One program to rip and edit CD audio

October 24, 2017 11:40 AM

I'm looking for a single program that can rip a CD and do basic audio editing (delete portions and change volume). I know there are lots of programs that do one or the other, but I'm looking for one that will do both to streamline the process. Free or cheap preferred (under $25).
posted by roaring beast to Computers & Internet (11 answers total)

I believe Audacity does what you're looking for.
posted by k5.user at 11:53 AM on October 24, 2017 [2 favorites]

Yes, Audacity does what you're looking for. And it's free, open-source software.
posted by Leontine at 12:02 PM on October 24, 2017

Response by poster: When I tried doing it with Audacity, it said to use another program to rip the CD. Is there a plugin or utility that is required? (Audacity manual entry)
posted by roaring beast at 12:03 PM on October 24, 2017

I've never known Audacity to be able to rip CDs. I'd love to hear how it works!
posted by goatdog at 12:15 PM on October 24, 2017 [1 favorite]

Audacity does not rip CDs. You can import the already-ripped files, but it does not do this itself.
posted by briank at 12:37 PM on October 24, 2017

What OS? I don't know much about Windows, I'm afraid.

On a Mac you can use iTunes to rip the CD, then quit iTunes and edit the file in Audacity. (You can also rip a song in iTunes, set the start & end times to shorten it, and then export that as a new MP3 file, too. But I don't think you can adjust the volume in a permanent way in iTunes.)
posted by wenestvedt at 1:25 PM on October 24, 2017

I'm on Windows; I use Audiograbber to rip; you may not find a single program to do both. I've also tried FreeRip, but decided Audiograbber was better. That was a long time ago; I don't remember what factors I used to make the decision, and they may not matter anymore.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 1:46 PM on October 24, 2017

Yes, it seems that Audacity doesn't rip CDs. Here's their page on the topic. It says:

"[M]ost operating systems do not actually allow the import of data from the CD tracks into applications, because audio CDs do not have files or a file system like computer media, but consist essentially of a stream of bits on the disc. That is why when you look at an audio CD in a file manager like Windows Explorer, each CD track will appear only as a small .cda "file" 44 bytes in size, which is merely header information for the stream."
posted by Leontine at 8:46 PM on October 24, 2017

Depending on your OS, an audio CD might appear in your file manager as a list of WAV files. I just opened one of those up in Audacity, and it was the audio I expected it to be. It's not particularly fast — took about 30 seconds to load the track — but it worked well.
posted by scruss at 7:48 AM on October 25, 2017

If you're happy doing it with two programs then you could use cdex (http://cdex.mu/) to rip the CD and then Audicity to modify it.

Both are free software.
posted by mr_silver at 12:56 PM on October 25, 2017

I don't know of any programs that do both, but CDex does allow you to extract partial tracks if you know the timecodes you want. It's a very manual process though.
posted by Aleyn at 11:26 PM on October 25, 2017