Ripping CDs: Is AccurateRip really necessary, or just being anal?

Thanks Vidiot, it was a semi joke, seeing that OMD's hardly successful Liberator had maybe 10 or so to compare it to

 

They say they're about halfway through Beta-testing. The dBP part sorta/kinda works, but they have yet to Beta-test the CD Ripper.

Oh, that was a feeling of pure horror and dismay the day I discovered that in 2004, I can tell you. I wound up having to redo over 500 CD rips after determining at least 10% of them had little tiny glitches in them every so often, some of them almost microscopic, some of them huge. You live and learn.

 

Life's too short to worry about it. I have a jukebox wall box/adapter/ipod/hifi system. This beats getting up and down to change CDs after a playing a couple of tracks on any.
I can chose any number of tracks ripped from my CDs or YouTube videos downloaded as mp3s, (you can usually find a decent one) at one go and they get played in the order of my choice. I don't listen that closely enough to notice glitches, as I'm probably reading the paper or a book at the same time. Listening to music is a "passing enjoyment," not a life's work. But it maybe for some. I've lots of other hobbies, so I don't get hooked up on any. Err.. 'cept golf, now that is a "life's work!"

 

Yes, apathy is always a viable alternative.

 

Does dbPowerAmp let you rip to FLAC+cuesheet yet?

 

I've never done it, but a quick search says yes http://forum.dbpoweramp.com/showthread.php?18981-CUE-Sheet-Image-Utility-Codec. That thread was linked from a thread from January so even though it's from almost 6 years ago, it's still a feature.

 

dBpoweramp can rip to a FLAC and a CUE. Sort of. You need a special beta codec installed from the link in scompton's post. It can rip to a single FLAC and CUE or to multiple tracks and a non-compliant CUE. Sort of. It's still beta quality. Not a feature I would rely on. Some of the posts in the dBpoweramp thread mention problems when dealing with CDs that have a hidden track or a pre-gap. I wouldn't trust it for doing real rips.

I do have the CUE codec installed. Just to see what it does. It does create a CUE file. That's as far as I've tested. I don't intend to give it a thorough testing. I don't intend to use it till it is out of beta status.

 

I've never been a fan of CUE. It's just extra garbage to me in a music file. With JRiver you just don't ever need a feature such as CUE.

 

I only use CUE for discs that I want to archive and for discs I want to process with CueTools.

I archive special discs. Discs that are valuable, or discs that have HDCD, or discs that have pre-emphasis, or discs with a HTOA hidden track. The CUE format saves the extra info (like HTOA) and also allows me to verify. The CUE format is also a format that allows me to go back to an archive in the future and reprocess it (for example doing a different and better de-emphasis).

Some people do use the CUE format for regular playing because it allows for gapless playback in players don't don't properly do gapless but happen to support CUE. Which would be and extreme minority and very special case. Other than that, I don't see a good reason to use CUE for playback. It's a silly format for playback.

 

It always makes me wonder when I rip a CD that has been out a while (years) and not in AccurateRip. It makes me wonder if I really am the first person to rip this CD using an AccurateRip enabled ripper. It makes me wonder if I've got a really weird pressing (or a counterfeit). When it happens it is usually with an obscure classical CD or a polka CD. OK, I can believe I might be the first to rip the CD using EAC or dBpoweramp if it's obscure. But with more popular artists? Then I wonder.

 

Yesterday, I ripped a John Zorn CD that came out a couple of months ago. I. Was surprised it wasn't in the database yet.

 

Yeah Ham that's what puzzled me, It was just the old US A&M, I bought it new in the blister pack years ago, nothing special

 

That feature has come in handy on occasion Don, especially on obscure cd singles

 

I think the key word is old. If it's the original CD release from the 80s, you very well may be the first person to rip it in software that populates AccurateRip.

 

AccurateRip and CUETools saved a CD for me today.

I got an ex-library copy of a CD. It was a little bit scratched. I couldn't get a clean rip. The best rip I managed still had one track that AccurateRip flagged as bad. Ran the rip through CUETools. CUETools identfied 15 bad samples and was able to fix them. I've now got what is effectively a perfect rip of that CD. CUETools is awesome. Amazing what it can do.

 

Very cool! Do you know how CUETools does its repairs? Does it interpolate (guess) what the proper data should be? Or does it somehow use the AccurateRip database to really and truly change the bad samples to the correct ones?

 

CUETools uses Reed-Solomon error correction coding to create a recovery file for each CD submitted to CTDB. Interestingly, CDs also use a form of Reed-Solomon error correction as part of the Redbook format. But not to the same degree that CUETools does.

Here's the wikipedia page on Reed-Solomon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reed–Solomon_error_correction

CUETools has its own database for CD verification and for the recovery database. It's not the same as the AccurateRip database. CUETools does look up and verify against the AccurateRip database. But it doesn't use the AccurateRip database for the recovery. And it also uses its own CTDB verification as well. So CUETools actually uses both CTDB and AccurateRip to verify that rips are good.

 

I didn't know that - very cool. Thanks!

 

CTDB has saved a dozen rips for me now, including at least one completely-irreplaceable title. The biggest "fix" so far has been 29,397 bad samples, which is just nuts.

 

CUETools is winner with me as well,and great to have along side DBpoweramp.

 

I have seen instances when the sole tags database (which had this title) for a CD was offline, too busy or otherwise not phoning home. I know this because I have inserted a CD for ripping, the tags and AccurateRip insignia lit up like a Christmas bulb and everything was good to go. Then I realized it was some ungodly hour and decided I had to get to bed. The next ripping session I attempted to pick up where I left off, and guess what? No accurate rip response and no tags coming in. So I put that disc aside for a few weeks, and then things were back when I made further effort.

So for all discs that do not get a call back from big brother, I simply put them aside and then go back to them the next day or so. Often that can make all the difference. Hell even MusicBrainz and freedb call in sick once in a while.

 

I run into the same thing with AccurateRip sometimes—like, the launch pressing of Year of the Cat I bought a couple months ago isn't in the ARDB yet? Seriously? I assume it's because the earlier (and the more popular) a disc is, the better chance that there were a bunch of different physical masters cut for different pressing plants, etc. AFAIK the ARDB uses index points when generating an ID number for the disc, which means that even if two pressings have bit-identical audio content they may not have the same ID if the index points are slightly different, which means you won't get a match when looking for the disc in the database. That's just an assumption though.

 

I'm ok with a secure rip with proper tags and no accuriteRip conformation. Provided I did not see the drive slow down and have to go over sectors a few times, or get a retry error of some sort. Sometimes you just know that things are fine, a hunch I guess. Sometimes one needs to move on and get going.

I realize that my three year ripping project is only 75% complete. I have two more years of this -- I think I can see (with breaks along the way). A five year deal with plenty of musical enjoyment while I am working on it. Most fun I've had in several years so far as the collecting goes.

 

I have a question about AccurateRip that maybe somebody here could answer. I use dbpowerAmp with AccurateRip and there are always numbers in parentheses after I perform a rip. The number might say something like Accurate (6) or Not Accurate (6) or something like that. Obviously I get a lot more of the Accurate than Not Accurate reports, but I would like to know what the number means. I have seen everything from Accurate (1) to Accurate (200) and the same variety with Inaccurate. What does the number mean, and what should be a good number to hope for?