Using Cdex To Rip Your Music Files To Your Computer



So you need a tool to get the music from your CD's onto your pc?

For this job we recommend this free open source tool that will do the job easily.

Click here to get C-Dex    


Lets get started, first you'll need to install the program itself this is just a matter of double clicking the icon and selecting the location you wish it to be installed in.




You can just click "next" a few times and it will be installed in the default location with a desktop shortcut.




Once installed run the program from the start menu and you will see this display.



You may wish to drag the box to a convenient size to suit you.

Most of the important settings are accessible from the settings icon or by using the "options" menu and a few may need to be tweaked to your needs.




Basically you need to decide what bitrate you wish to rip to, the faster the bitrate the more samples a second and therefore the more
accurate the reproduction of the playback.
For many Ipod and Mp3 player users, a 128 bit track is adequate but for home pc use I prefer 160-192 bit
as this is a good trade off against quality and disk space. You can set this in the "Options --> Settings --> Encoder" box




Some advanced users will prefer a variable bit rate (VBR) but this option may take a little time to perfect to get it to a good setting you're
happy with so I'll continue with the basic rip.

The next option to look over is the compact disk database lookup (CDDB), this will check the disk you have and look for a match and takes a couple of seconds to get a result, saves typing out all the song names and details yourself.  
To make this feature operational the program asks you set an email addy in the "Options --> Settings -->  Remote CDDB" and as you can see from the picture this one works fine for me.




You will need to allow it through your firewall to check the database.




A successful match with your disk will give you this result on the main screen




Now to the useful part of the operation the actual rip to the hard drive.
The location for your new MP3 files will be the one you set in "Options --> Settings --> FileNames so its a good idea to
set this to a place you may wish to use just for ripping, the default is a bit long winded for me and I prefer to use a root directory
( C: ) rather than hunt through a whole tree of folders to find what I am looking for.
Its a good idea to adjust the output of this program to suit your tastes and for me this is
"Artist- Album- Track No - Title" also it looks nicer when you rip a whole album,
you can do this in the "Options --> Settings --> Filename"




Here are my settings:



Ok now believe it or not and without having to play with anymore options your ready to roll, go to the main window and right click and select all then move across to the right to select the second icon down ( Extract CD to compressed audio file), its time to get  nice cup of coffee while the disk is ripping..




You will now have a folder full of the disks tracks already numbered and labled for you, feel free to experiment with different settings and options, you cannot really damage anything and its easy enough to re-rip any problem tracks.

If you need further help with this product in fine detail there's a great help file included under the "Help" option.





Now you have transferred you music to your pc you can put your CD's somewhere safe and enjoy the fun of having your own enormous jukebox.
If you have any questions about this feel free to visit here Questions on CDex and post them.


A big thank you goes out to the Cdex project folks!

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