3Gain will analyse each track and indicate if it will clip when played back with the volume setting presently stored in the file (if any).

For more information see http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/show.php/showtopic/3274. Hydrogen Audio is an excellent website for all things audio.