Ripping Compact Discs with dbpoweramp

I am working on a mass CD-ripping project. Currently, I do have a hard drive filled with FLAC copies of all my CDs. The only issue is that they were ripped over the span of 10+ years and I can’t trust their accuracy. I was thinking of re-ripping them all at the same time with the best DVD/CDROM drives I can find and the best CD ripping program.

The CD ripper I’m using is called dbpoweramp. It reports errors on discs by comparing the rip to the central database. I am seeing 1-2 errors in about one out of six discs with my CD collection. Some of the CDs are as old as 1986, when I first started buying them. In some cases, It’s enough to clean the disc and they rip without errors. In other cases, there are tiny scratches and nothing can fix the issue. There’s almost 2k cds to rip so in most of the cases, I have to make a quick determination of whether I have time to try again and again to rip the discs. So far the favorite ones have been re-ripped. At this point, I’m not even sure if one inaccurate track will even play in a way that seems off.

On a side note, the dbpoweramp suite comes with a batch ripper, so I’m able to rip from several CD drives at once. Right now I have five drives connected with two on the way. When all of the drives are running and the CDs aren’t in rough shape, the system can average a combined ripping speed of 150-205x.

I bought a case to house the DVD/CDROM units called Copystars Duplicators Case (see above). The case was designed for a CD/DVD duplicator system but it keeps five drives nice and tidy. I can cram all of the cables on the inside of the case. The SATA connector cables I’m using are called Inateck SATA to USB 3.0 Converter Adapter. I have also installed a USB 3.0 PCIe card called FebSmart 4 Ports USB 3.0 for fast transfers of data. Please let me know if you have any questions about the setup. So far I’m very happy with this project and I’m well underway, having ripped about 25% of the collection.

 

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Ripping compact discs with Ubuntu OS

The two main Linux programs I use in Ubuntu to rip CDs are Sound Juicer and XCFA.

Sound Juicer is the easiest to use and setup. However there are limitations. If a CD is not in the MusicBrainz database, the program will error out. Also, the type of encoders you choose cannot be fine tuned (AAC, mp3, FLAC). You can’t choose the level of compression. There’s also no apparent way to add album art.

XCFA has much more fine tuning, however, this increases the complexity. You can chose the level of compression. There are many more encoders like APE, WavP, Ogg, Mpc, etc. Another caveat is that it is more confusing and difficult to setup in Ubuntu. I had to do some workarounds to get it going.

The best way to figure out your CD ripping process is likely to try them both. I tend to use Sound Juicer for the mainstream artists and XCFA for CDs I’m having trouble with (like no entry in the MusicBrainz database).

The easiest way to install Sound Juicer in Ubuntu is to open the Ubuntu Software store, type “sound juicer” in the search and select install. If you want to install it in the terminal, here’s how:

sudo apt-get install sound-juicer

Once you install, you will simply need to update the settings from the “preferences” pull-down.

Installing XCFA is a bit more complicated. First you need to install the program, then the “goodies”, then any missing programs (like the ripper).

sudo apt-get install xfce4

sudo apt-get install xfce4-goodies

Once these two programs are installed, you will need to launch the program and install the missing programs. These include: a52dec, mp3check, faac, and so on. You can see which programs are present and missing under the “Applications externes” tab. I couldn’t figure out how to install some of these programs, including ‘aacplusenc’ and ‘monkeys-audio’ but for now I’m not interested in that functionality. Once you update your system with the missing external programs, restart XCFA and fill out your settings with the “preferences’ tab.

Once you have completed your burning task, you will probably want to verify and update some metadata/tags. A great program for this is ‘Kid3-qt’. To install, do a search for “kid3” in the Ubuntu Software store or:

sudo apt-get install kid3-qt

There are other programs too; if you find a good one, let me know!

Good luck and happy burning.

Unrar multiple files + file name spaces in the terminal

First, when dealing with the spaces in a file name while using the terminal, you can use a back-slash before the space.

Example:

File name with spaces.txt

For the terminal:

File name with spaces.txt

Sometimes we run across a downloaded file online that was created by utilizing the winrar multiple-file feature to make a huge file downloadable. A good example would be an ISO image that is more than 1GB in size. The rar program can break up the file into smaller pieces. Example:

bigiso.part01.rar
bigiso.part02.rar
bigiso.part03.rar
bigiso.part04.rar
and so on

To unrar multiple files into one, first install the unrar program in linux. In this case, I’m assuming you are using Ubuntu or any Debian-based distribution (like Raspbian):

sudo apt install unrar-free
sudo apt install unrar

Then use the unrar command to unrar. Remember to use the before any spaces.

unrar x -e bigiso.part01.rar

This should build the large file back up into its uncompressed state.

Ubuntu: Mounting a USB hard drive at reboot

First, if you have an exFat drive, you will need to install the Ubuntu exFat utility or you will get a “unknown filesystem type ‘exfat’” mount error.
To avoid that, in a console type:
sudo apt-get install exfat-fuse exfat-utils

Before we update anything, we will need to find out what your hard drive is called in the system before we mount it.
Any of these commands will tell you the drive name.
lsblk
sudo blkid
sudo fdisk -l

Look for something like this: /dev/sdb

You will need to create a mount point for the system.
>sudo mkdir /media/usb
You can replace “usb” with any name you like.

Now you will need to update your “fstab” file so Ubuntu can mount the drive at startup.

Important: find the Device and Filesystem with this command:
>df -T
Look for “Filesystem” and “Type”.
Example:
Filesystem Type 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda2 ext4 959862832 368219792 542814880 41% /
The “Filesystem” is /dev/sda2 and the “Type” is “ext4”.

Edit fstab:
sudo nano /etc/fstab

Copy this statement into the file, replacing the #Device (example: /dev/sdb1) and #fs-type (example: exfat or ext4)

#Device #Mountpoint #fs-type #options #dump #fsck
/dev/sdb1 /media/usb exfat defaults 0 0

^O to write out, ^X to exit.
Reboot your machine:
sudo reboot

Your computer should mount your USB hard drive to /media/usb