How to rip an audio CD into flac

Question

Hello I tried to rip some Audio CDs into the lossless flac format.

Flac has different compression rates and multiple arguments which can be passed. Normally I like to use flac with the argument -V8 which means, that the ripped content is validated and that the highest compression rate is used. Remember: Flac is lossless. So the compression rate influences not the quality. It influences just the processing time and the file size.

I used Rhythmbox and RipperX to rip my Audio CDs.

Well, Rhythmbox can identify the Audio CD and shows the interprets name and all track titles automatically. But it is not possible to edit the ripping format options. It is not possible to adjust the compression level. It uses the default compression level of 5 instead.

So I tried RipperX. In the options menu I can add additional arguments, which are used, when flac is called. This good, so I can adjust the compression level. Well, but RipperX cannot identify the Audio CD. It does not show the interprets name and all track titles.

I'm searching for a way to rip my Audio CDs into flac format with the highest compression level and the correct interprets name and all track titles. Of course I could use Rhythmbox to rip my Audio CDs into wave and then use flac to convert into flac and then delete the old wave files, but I am searching for a way to do both steps at once.

Does anybody know a way to rip an audio CD into flac without my issues?

Answer 1

I suggest the application abcde. Install it with:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install abcde flac

Now, put the CD into the tray. You might wish to create a directory of music files:

mkdir flacs
cd flacs
abcde -o flac

In order to get track information, etc., abcde queries the CDDB via an internet connection. If there is no internet connection, or if the CD is not registered, no track information will be retieved, although you may manually edit the input. Here is an example of the track information gathered:

Grabbing entire CD - tracks: 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12
Retrieving 1 CDDB match...done.
---- Muddy Waters / The Real Folk Blues ----
1: Mannish Boy
2: Screamin' and Cryin'
3: Just To Be With You
<snip>


Edit selected CDDB data [y/N]? 

Pressing Enter selects the default, No.

After ripping, a file appears named "Muddy Waters / The Real Folk Blues". Within it are the track listings CDDB found.

chili@T440p:~/Desktop/flac$ ls Muddy_Waters-The_Real_Folk_Blues/
01.Mannish_Boy.flac          07.Same_Thing.flac
02.Screamin_and_Cryin.flac   08.Gypsy_Woman.flac
03.Just_To_Be_With_You.flac  09.Rollin_&_Tumblin.flac
04.Walking_in_the_park.flac  10.40_Days_and_Forty_Nights.flac
05.Walking_Blues.flac        11.Little_Geneva.flac
06.Canary_Bird.flac          12.You_Cant_Lose_What_You_Never_Had.flac

If the CD is not on file with CDDB, you will have the option to edit the titles and other information and submit it. If there is no internet connection, then you must manually edit the file.

You can set the variables you wish to use by default by creating a conf file:

cp /etc/abcde.conf  ~/.abcde.conf
gedit .abcde.conf

Use nano or kate or leafpad if you don't have the text editor gedit. Check for the common variables that you wish to use. Uncomment the settings you'd like to use by default. For example, change:

#OUTPUTTYPE=ogg

To:

OUTPUTTYPE=flac  

In this example, once you have specified the output type as flac, it is no longer necessary to specify it on the command line. Merely do:

abcde

Answer 2

I think you are looking for something more like soundconverter.

To install, open a terminal and run the following commands:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install soundconverter

If you cannot find the application right away in your installed apps, just run the following command to start it up:

soundconverter &

You should be able to use your favourite file manager to copy and paste the files from your compact-disk to a directory (folder) like your Music directory.

These files should be in wav format when copied from the CD.

Converting from wav to flac should be lossless as flac has more compression than wav.

You can convert the tracks to flac using soundconverter after the files have been copied to your computer.

There is a way to convert tracks using the command-line which allows more control over the parameters; I can post this method if you are interested.

---

If that is not good enough, copy all the wav files to your ~/Music directory and then run the following command in a terminal to convert the files to flac:

find ~/Music -type f -iname "*.wav" | while read fn; do flac --keep-foreign-metadata --verify "$fn"; done

source

Answer 3

I had been using Asunder, but now I notice even though I specify FLAC output, it saves the files as lossy m4a. What's going on? There's no button that says "Fix this so it works right," so I'm not using it now. Sound Juicer seems to be a good alternative that is actually saving my tracks as FLAC format. That's what I want.