Best Method for Automated CD Ripping?

OzPeter asks: "I have a need to rip about 200-300 CDs in the near future, and I am not looking forward to being a slave to the computer every 4 minutes in order to change the CD in the drive. I have been looking around for automated ripping systems but in general have not been impressed by what I found. This question was asked, 4 years ago, and the best advice to come out of it seemed to be to hire a local teenager to be that slave. Have things improved, or does the advice given in that article still stand? What is currently the best way of automatically ripping a significant number of CDs?"

Well

[OverlordQ]

What is currently the best way of automatically ripping a significant number of CDs?"

There isn't one. If you were mearly duplicating, there's plenty of robotic/automated (albiet expensive) solutions, but since you're wanting to rip, you can either hire that teenager, or send it off to these people [ripdigital.com].

Outsource It

[xCepheus]

Have you looked at hiring a cd ripping service like MusicShifter [musicshifter.com]? A lot of these places will rip you collection for cheap because they have massive digital libraries of pre-ripped music. Once they receive your cds instead of actually having to rip all 300 of them there is a good chance that 250 or so are already stored in their library resulting in a relatively cheap and fast service ($.79 per cd from Music Shifter).

(I'm in know way affiliated with any cd ripping services - I've just heard good things about them.)

Re:Software or hardware?

[paeanblack]

There are some hardware options that aren't totally insane pricewise:

MF Baxter
http://www.mfdigital.com/baxter.html [mfdigital.com]

StarMatix PowerFile
http://search.ebay.com/powerfile [ebay.com]

Re:Outsource It

[cfulmer]

If that's true, then MusicShifter is infringing copyright -- this is exactly what mp3.com got spanked for a few years ago (with mp3.com, you didn't send in your CD, you just put it in your PC to prove that you had it).

Re:Well

[SydShamino]

Trying reading the 278 comments when this was last discussed in December 2005:
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/16/011224 9 [slashdot.org]

Really, that was a good discussion, and this is basically a dupe of that.

abcde

[mrfantasy]

abcde [hispalinux.es] works well. It's very configurable, rips to any audio format you'd want (I use FLAC) and can eject the CD when done. And it's written in bash.

My blog [chairthrower.org] talks about how I used it. It can run as a daemon so I had it down to insert CD, and change it 15-20 minutes later when it ejected again (cdparanoia and flac took longer than 52x would make you think).

Re:robots

[mrzaph0d]

Home built CD changer contraption [sentex.net]

CD-changing Lego® robot [redfrontdoor.org]

Build one

[kinema]

Check this [sentex.net] out. The guy built exactly what you are looking for. Here [redfrontdoor.org] is another one.

Re:What's the rush?

[stevenvi]

I must second this statement. I, too, decided to put my CD collection (~500 CDs) on my computer in a lossless format (flac), with little difficulty.

Your four minute estimate is incorrect if you want to make sure you're actually copying the right data. Using (in Linux) grip and cdparanoia, it was pretty easy. I just queued up a new disc each time one popped out, whenever I was in my dorm room.

Took me a few months to finish it, and for some reason I had two albums that refused to rip in Linux. (Not DRMed ones, old ones -- Foo Fighters, "The Colour and the Shape," and Meat Puppets, "Too High to Die.") Didn't cost me a dime, and because I used cdparanoia it ripped at maybe 2x, so I only had to swap discs every half hour. I didn't consider myself a slave. Nice change of pace from hammering refresh on Slashdot. ; )

Re:What's the rush?

[tooth]

That's exactly what i was going to respond with. I'm in the middle of doing this right now, done about 200-250 cds so far. Slap a CD in, rips automatically, ejects. I have a stack of about 10 "to do" cds on the left and 10 done cds on the right. When the "to do" gets to zero, i put the done stack into a box and grab another 20 or so from the cd stands. I read web sites and emails while this is happening and i never rush to change a cd. like you i often wander off and when walking past i swap out the old one and put the new one in.

A few tips:

Stop your wife/gf/so from putting the "done" stack back into the main "to do" pile. This is very temping for them, as the see a cd they want to listen to, but dont tell you they took it and then you find it days later in the car or other odd places, think you missed it (or have 2 copies) and re-rip it. itunes has a duplicate song finder, but it's not very intellingent and calls the same song on different albumns duplicates when they are not (eg songs appearing on "best ofs") ... i'd like a duplicate albumn function.

I was origionally going to use abcde to rip the cds under linux with a slot loading drive, auto ejecting done cds and non-music cds. this never worked out though as i would forget about it and only get a few cds done an hour. the advantage of using your main pc (mines a mac too) is that you sitting there anyway so the effort is less.

anyway, break it done into smaller lots, if you have 300 cds, and assuming you can do 20 a day you'll have it done in 2 weeks. And you could do 2 pcs at once if youre in a hurry, or you can listen to the music you've ripped to make it a bit more enjoyable.

Re:Software or hardware?

[scragz]

That Baxter, while exactly what is being asked for, is ~$800 and only works with their proprietary ripping software. The Powerfile route looks a little better, but preliminary research [steeleprice.net] has me a little bit worried about its scriptability.

Robotics.

[OgGreeb]

I've been researching this for the last several weeks because I'm thinking about offering CD ripping as an additional service. I've found that the makers of the DVD/CD robotic duplicators are just now getting the hint that these devices can be re-tasked to rip disks and make them some more sales, so they are coming out with solutions.

For low-volume ripping, there is a device called the Baxter [mfdigital.com] that goes for about $800 from various resellers. It will hold 25 disks at a time in its hopper and comes with the excellent Riptastic [riptastic.com] software bundled. Go in with a friend to get one of these and it makes the cost cheaper. Sell it on eBay afterwards and make most of your money back.

The biggest problem with small-capacity units is that they run out of disks too soon -- you can't load enough to let them run overnight.

The larger capacity (250 to 600 disks at a time) robotic units come with PCs built into them (they were designed for duplicating and the software is only beginning to catch up with them). They run from $3300 up to $5500 depending on capacity and number of CD drives used. Even with the higher cost, it can make sense if you get together a bunch of buddies to chip in. Say you charge your friends $0.50/disk simply to cover the cost of the machine (you're not doing it as a business). Pooling the money of 6-8 friends and then selling it on eBay afterwards might cover the cost.

The vendors I spoke to said that they get questions about these boxes every day. The biggest problem is making the Riptastic software (or other similar software) work with multiple simultaneously ripping drives. So we should see some announcements on this in the next several months.

Any of the robotic devices used for ripping also have the advantage of being duplicators of course. They also help make excellent DVD backup devices, since you can start the backup and walk away, letting the robot flop the disks for you.

Disclaimer: I don't represent any of these vendors -- I'm just doing the research necessary to purchase some to offer a ripping service. You could of course ask me to rip them for you... 8-).