Setting Up to Rip a CD
If you’ve amassed a collection of physical audio CDs that you want to transfer to your portable music player, you’ll need to rip (extract) the audio on them to the best audio format for your device. Windows Media Player 11 can extract the digital information from your physical CD and encode it in several digital audio formats. You can then transfer the files to your MP3 player or burn them to an MP3 CD, USB drive, or other media. The ripping option in Windows Media Player allows you to control:
Where the music is stored.The type of audio format.What actions to take when inserting a CD.What actions to take when a rip session ends.Encoded audio quality settings.
To set up your Windows Media Player 11 to rip songs on CDs:
Selecting CD Tracks to Rip
If you configured Windows Media Player to automatically rip audio CDs as soon as a CD is inserted, all tracks on the CD are selected. To select only certain tracks to rip, in the lower-right corner of WMP, select Stop Rip then choose the tracks you want and select Start Rip. In contrast, if Only when in the Rip tab is not selected under Rip CD when inserted, select the entire album or individual tracks to rip. Then choose Start Rip to begin ripping your CD. During the ripping process, a green progress bar appears next to each track while it’s being processed. Once a track in the queue finishes processing, a “ripped to library” message displays in the Rip Status column.
Checking Your Ripped Audio Files
Now it’s time to verify that the files you ripped are in your Windows Media Player library, and you’ll want to check their sound quality.
Adjust Audio Quality
In the Rip Music tab, you can also adjust the audio quality of the output files in the Audio Quality horizontal slider bar. There’s always a trade-off between audio and file size quality when dealing with compressed (lossy) audio formats. You’ll have to experiment with the Audio Quality setting to get the right balance, as it varies depending on the frequency spectrum of your audio source. If you’re encoding to a lossy WMA format, choose WMA VBR to get the best audio quality to file size ratio. Encode MP3 file formats with a bitrate of at least 128 Kbps to keep artifacts to a minimum. Once you’re happy with all of the settings, select Apply > OK to save and exit the options menu.
Benefit of Ripping Music
CD ripping allows you to listen to your music collection while keeping the original files in a safe place. Keeping your original files is helpful when CDs suffer accidental damage that renders them unplayable. In addition, from a convenience point of view, having your music collection stored as audio files enables you to enjoy your music without the hassle of wading through a stack of CDs looking for a particular album, artist, or song.
