Hello all,

Seeking advice on some trouble I am having encoding MP3's using iTunes and the latest LAME (Panther OS). Long story short...I tried iTunes to rip my CD collection but was displeased with the quality of sound in the resulting mp3 files (high end issues). BTW I am running with all the latest OS, iTunes, and Quicktime software updates. I then tried to use the AAC encoder in iTunes in order to try to gain some better quality results. No dice because iTunes kept dying on every CD import saying "unknown error occurred (-50)" (still have no idea why this is). Although it seems like it might be a hardware issue, I tested ripping from an external CDROM and got the same results. Many checks on the hard drive also show that it is a-ok.

Alright, so aside from all that...I heard that LAME was great, so I got it integrated with iTunes and started ripping again. Works fine, no errorring out. The only problem is that I get all these glitches in my resulting MP3 files! They are the usual-sounding audio glitches....like when you try to rip a badly scratched CD. However, I take great care of my CD collection, and I have tried to rip many CD's with LAME, getting the same unfortunate results time after time. I also tried CBR and VBR encoding -- same results.

So....I am hoping that one of you experts out there will have some suggestions for me since this is becoming very frustrating and keeping alot of great music off of my iPod !

Thanks in advance,
Chris

Its not LAME, but the program you're using to rip (the PCM data copied to your hard drive contain these glitches). Use Exact Audio Copy (exactaudiocopy.de), which attempts to give you bit accurate ripping.

Is this software available for mac?

try using Exact Audio Copy to rip your cds. it has better error correction than itunes.

also, you might want to take a look at lame 3.90.3 (the recommended version hereabouts) and the newer, faster lame 3.96.1. both versions are on Rarewares. Search the forums here for the commandline switches.

good luck.

These are PC programs. There is nothing good for the Mac, that I know of.

(Macs are weak, anyway.)

For the Mac, use cdparanoia ripping, via cdda2wav from the cdrtools package (get 2.01 from freshmeat.net or fink) or one of the cd-ripping front ends that support it. Always does the trick, it uses full paranoia mode except for 'never skip' and is the best way to rip securely on the Mac. Also the fact that it is CLI means good things for shell scripting .

Also, try copying the aiff file straight from the CD onto the desktop, see if that has any glitches, might be a hardware problem.

Chris, how exactly have you integrated LAME with iTunes? I've been using the little front-end app called 'iTunes-LAME' from Blacktree Software. No problems thus far that I can detect. I've tried both the 3.90.3 and 3.96.1 versions.

Could this be a hardware problem?

You can use X-CD-Roast or FireStarter (oops... current version has expired) or Toast to copy the disk.

Did you install the CD drive in the computer yourself? Or did you change the hard drive? Make sure that all drives have the correct jumpers at their back (master/slave etc)

most of theese errors are caused(?!) by itunes' error correction turned on for cdda extraction. we've experienced over here that results are better if its turned off.
however, i agree: the only solid solution is to use a decent ripping engine, e.g. cdda2wav in paranoia mode. i've seen a 'direct' port of cdparanoia for mac somewhere but it needs to be compiled from source with some patches, so i opted to stay out of hastle.

fink yourself abcde,cdda2wav-beta,lame and configure it appropriately - once set up it's troublefree and charming (ok, setting up fink for that task only isn't, but there are some other gems inside that might be worth it).

The most convenient front end for cdda2wav w/paranoia is undoubtedly xACT <http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/21952> which does a great deal else as well. You can run your extracted WAVs through iTunes-LAME as mentioned above.

If it only happens with LAME encodes and not when you rip into AAC / iTunes mp3 there is probably something else going on..