Ripping Songs from CD to Your PC

If you have a decent compact disc collection and a CD-ROM drive in your computer system, you can make your own digital music files from the songs on your CDs. You can then listen to these files on your computer, transfer the files to a portable music player for listening on the go, share them with other users via the Internet, or use these files to burn your own custom mix CDs.

tip

For best quality, rip files in the WAV format. For best compatibility with virtually all portable music players, rip files in the MP3 format.

The process of copying files from a CD to your hard disk is called ripping. You can use Windows Media Player to quickly and easily rip all your CDs to hard disk.

Setting the Format and Quality Level

Before you start to copy a CD, you first have to tell WMP what format you want to use for your ripped filesMP3 or WMA. In addition, you can choose a quality level for recording, by selecting a specific bit rate. (The higher the bit rate, the better the sound qualityand the larger the file stored on your hard disk.)

tip

When using the normal WMA format, a quality level of 128Kbps or 160Kbps is typically a good choice.

Here's how you set the format and quality within WMP 10:

1.	Pull down the Tools menu and select Options.
2.	When the Options dialog box appears, click the Rip Music tab (shown in Figure 31.1). Figure 31.1. Before you copy a file, select which format and quality level you want to use.
3.	Pull down the Format list and select the file format you want. (Your choices include MP3, WMA, WMA Lossless, and WMA Variable Bit Rate.)
4.	Adjust the Audio Quality slider to select your desired bit rate. Move the slider to the left to create smaller files at lower quality; move the slider to the right to create larger files at better quality.
5.	Click OK when done.

Ripping the Files

tip

Make sure you're connected to the Internet before you start ripping, so that WMP can download album and track details. (If you don't connect, you won't be able to encode track names or CD cover art.)

After your settings are set, it's time to start ripping. Follow these steps:

1.	Insert the CD you want to rip into your PC's CD-ROM drive.
2.	In Windows Media Player, select the Rip button to show the contents of the CD, as shown in Figure 31.2. Figure 31.2. Getting ready to copy selected album tracksjust click the Rip Music button.
3.	Put a check mark by the tracks you want to copy.
4.	Click the Rip Music button.

WMP now begins to copy the tracks you selected, in the format you selected, and at the quality level you selected. Unless you specify otherwise in the Options dialog box, the tracks are recorded into your My Music folder, into a subfolder for the artist, and within that in another subfolder for this particular CD.