Hey hey, I have been using Sound Juicer on my Ubuntu 24 / KDE 5 PC and it works, but it doesn’t handle the tags for my MP3 files very nicely. I’ve also used abcde, at the terminal, and that can be better but it takes a lot finessing at the CLI to get the result I want.
Is there a better CD ripper application that will run on Ubuntu and can make setting the MP3 tags dead simple?
Thanks for any ideas!
Edit: Fixed a typo
ETA: Asunder looks good, does what I need and works well on my PC. Thanks for everyone’s ideas and help!
Have you tried Audex? It’s a KDE CD rippper.
fre:ac is almost exactly like Exact Audio Copy.
I just tried this app. When it opens, the UI is like 3x zoomed in, I can tell I’m not seeing the whole screen.
I found an open issue in their github with the same complaint. I tried both the appimage and the snapo and they both do this on my Ubunut PC. Guess I’ll have to keep looking.
I sounds like your window manager is telling the program to display with high-DPI scaling when it shouldn’t be. This is a common issue when running older software written for X11 on newer Linuxes that are using Wayland. fre:ac was originally written in 2001!
You might have a system display setting to control scaling of “legacy” (X11) applications. I know KDE Plasma does.
I use whipper. It’s a command-line application but it’s easy to use and works great every single time. At first you should let it analyze your drive which is the only step more involved. Here’s a mini tutorial for that I wrote for myself but you can also read it on the project page where it’s probably more up to date:
-
Analyze the drive’s caching behavior:
$ sudo whipper drive analyze -
Find the drive’s offset. Consult the [[AccurateRip’s CD Drive Offset database|http://www.accuraterip.com/driveoffsets.htm]] for your drive. Drive information can be retrieved with
$ whipper drive list.$ sudo whipper offset find -o insert-numeric-value-here. If you omit the-oargument, whipper will try a long, popularity-sorted list of drive offsets. If you can’t confirm your drive offset value but wish to set a default regardless, setread_offset = insert-numeric-value-hereinwhipper.conf. Offsets confirmed with$ whipper offset findare automatically written to the configuration file. If specifying the offset manually, please note that: if positive it must be written as a number without sign (ex:+102-> 102), if negative it must include the sign. -
After that you just rip any disc by running:
$ whipper cd rip
And just as an example, here’s my
~/.config/whipper/whipper.conf:[main] path_filter_fat = True path_filter_special = False [drive:<drive ID>] vendor = <vendor> model = <model> release = <release> read_offset = <my offset> [whipper.cd.rip] unknown = True output_directory = ~/music/_ripped track_template = new/%%A/%%y - %%d/%%t - %%n disc_template = new/%%A/%%y - %%d/%%A - %%dThanks much! Super helpful. I am trying out whipper now and it looks good so far.
Just a note, you had an extra ‘L’ at the end of your URL:
http://www.accuraterip.com/driveoffsets.htm
:)
Corrected, thx.
@kyub@discuss.tchncs.de Sorry to spam you - but I ran whipper and it created FLACs. I want MP3s, even though I know that makes me evil. :)
I’ve reviewed their github page and they don’t say it can directly output MP3s. Their example config file, for instance, doesn’t show a way to specify output format at all. Am I supposed to convert the files on my own then, or …? (That defeats my one step process but I’ll try if needed)
I prefer FLAC. Don’t know if there’s an option in whipper for that. But the Arch Wiki has an article for converting: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Convert_FLAC_to_MP3
@kyub @perishthethought Installed and will give it a try next time I acquire something I want to rip (which is basically any CD I acquire as the computer is more convenient than a CD player and CD-rot has eaten some of my 80’s vintage CDs).
-
Are the kids not using cdparanoia these days?
I used Asunder a lot when I was converting to digital and it handled tagging pretty well except for CDs I made from things like Napster files. It doesn’t look like it is updated very frequently now, tho.
Without a doubt your best solution is https://github.com/whipper-team/whipper
Have you tried Picard? For tagging under Linux there’s hardly a better easier app
Yes, thanks but my library is OK now, I am looking for something to both rip and tag my new CDs as I rip them - in one step if possible.
Looking up Picard’s instructions… They recommend whipper, as others have done in the thread.
It can do the tagging for you, but it’s important to note that music CDs do not contain metadata.
All the rippers that exist, look up what the CD is online, based on stuff like number of tracks, their lengths, and order. iTunes was the ripping software everyone used back in the day, because Apple made and maintained the first extensive database that could be used to automatically tag ripped music.
Modern rippers typically rely on MusicBrainz (like Picard).
As such there is no 100% reliable auto-tagging ripper, because a disc might match more than one album, or not be in the database. Such cases will always require manual intervention.
I use EAC but no idea if it’s available for Linux… I think it’s open source so seems like it should be, but can’t be arsed to Google it right now…
Looks like Windows only.
A redditor replied ‘abcde worked well for me last time I needed to rip a cd’ eight months ago.
Another replied
‘Thank you! I didn’t knew if you were joking about the name, but it’s a real package that stands for “A Better CD Encoder” 😂 I’ll be sure to check it out!!!’
Google says ‘Exact Audio Copy is proprietary freeware, free for non-commercial use. It is written for Microsoft Windows. It has also been tested to work under newer versions of Wine on Linux. EAC is used to convert the tracks on standard audio CDs to WAV files, which can then be transcoded into other formats.’
K3b maybe.
I’ve been buying and ripping CDs lately, because some things are simply not available for streaming, and I want FLAC level quality anyway.
My workflow is as follows: Asunder for ripping, then Picard to label and include the cover art.
Thanks. Am I right in seeing that the only install option for Asunder is to download the tar.bz2 file, extract it and then use make to build it? I have not done that before.
It depends on which distro you’re using, but most have Asunder packaged, and you can use Picard as a Flatpak if you can’t find it natively packaged, IIRC.
Thanks! Yah, just installed it with apt and it’s brilliant - simple, but everything I need.
I used cdparanoia for ripping CDs. This worked especially well with CDs with issues like scratches or early attempts to make CDs “rip-proof”.
Rubyripper is what I used back in the day.
@perishthethought I’m only adding that I’ve faced the same conundrum without an adequate solution.
Hrrrmmm, yes. I’m starting to think there is no currently maintained, FOSS application that will both rip and tag MP3 files for me now.
Whipper seems to only outputs FLACs. FRE:AC doesn’t display correctly on my PC. I’m going to try Asunder next, but it too isn’t maintained, it seems.
If only I could go write my own…
Added a link above, but for your consideration: https://github.com/whipper-team/whipper
