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Topic: Best ripper on Mac OS X (Read 5144 times) previous topic - next topic
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Best ripper on Mac OS X

Hi,

Having recently switched from windows and EAC to Mac OS X, i'm looking for *the* top notch ripper/encoder combination on this OS. I couldn't find any useful link while searching the forum.

iTunes won't cut it for me as I definitly want to use Lame as an encoder.

I suppose i could use CDparanoia or some command line software, but i'd prefer a nice GUI version that takes advantage of the beautiful OS X interface.

Comments, ideas, pointers, anyone ?

best,

B.

Best ripper on Mac OS X

Reply #1 –
Personally, I never got CDparanoia to work on my mac. If you wish to use LAME with iTunes, you're best bet is iTunes-LAME.

You should consider using AAC, though. It really is quite good, and iTunes-LAME has a couple of annoyances compared to straight ripping in iTunes.

Best ripper on Mac OS X

Reply #2 –
There's tons of LAME GUI's for OS X, just do a search for LAME at VersionTracker

Best ripper on Mac OS X

Reply #3 –
I always liked CDDA Paranoia when I used Linux and a quick google search helped me to find this:

http://www.buserror.net/cdparanoia/

It's commandline but it's a pretty good audio extraction tool. If you're familiar with scripting and MacOS X supports it (shell scripting?) then you could automate it slightly.

Just a thought.

Best ripper on Mac OS X

Reply #4 –
Well, i must have done a very poor job of explaining what i'm looking since i'm getting exactly the opposite of the answer i'm looking for ! 

Sorry about that. Let me try to rephrase my question :

- I really don't want to use iTunes.
- I am looking for a ripper that will pass along the .wavs & info to Lame (like EAC does)
- I would like this ripper to have a nice, native, GUI.
- I am looking for the best ripper available on Mac OS X given these constraints

Basically, I'm looking for an EAC equivalent for OS X.
Does such a beast exist ?

Best ripper on Mac OS X

Reply #5 –
Quote
Sorry about that. Let me try to rephrase my question :

- I really don't want to use iTunes.
- I am looking for a ripper that will pass along the .wavs & info to Lame (like EAC does)
- I would like this ripper to have a nice, native, GUI.
- I am looking for the best ripper available on Mac OS X given these constraints

Basically, I'm looking for an EAC equivalent for OS X.

You don't explain *why* you don't want to use iTunes. Earlier you said it was because you wanted to use Lame, which you can do with a couple of different companion programs.

It fits all of your criteria (except not wanting iTunes), but if your asking for EAC for OS X then what you probably mean is a secure ripper (which iTunes isn't, even with its new rip options) and these are hard to find on Mac OS X.

I haven't found any acceptable solutions (secure + easy to use) and so have been ripping in iTunes (to AIFF, then coding to FLAC and AAC).

Best ripper on Mac OS X

Reply #6 –
Quote
what you probably mean is a secure ripper (which iTunes isn't, even with its new rip options) and these are hard to find on Mac OS X.

Yes, that's exactly what I am looking for : a secure ripper.
I was starting to suspect that there's weren't any on OS X, but thanks for confirming it anyway.

Best ripper on Mac OS X

Reply #7 –
iTunes isn't that great, it hangs (as does doing a finder-copy) on copying badly scratched cds with my crappy built-in Sony CRX170E, though my Lite-On performs fine with them. However I have managed to use the Sony with several 'secure' mac rippers and they provide click/pop-free audio.

Try:
cdda2wav (can use 'full' cdparanoia mode)
X-CD Roast
cdparanoia
Firestarter FX

I like the speed of cdda2wav, if you alias your cd device and 'rip' settings (probably -B -O wav -H -paranoia, or something like that), you can simply invoke 'cdda2wav', put in the cd, press enter, and it will rip all tracks to separate files.

Best ripper on Mac OS X

Reply #8 –
Quote
a secure ripper (which iTunes isn't, even with its new rip options) and these are hard to find on Mac OS X.

Seriously, if it isn't secure enough you're neurotic. 

Best ripper on Mac OS X

Reply #9 –
Quote
Quote
a secure ripper (which iTunes isn't, even with its new rip options) and these are hard to find on Mac OS X.

Seriously, if it isn't secure enough you're neurotic. 

I can easily cause iTunes (on mac or windows) to hang completely during a rip or create audio files with easily audible flaws (i.e. not tiny 'pops' or 'clicks' but squeals) if I feed it a scratched CD.

As I said, I use iTunes for my ripping as the other options on Mac OS X are too much like hard work and my CD collection is generally in good shape. It is however a major pain in the rear when Mac iTunes totally craps out on a track and then when I rip it with a PC it completes without complaint only for me to discover later that it is unlistenable.

In fact, on this topic, does anyone know of a secure ripper for  the PC that will rip to AIFF format with metadata tags that iTunes can read? That would make my life much easier.

Best ripper on Mac OS X

Reply #10 –
Hi,

This suggestion won't help Bingaloo, as it involves command line, but what can I say? I'm a *nix whore at heart

Bawjaws: have you tried using abcde [ http://www.hispalinux.es/~data/abcde.php ]? It''s commandline-tastic, but if that doesn't scare you, it's really quite powerful and flexible. It's a cunning shell script that, once you tell it what options and programs to use, will automate the process of ripping, tagging and encoding. I'm using it just now to flac my CD collection. It also supports lame and ogg encoders and, er, spex or something like that.

Be warned: the script has a few excitements on OS X. After it has ripped a CD, sometimes you have to kill the script (ctrl-c) and then start it again to get it to encode. I'm hacking around with it at the moment to try and fix this, but the guy that maintains the script seems to be adding more thorough OS X support anyway.

When it get's more stable and I get some free time, I may even slap a gui on it for people that hate the command line


Take care,
M


P.S. abcde is available via fink, but it is a rather old version and didn't like my setup. Just grab the latest tar.gz from the above website (2.1.15 as of writing this), extract it, move to that directory on the command line and simply type "sudo make install" and it should magically install.

You probably want to have fink installed anyway to get the latest beta cdda2wav with CDParanoia mode.