The fastest way to rip hundreds of CDs

rsjaurr

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To cut the long story very short I need to rip a couple of thousands of Audio CDs in few weeks but I am lazy and do not have much time to rip on my laptop. In the last 5 years, I must have ripped only 150 CDs. In January I did rip about 50 but lost energy thereafter.

I contacted ADR autoloader guys and they quoted 2500 Euro. There is one autoloader cd ripper on US amazon for about 750USD. Both are out of my budget/reach.

How about that multi CD duplicator that music pirates used to copy CD/VCD/DVD illegally? I got hold of one without CD drives inside and it has multiple pins ribbon cables. Can this duplicator be attached to the computer and rip music from multiple drives?

The best way to rip CDs seems to be to attach 3-4 external cd drives to my laptop and then use EAC/dbpoweramp and then hope that I do not lose steam within few weeks. Does it sound good or there is any other method to rip CDs within few weeks?
 
Not sure of your location but in usa, I used musicshifter.com. I sent all my cds to them and they returned all flacs in cds.
 
Have your considered getting an intern for a month to get the job done? It’d be affordable to you while the fellow earns some pocket money. All you need to do is provide the machine and a day or two of training/supervision.
Yes I feel that's a good idea.
Any Internet Cafe Person can also do this job for much cheaper amount ; but do give your own machine for ripping the Cds.
 
To cut the long story very short I need to rip a couple of thousands of Audio CDs in few weeks but I am lazy and do not have much time to rip on my laptop. In the last 5 years, I must have ripped only 150 CDs. In January I did rip about 50 but lost energy thereafter.

I contacted ADR autoloader guys and they quoted 2500 Euro. There is one autoloader cd ripper on US amazon for about 750USD. Both are out of my budget/reach.

How about that multi CD duplicator that music pirates used to copy CD/VCD/DVD illegally? I got hold of one without CD drives inside and it has multiple pins ribbon cables. Can this duplicator be attached to the computer and rip music from multiple drives?

The best way to rip CDs seems to be to attach 3-4 external cd drives to my laptop and then use EAC/dbpoweramp and then hope that I do not lose steam within few weeks. Does it sound good or there is any other method to rip CDs within few weeks?
If I rip them all for you , will you give me all those CDs ? :p
 
Have your considered getting an intern for a month to get the job done? It’d be affordable to you while the fellow earns some pocket money. All you need to do is provide the machine and a day or two of training/supervision.
This will probably be the cheapest and most efficient option. Many years back, I hired (part-time) a movie-buff classmate of my sister to catalog the many DVDs that my Dad and I had accumulated. It went very well!
 
Have your considered getting an intern for a month to get the job done? It’d be affordable to you while the fellow earns some pocket money. All you need to do is provide the machine and a day or two of training/supervision.
Great idea Sachin. I am from a small city and finding someone working in a cybercafe/ computer accessories shop shouldn't be a problem. He/She can do it after job hours also so that he/she makes some extra money than what he/she is already earning. I have an old laptop to handover to him.

Om, I believe this is an even cheaper option. But getting from states is the problem.

Astel and Kern I thought about many many years ago but it rips only when connected to AK DAPs and not PC according to my little knowledge.

Mr. BLOOM, my CDs are not going anywhere.:) I am an old-fashioned and CD collector. Almost a decade ago my beautiful Sister-in-law (Thet always are) asked me why I give her only copies of the CD and not the original. And my reply was the same as the first sentence I wrote you. Obviously, I did not say that I am an old fashioned person though.:)

Has anyone thought of building a headless dedicated CD ripper PC? I am upgrading the desktop components for my son and now I have a spare 2012 made motherboard, RAM, and some Intel E7xxx/8xxx series processor. I just need a cheap case and a cheap power supply. I also have a desktop a blueray and a dvd drive and one external cd drive. Will it be possible to rip 3-4 CDs simultaneously in different drives?
I am talking about something like here.
 
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Ripping CDs is indeed a tough job, if ripping means ripping to get a 100% jitter-free data-stream. Especially with the quality of CDs Indian companies produce, ripping them properly is indeed a tough business. I know someone who rips his CDs again and again to get a better copy every time he buys a new CD drive.

I think a dedicated CD ripping device would be worth considering, assuming they are better than computers to produce jitter-free data-stream.
 
DBPoweramp is what I would recommend. Instead of using a generic blu ray drive, look for an older DVD drive which has offsets for CD ripping (I use one of these https://www.amazon.in/gp/product/B00ERJXTE4/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1 ). I'm sure there are other models as well. This reduces errors compared to a regular blu ray drive, reducing ripping time as a result

I've never tried hooking up multiple drives to rip CDs simultaneously so cant comment on how it will work.

If you want to use your existing laptop instead of assembling a desktop, use one of these to hook up a full size drive: https://www.amazon.in/gp/product/B011OBMQXC/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
 
Astel and Kern I thought about many many years ago but it rips only when connected to AK DAPs and not PC according to my little knowledge.
Hi rsjaurr, the only reason I suggested it is because the review on the above site says it works with a PC/MAC as well. Maybe you could write to A&K directly as well ?

Have your considered getting an intern for a month to get the job done? It’d be affordable to you while the fellow earns some pocket money. All you need to do is provide the machine and a day or two of training/supervision.

Loved this idea Sachin. Getting an intern is a fantastic idea..will also provide a job for someone for some time !
 
To cut the long story very short I need to rip a couple of thousands of Audio CDs in few weeks but I am lazy and do not have much time to rip on my laptop. In the last 5 years, I must have ripped only 150 CDs. In January I did rip about 50 but lost energy thereafter.

I contacted ADR autoloader guys and they quoted 2500 Euro. There is one autoloader cd ripper on US amazon for about 750USD. Both are out of my budget/reach.

How about that multi CD duplicator that music pirates used to copy CD/VCD/DVD illegally? I got hold of one without CD drives inside and it has multiple pins ribbon cables. Can this duplicator be attached to the computer and rip music from multiple drives?

The best way to rip CDs seems to be to attach 3-4 external cd drives to my laptop and then use EAC/dbpoweramp and then hope that I do not lose steam within few weeks. Does it sound good or there is any other method to rip CDs within few weeks?
"The best way to rip CDs seems to be to attach 3-4 external cd drives to my laptop and then use EAC/dbpoweramp and then hope that I do not lose steam within few weeks. Does it sound good or there is any other method to rip CDs within few weeks?"

1.
I totally agree with you on this.... with the caveat to use a Desktop PC and not a Laptop, which will probably run out of juice feeding multiple USB Drives.

Also as recommended by jai1611 in his post above, use (internal) SATA DVD Drives that are better than BluRay drives at ripping CDs.

2.
Years ago, a friend had installed 5 DVD drives into his PC and ripped his CD collection. If you are after extracting that last ounce of quality while ripping yr CDs, multiple simultaneous ripping is probably not what you are looking for. If however you are happy with Spotify or even Flac files, simultaneous ripping is Fine.

You will need to use the Paid version of dB Power Amp. The freeware version does Not support multiple Drives. EAC also is limited to a single drive.

3. Remember a CD rip is USELESS if it does not have the correct metadata (You will never be able to identify it for playback!). Hence you should ideally supervise and approve the metadata that dB Power Amp suggests. Most of the time, the suggestions are Excellent for Western Pop & Rock. Western Classical needs a LOT of supervision, and getting the correct metadata is often as time consuming as the rip. For Indian music, I do not know ... Hence do not jump into say 10 drives to rip, as you will not be able to supervise and curate the metadata before ripping.

Regarding your Query:
"Has anyone thought of building a headless dedicated CD ripper PC? I am upgrading the desktop components for my son and now I have a spare 2012 made motherboard, RAM, and some Intel E7xxx/8xxx series processor. I just need a cheap case and a cheap power supply. I also have a desktop a blueray and a dvd drive and one external cd drive. Will it be possible to rip 3-4 CDs simultaneously in different drives?"

A headless PC will not give you control over the metadata, making rips that do not have the correct data, useless at best and misleading at worst.....

Just my 2 cents....


P.S: Will an intern correctly identify the metadata?
 
As @IndianEars mentioned ripping CDs is an "active" process needing constant user attention. Headless will not work at all because once the ripping application picks up online metadata the user needs to verify that the data is correct by seeing what's on the screen. Very often the metadata is incorrect and the user must correct it manually by typing the correct info from the CD sleeve. I've ripped CDs in the thousands and I can tell from experience that online metadata databases vary from very accurate to very wrong, especially for western classical CDs. In case you have to rip western classical please note that some track titles can be very long. Windows 10 has problems handling very long file names. It manages to save the file with a long name onto the local hard disk but the moment you try to copy that file (or folder containing the long name file) it refuses.

Instead of targeting a few weeks target a few months and you'll accomplish your task. And please save your rips as .wav, not .flac.
 
I do my ripping on my music PC and control it headless from my desktop using RDP.
Fortunately, both PCs are in the same room.
I also have file sharing active on the music PC for additional convenience.

I use dBpoweramp paid version.
The CD drive is an external Asus which was in a list of suggested drives in a dBpoweramp forum.
There might be more such lists out there.

I am mostly into Indian music.
Metadata can be frustrating for that as well.
 
Make more copies of the hdd after ripping! The last time when I was home in india. I ripped around 150 CD s and took my hdd to Europe. One fine day I decided to try connecting the hdd to my Samsung phone. Some random pop showed on my phone about formats. Without reading it clearly I pressed ok as I was multitasking between work and listening to music on the phone. Yeah I formatted that 1TB, more than that my precious holiday time at my home.
 
If you just want a way to play them digitally and conveniently, you can use discogs and an apple music subscription. Once you scan the barcode, if the CD is available on the Apple catalog, then you'll be able to play it from your phone and onto a streamer of your choice.

That's one of the main reasons I've never bothered ripping. Ultimately a lossless streaming service gives you the same capability, with lesser headaches
 
Thanks for the valuable feedback guys. Now it has become slightly easier and I have narrowed it down to three options below. One important point I forgot to mention was that it should be somewhat portable. After job hours and lunch I can rip few CDs while having an evening OPD of 10-25 patients from 5-7 PM. I did that successfully last month. Then while on TV/laptop I can resume ripping till midnight. But all this can only happen 2-3 times per week.

That is why I am looking for a ripping machine where I just have to pop in a CD every 10-15 minutes but based on feedback and my own experience this will not give desired results.
Again based on my experience and as FMs have pointed out, not only metadata is as important as ripping itself but getting metadata for Indian and Western classical music is also very difficult. And I doubt I can ask someone to do it. I have been ripping CDs since 2006 and I know it is very time consuming and not that easy to get desired results. So hiring someone is what I will avoid even though it seems a great idea.

Now my three options are below with pros and cons.

1. Laptop with desktop internal drives and data/power cables as suggested by Jai1611. The processor in my almost new Asus laptop is Ryzen 5 4500U and 8GB RAM ( can be upgraded to 12GB ) and it should be able to handle 4 rips simultaneously? I can also carry it to and from the clinic, bedroom and TV room and continue ripping. With the stationary desktop, I won't be able to utilize my free time properly. It is also the cheapest option though I am not concerned about the cost up to 30-40K

2. Hiring someone - As mentioned previously and also I can not hand him over my laptop worth 60K.

3. Astel & Kern - Metadata for India and Western classical music will be a problem.

A dedicated desktop for ripping was never a great idea for me because of portability issues and my own personal and professional life.

I would love to have FM's feedback.
 
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