BadgerBoy

Hi everyone.

I looked around and couldn't find the answer to this question so if it's repeated I apologize in advance. Also, I wasn't sure where exactly to place this question, hopefully this is the right spot.

Anyway, I've been attemtping to join the 21st Century by getting into MP3 players. I've been trying to rip some of my CD's to put certain songs on my MP3 player as an MP3.

What's strange, is that when I play the CD directly from my drives, it sounds great. After i rip it however, and play the MP3 from the hard drive, it sounds, staticy, for lack of a better word. Like you're trying to listen to a radio station that broacasts on 102.9, but your tuner has it on 102.7. The staticy sound is really blatant when the singer pronounces an 's' or 't' sound.

I've tried several different ripping programs with no success.

Any guesses what I'm doing wrong?

My computer stats are in my signature.

koala

Try the LAME MP3 codec.

Install the encoder and rip your CDs using either LameFrontEnd or the Winamp MP3 Writer plugin.
Set the bitrate to 192 for good quality or 320 for CD quality (192 is usually good enough and produces smaller filesizes than 320).

Also, try updating your audio drivers.

BadgerBoy

Thank you for the reply.

Forgive my ignorance, but I'm a bit computer impaired.

I downloaded the updated driver which was in a Zip file. None of the files in the Zip were modified after 2001. But the drivers on my computer show them to be modified on 11/27/2005. I assume this means they're already upadated?

Also I diownloaded the encoder, got another Zip file, and when I opened it up, I couldn't figure out what to do with the contents. I tried double clikcing on the exe file, extracting it, double clicking on the extracted file, and all I get is a quick split second pop up that looks like a black and white DOS window. Is this correct?

koala

You need to extract the contents of the zip into a folder (I used c:\lameinstall) and run the exe from there, not directly from the zip. Same thing happened when I ran the encoder zip, a quick flash of DOS window. It's a very small program so it should be ok. You can confirm it's been installed by going to Control Panel > Multimedia > Devices tab > Audio Compression Codecs and checking the Properties for LAME. Check the version number, make sure it's enabled and set to Priority 1. This will make it the default codec for Windows, whichever ripping software you use. Have you tried the LameFrontEnd program or any other ripper since installing the codec?

I hope this isn't overcomplicating things for you. I just want to make sure you've got a good quality encoder installed before checking anything else. LAME is one of the best along with Fraunhofer, but I'm not sure if Win2K has these already installed.

Yes, that's ok. It could be that your onboard sound chip just isn't very good, which is why I suggested updating the SiS drivers. A proper soundcard should eliminate all your encoding problems, even a very cheap one.

Which CD ripping software were you using that produced poor quality MP3s? It could just be that you were ripping at a very low bitrate (below 128kbs).

Which program do you use to play MP3s? Set the graphic equalizer to a flat line (default), see if that helps with the static on 's' sounds (sibilants).

BadgerBoy

Thanks again for replying.

I put it in my Program Files folder, and that's what happened. So far so good I think.

I don't see Multimedia in my Control Panel.

Not yet, I wanted to make sure I had the codec installed properly first.

Even if playing the CD direct from the driver sounds good? I can even play MP3's that other people rip on their computer, and they sound good on mine.

I've used iTunes, Audiograbber, Real Jukebox, and CD to MP3 Freeware. All with the same results.

I've used iTunes, Real Jukebox, and Audacity. All with the same results. I've also ripped at a 300-something bit rate with the same results.

I've given that a shot with the same results.

Thanks again fro replying, now if only I can find multimedia in my Control Panel.

BadgerBoy

O.K. I found "Sounds and Multimedia" I opened it up and there wasn't a "devices" tab, but there was a "Hardware" tab.

Under this tab, there's a list of Devices, one of which is "Audio Codecs" I open it up and clikc on the "Properties" tab and do not see any LAME codec. Am I looking in the right place?

I do see however the Fraunhofer IIS MPEG Layer-3 Codec.

koala

Sorry for the confusion over the Control Panel locations. Win2K must be slightly different to 98/XP. OK, forget about LAME if you've got Fraunhofer.

CDs played from the drive and MP3s created on other PCs sound ok? That would suggest it's not a decoding problem (CODEC stands for enCOder/DECoder), and you've tried encoding at 320kbs which should give CD-quality sound..... Try burning the MP3s you've created, and play them on another PC to determine whether they're being poorly encoded or if there's a problem with your sound chip/driver.

BadgerBoy

Thanks again for your reply.

No problem, I'm easily confused.

Yeah, isn't that weird?

Well, I won't be able to have access to another PC until the weekend, but here's something else weird.

For the heck of it, I burned the WAV onto a CD and played on my DVD player, it sounded alot better with only a slight staticy sibilant.

Then I put the MP3 onto my cheapo MP3 player, and it sounds perfect!

Go figure?

I'd like to extract at lower than 320 to see if I can't get more room out of it, what's the lowest one can extract without noticable loss in quality?

koala

128 is the lowest setting you should use for encoding music. This will give cassette-quality sound, and is only really used for recording speech. I would say for your purposes you could get away with 160, but 192/256 would be preferable, and using VBR (variable bit rate) instead of CBR (constant bit rate) will give a smaller filesize without losing any quality.

I'm not too familiar with the rippers you mentioned. If they have features to enhance the sound (like normalisation, dehiss filters, fades etc) try disabling them. Personally I don't like bulky packages that claim to be able to do everything. I like to keep it simple and use small, free programs that do one job and do it well, like Avantrix Audio CD Ripper or CD-DA X-Tractor

BadgerBoy

Yeah, what do some of those things mean?

Normalization?

OGG?

etc.

Thanks again for your reply.

koala

Normalization is where the software adjusts the volume of the incoming source (the CD) to just below the maximum level. If it goes above this level you get clipping, making the music sound slightly distorted at certain frequencies. Without getting into the details, it's best not to use these kind of features when doing a simple CD rip, you don't want to be introducing more "digital noise" where it's not necessary. Normalization is best kept for when you've already ripped your songs from CD and some are much quieter than others. You would then apply it to make them all appear to be at the same volume level.

OGG is short for Ogg Vorbis, a high-quality type of compressed audio file, similar to MP3 but with a clearer sound and smaller filesize. Some media players can play ogg files by using a special plugin. Winamp can play them but Windows Media Player can't, so if you're new to digital music stick with MP3.

There are all kinds of filters which are supposed to enhance the sound quality of your MP3s, but they're best avoided at the CD-to-MP3 stage and left for post-editing. Things like 'dehiss' or declick' are used on files that have been encoded from cassette or vinyl to remove the hissing sound you sometimes get on tape cassettes and the pops/clicks you get from scratchy old vinyl.

BadgerBoy

Thanks again for the reply.

Here's a couple more for you.

What is the minimum and maximum bitrate setting for?

I ripped a bunch of songs and was able to transfer them to one of my MP3 players. It worked great. I have another MP3 player, and tried to transfer the same ripped songs to that one from my hard drive, and I got a message about not being able to copy it because of copyright protection, and that I should either remove the copyright protection or use another disc. What's with that? I though ripping CD's to dump them onto your own MP3 player was considered fair use? How can I get around that? Why would the ripped songs transfer o.k. to one MP3 player, and not the other?

Thanks again.

koala

Min/Max bitrate settings are for encoding MP3s using VBR (variable bitrate). So if you set them to min-160 and max-256 it will encode the MP3 at various rates between the 2 settings to give a smaller filesize. For example, a quiet part of the music might only need to use 160 and a more complicated part will go up to 256... or something like that.

I'm not sure about the copyright protection, I've never had that problem. See if there's an option to disable it in the ripping software. It might be in the MP3 ID tag, where there are checkboxes for Protection, Original Artist, Genre, etc.

Also, right-click the MP3s on your hard drive, click Properties and change them from Read-Only to Archive. I doubt this will have any effect but it's worth trying. Could be something to do with the MP3 player. Does it have enough free space?

BadgerBoy

Thanks again for your reply.

Figured this one out. I had to change a setting in the MP3 player from Media Device to USB Disk and it worked!

So if I wanted to rip at 190 VBR for acceptable sound quality, than wouldn't I want to rip at 0 to 190 for minumum filesizes?

koala

Setting the minimum bitrate too low might make parts of the MP3 that require less compression sound noisy or slightly distorted, so I would go for min160/max192 VBR. You might get away with a lower setting but you won't get much of a difference in filesize so it's not worth going too low. Experiment with different settings to find an acceptable compromise between quality and size.

BadgerBoy

Cool. Hey, thanks alot for your help. You helped me figure out somthing I've been tinkering with for months! Much appreciated.

koala

No problem. Welcome to the 21st Century