Greatest Hits, lost masters: cd ripping?

[Paolino_o]

Hi,
this is the situation: a client of mine is putting togheter a greatest hits, with songs from 4 different albums; i engineered his latest release, and the unreleased tracks for the great.hits.
I got all the masters from last two records, but he has lost ALL of the others (from 1st and 2nd album). The only way to submit to mastering the tracks from those releases is ripping them from a retail cd ....
Considered that all this stuff will be mastered at Sterling Sound, my goal is AT LEAST ripping them with the best app available. Any advice?

PS: maybe the best solution is cd player->AES/EBU->ProTools???

Thanks in advance
P

[24-96 Mastering]

Wavelab, CD-Audio import in ultra safe mode with a good cd-rom drive (Plextor Premium, Premium2, PX712A, PX716A, etc) at slow speed. In ultra safe mode, the disc will be read multiple times and Wavelab will alert you if the readout result are differing between tries.

Exact Audio Copy (EAC) also has a lot of functions to rip as exact as possible.

[kjg]

Originally Posted by 24-96 Mastering

Exact Audio Copy (EAC) also has a lot of functions to rip as exact as possible.

If the disks are in good condition you probably have a lot of options. Most audio editors come with some sort of (secure) ripping these days.

If the disc is damaged in any way, EAC is your safest bet if you ask me.

[Cellotron]

Exact Audio Copy (EAC) in it's "most secure" mode works excellently for exactly want you want to do. Introduction » Exact Audio Copy

I think better results are actually possible using EAC because with a CD player sending to an AES out you are dependent on the CD player's onboard error correction and there are not multiple re-reads when an error flag is sent (and you are not given a report a the end of extraction giving timing position and description of any uncorrectable errors). Also - if the disc is in good shape then a ripping of it's contents to wav files using EAC can sometimes go much quicker than real time required by doing a transfer from CD player via its AES or SPDIF out.

Best regards,
Steve Berson

[joerod]

Originally Posted by Paolino_o

Hi,
The only way to submit to mastering the tracks from those releases is ripping them from a retail cd ....
Considered that all this stuff will be mastered at Sterling Sound, my goal is AT LEAST ripping them with the best app available. Any advice?

A CD sound should be A-OK to Sterling and not as messed up as you think it is. Let Sterling Sound do the extraction/conversion even if this wasn't the original plan.

PS: maybe the best solution is cd player->AES/EBU->ProTools???

Maybe, from CD > GML A-D along with Prism AD2 and DA2 >Magix's Sequoia or a PT TDM workstation. It all depends on which Chris gets it (Studio M2 or Studio M7) and whether extraction is not out of the question.

[johnlink]

Does it really matter how a file is ripped from a CD?

Would there be any problem in OS X in just dragging the file from the disk to the desktop (and then perhaps using the Compare utility in Toast to verify that the file on the desktop was identical to the file on the disk)?

John Link

[joerod]

Originally Posted by johnlink

Does it really matter how a file is ripped from a CD?

Would there be any problem in OS X in just dragging the file from the disk to the desktop (and then perhaps using the Compare utility in Toast to verify that the file on the desktop was identical to the file on the disk)?

John Link

It really depends on data integrity.

Also, if I was to extract from CD, I would extract and convert to 24 bit for my WS. If the music sounds digitally "sterile", I would convert in real time (AD) through analog chain and hi quality converters...

[Thor]

Yes, it matters.

On OS X I would recommend Max, a free utility similar to EAD for the PC.

Use the 'paranoia' setting when ripping.

Cheers,
Thor

Originally Posted by johnlink

Does it really matter how a file is ripped from a CD?

Would there be any problem in OS X in just dragging the file from the disk to the desktop (and then perhaps using the Compare utility in Toast to verify that the file on the desktop was identical to the file on the disk)?

John Link

[johnlink]

Originally Posted by Thor

Yes, it matters.

On OS X I would recommend Max, a free utility similar to EAD for the PC.

Use the 'paranoia' setting when ripping.

Cheers,
Thor

How is doing what you recommend any better than dragging the file from the disk to the desktop and then using the Compare utility in Toast to verify that the file on the desktop is identical to the file on the disk?

John Link

[jamesp]

Originally Posted by johnlink

Does it really matter how a file is ripped from a CD?

Yes, most CD extraction programs perform no error checking on the data. Most programs also ignore the error flags sent from the CD drive - and not all drives can flag errors on audio discs. That's why programs like EAC were created.

I certainly wouldn't trust programs like iTunes or Windows Media Player to do the job - I've tested them and found them lacking in this respect. Most of the DAW software that I've tried isn't much better - although I could be out of date on this as I'm happy with EAC or Plextools and haven't tried any alternatives recently.

Cheers

James.

[Thor]

Error correction.

As far as I know you're not going to be able to verify a file on your Desktop with an *audio* CD in the drive. Bits mapped to Red Book sectors are quite a bit different than computer file layout, and much more difficult to verify.

Thus the need for a robust ripping program.

Therefor Max (or EAC if you prefer Windows).

Cheers,
Thor

Originally Posted by johnlink

How is doing what you recommend any better than dragging the file from the disk to the desktop and then using the Compare utility in Toast to verify that the file on the desktop is identical to the file on the disk?

John Link

[kjg]

Originally Posted by Thor

Thus the need for a robust ripping program.

Therefor Max (or EAC if you prefer Windows).

If you are on mac you should try XLD.
X Lossless Decoder: Lossless audio decoder for Mac OS X

It includes a very high quality ripping function, on par with EAC.

[johnlink]

Originally Posted by Thor

As far as I know you're not going to be able to verify a file on your Desktop with an *audio* CD in the drive. Bits mapped to Red Book sectors are quite a bit different than computer file layout, and much more difficult to verify.

I just did the following on a Mac in OS X:

1) Drag an audio file from an audio CD to the desktop.

2) Use the Compare utility in Toast to compare the ripped file on the desktop with the file on the CD. (Toast reported that the files were identical.)

3) Use the Compare utility in Toast to compare the ripped file on the desktop with a file on another audio CD identical to the file on the first CD except that the polarity of one of the channels is reversed. (Toast reported that the files were not identical.)

My experiment seems to suggest that Toast is able to correctly distinguish between a match and a mismatch. If so, then it doesn't matter how a file is ripped, as long as the Compare utility in Toast verifies that the ripped file is identical to the file on the CD.

Is my reasoning correct, or am I missing something?

John Link

[jamesp]

Originally Posted by johnlink

Is my reasoning correct, or am I missing something?

Try scratching the disc badly enough to create errors and then repeat the test.

Cheers

James.

[neilwilkes]

Originally Posted by joerod

It really depends on data integrity.

Also, if I was to extract from CD, I would extract and convert to 24 bit for my WS. If the music sounds digitally "sterile", I would convert in real time (AD) through analog chain and hi quality converters...

Exactly the way I would approach this.
not all rippers are equal, and most are not really going to give a guaranteed error free result either.

[johnlink]

Originally Posted by jamesp

Try scratching the disc badly enough to create errors and then repeat the test.

What do you expect will happen?

What results would lead you to conclude that Toast is unable to reliably perform the verification?

What results would lead you to conclude that Toast _is able to reliably perform the verification?

John Link

[johnlink]

Originally Posted by jamesp

Try scratching the disc badly enough to create errors and then repeat the test.

I did as you suggested and Toast told me that there was a data mismatch. Both the ripped file and the file on the CD generate lots of obvious clicks when played with iTunes.

I then tried to rip the file with XLD but the progress bar seems to be permanantly stuck at 28%.

From the results with the scratched disk I would conclude that Toast is able to detect that the ripping operation was not completely correct. Since XLD is not able to complete the ripping operation I don't see that it offers any advantage over dragging and then then comaring with Toast.

John Link

[Ronski]

Originally Posted by Thor

Yes, it matters.

On OS X I would recommend Max, a free utility similar to EAD for the PC.

Use the 'paranoia' setting when ripping.

Cheers,
Thor

Where can you download one? Tried to google it but couldn´t find it...

[brethes]

Originally Posted by johnlink

Does it really matter how a file is ripped from a CD?

Would there be any problem in OS X in just dragging the file from the disk to the desktop (and then perhaps using the Compare utility in Toast to verify that the file on the desktop was identical to the file on the disk)?

John Link

John, in my experience dragging the files on the desktop in OSX is one of the safest methods of ripping audio files. I had once a problem (short glitch) with a track directly imported from CD into Pro Tools (using the "Import File" command), but this same track when copied first on the desktop (by just dragging it from the CD) and then imported into Pro Tools was absolutely OK. This seemed to prove to me that the error correction using the Finder function is more reliable than using something like the Pro Tools direct import function.

Since that incident I always drag the audio files from a CD onto the desktop first before importing in a DAW. Never had another problem ever since with data integrity.

[Thomas W. Bethe]

Originally Posted by Ronski

Where can you download one? Tried to google it but couldn´t find it...

Download Max 0.8.1 - Max - Mac OS X application for ripping and encoding MP3 audio files - Softpedia

[jamesp]

Originally Posted by johnlink

From the results with the scratched disk I would conclude that Toast is able to detect that the ripping operation was not completely correct. Since XLD is not able to complete the ripping operation I don't see that it offers any advantage over dragging and then then comaring with Toast.

Yes - your method seems to work. Were any errors reported when dragging and dropping? If not then it would be dangerous to drag and drop without error checking - which is what most people do.

Cheers

James.

[johnlink]

Originally Posted by jamesp

Yes - your method seems to work. Were any errors reported when dragging and dropping?

OS X reported no errors when dragging to the desktop.

If not then it would be dangerous to drag and drop without error checking - which is what most people do.

I agree, based on what I reported in my previous post. Should the practice of using the Compare utility in Toast also be applied to dragging files from a data CD?

John Link

[jamesp]

Originally Posted by johnlink

Should the practice of using the Compare utility in Toast also be applied to dragging files from a data CD?

A data CD shouldn't require a separate verification as the error detection and correction is built into the system in a much better way. There is an extra layer of error correction on a data CD.

Cheers

James.