Software for .cda or .wav to .mp3?

Brian McGaughey · Post by **Brian McGaughey** » 27 Mar 2009 6:16 pm

I've almost finished mixing our bands new CD. The need to covert .cda files to .mp3 for reasons of online transfers, etc has me wondering what the best software is for this conversion. I used something or other I downloaded that is shareware that seemed to me to render a lot of artifacts. I suspect there is something better.

Any tips or suggestions for a good converter utility? Not afraid to pay a few bucks.

Jack Stoner · Post by **Jack Stoner** » 28 Mar 2009 9:49 am

How did you make a .cda file? Those are the native music files on a standard audio CD. If you copied them from a CD to the PC's hard drive, that is the wrong way to do it, you need to "rip" the songs from a CD and either save them as a wav or mp3.

There are many free CD ripping programs around. I use the free Audiograbber [url=http://www.audiograbber.com-us.net/]Click Me[\url] for CD ripping.

I use Sonar 8 (Producer) and save the files in the native Sonar project format. But, when I mixdown for exporting, I export in 16 bit wav files (standard CD Quality). However, it does have the ability to export in mp3 files.

Brian McGaughey · Post by **Brian McGaughey** » 28 Mar 2009 3:05 pm

Thanks Jack.

The songs are coming off of the CD burner in a Korg3200 digital recording deck. The only type of file to carry away from the deck in a mixed L/R master is to make a CD. These files are then of course .CDA.

The purpose of my post was to find out if some conversion programs do a better job of converting than others, bitrate and sampling frequency aside.

I've got an earlier version of Sonar and rendering to an mp3 master seemed to have better fidelity than converting an existing .cda file from a cd.

I'm probably being overly critical of what the mp3 compression scheme is doing to my .cda mixes!

Jack Stoner · Post by **Jack Stoner** » 29 Mar 2009 2:04 am

An MP3 is "something less than full fidelity" and depending on the MP3 bitrate higher bitrates are better. A wav file is full fidelity.

Also, once you have a file in MP3 format you cannot convert it to a wav file and regain the full fidelity, it will still be the fidelity of the MP3.

Robert Leaman · Post by **Robert Leaman** » 29 Mar 2009 5:22 pm

If you have Windows Media, it is the best free software for ripping CDA to whatever you want.
Tell it how you want it formatted, birate, and where you want it stored and you are in business.

Tony Prior · Post by **Tony Prior** » 30 Mar 2009 3:37 am

Brian, my take ? You have a nice recorder, over a grand I think. You should invest in a small MP3/Wave recorder for your mix downs. Zoom H2 or something like that. Not long ago I bought a second small unit, Boss Micro BR, which records 4 tracks in the Boss format and also in the 16 bit Wave or MP3 formats ( ext source). I have been using this for my workstation transfers as I can add some mastering tools to the recordings. Yes you can do all that on a PC as well but for me I have found that by having the small recorder available for wave or MP3 transfers at my fingertips right there resident with the recording stuff life's been good to me so far..

hey that sounds like a song...

Then you have it all on an SD card and can do whatever it is you need to do !

Too many options...

t

Brian McGaughey · Post by **Brian McGaughey** » 30 Mar 2009 5:15 am

Robert,

I just was looking at my Window Media Player and can't find a way to rip to mp3. I remember going through this before and finding I could convert to .wma files (with a very nonintuitive interface if I rembember right) but not to mp3. Maybe I'm missing something?

Tony,

Are you setting up the justification and authorization for a new piece of gear? I'll have to look into that. I've considered a small mp3/wave recorder for other things but not that particular task. I could imagine owning one and then wondering how I ever got by without one.

There are indeed plenty of ways to skin the digital cat these days.

Tony Prior · Post by **Tony Prior** » 30 Mar 2009 7:34 am

Brian McGaughey wrote:
Tony,

Are you setting up the justification and authorization for a new piece of gear?

Maybe not justification but certainly authorization!

I think when I bought my first unit, the Edirol R1 the purpose was to record live gigs and or rehearsals , of which I did , and still do. But since then I have used it for countless other things, it's hard to imagine not having one , so now I have two !

t

Brian McGaughey · Post by **Brian McGaughey** » 30 Mar 2009 8:50 am

I'll tell the wife that Tony Prior from Charlotte, North Carolina said it was OK

...

Tony Prior · Post by **Tony Prior** » 30 Mar 2009 9:49 am

Hey Brian, sure , have her call me, I'll tell her I approved it, I've had plenty of great lady's hang up on me ! What's one more !

t

Michael Maddex · Post by **Michael Maddex** » 30 Mar 2009 2:08 pm

Brian McGaughey wrote:... The purpose of my post was to find out if some conversion programs do a better job of converting than others, bitrate and sampling frequency aside.

The sound quality is dependent only on the bitrate and the algorithm used. I use <tt>lame</tt> which is a command line program for GNU/Linux. <tt>lame</tt> allows the user to specify the conversion parameters. The documentation that I got with it explains everything very clearly. I believe that there are versions for mac and microsoft, but I have no experience with them.

FWIW, this information is offered in hopes that it might be interesting or useful. It is not intended in any way to interfere with any gear acquisition plans.

HTH.

Jon Moen · Post by **Jon Moen** » 30 Mar 2009 4:40 pm

In Windows Media Player 11, if you don't see a menu structure (File, View etc.) at the top, right click in the black area beside Media guide and select View and choose Classic Menus. (or just select tool/options when you right click)
Under Tools/Options on the classic menu click the Rip Music tab. Choose the desired format (mp3) and at the bottom select which Audio Quality (bitrate) you want.
Then at the top, choose where you want the ripped files to go.
When you rip a cd these settings will apply.

Jon

Brian McGaughey · Post by **Brian McGaughey** » 31 Mar 2009 8:49 am

Michael,

Thanks for staying an arms length away during this period of G.A.S.! I looked and the encoder I used has the lame engine.

Thanks for the tip, Jon. I'll take a step-specific walk through WMP and find those tools. Thanks again guys.

Dale Bessant · Post by **Dale Bessant** » 31 Mar 2009 5:10 pm

Brian,
Try CD- Extractor ...its a free download and can be found on the net....it takes the cda file and can transform it to either wave or mp3 files...I use it all the time for making mp3 files from CD's ,,,,