Tools of the trade

In order to copy audio tracks from an audio CD, we need a CD ripper, a software that scans the disc, extracts the audio data and saves it in a normal computer audio file. In this tutorial the cd ripping software I will use is called Exact Audio Copy (will call it from now on EAC) and you will see why I chose this one before guiding you through its installation.

After the ripper copies the audio tracks on the hard drive in a standard basic audioformat, it can use an encoder (also called codec) to encode the audio data in the audio format of your choice. This is in most cases needed because this basic format also takes a lot of space on your hard drive, after all it's a 1:1 copy of the disc.

There are two types of audio encoders, "lossless" and "lossy" encoders.

Lossless encoders analyze the audio data and compress the contents without losing audio information, just like normal file compressors. This is ideal for archiving purposes because the compressed content is exactly the same as the original ripped audio track. The size of compressed audio tracks is usually about 50% of the original track.

Lossy encoders analyze the audio data and remove parts that can barely be heard with a normal ear, for example a very low noise just before a loud noise or frequencies over 16 kHz, which usually can only be heard by young children. When this happens, it is said that encoders follow a psycho-acoustic model to sort out what a normal person is able to heard and discard everything else, to keep the file smaller.

Two lossless encoders will be introduced in this tutorial - Monkey's Audio and FLAC - and one lossy encoder, LAME MP3 Encoder. There are other lossy encoders, that encode in much better formats but these will be discussed in a later guide. The Lame MP3 Encoder creates the best MP3 files and this is enough for the purpose of this tutorial.

Let's move on and install the applications.

First I show you how to install the Lame MP3 Encoder because, as you will see later in the tutorial, it simplifies the process of installing EAC. If you only wish to encode audio tracks with a lossless codec, you may skip the next page.

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