CD Ripper

Introduction to the CD Ripper

The CD Ripper is used to copy (or rip) the contents of and Audio CD onto your computer. The destination files can be MP3, OGG Vorbis, FLAC or WAVE.

Using the CD Ripper

Start the CD Ripper by any of the methods below:

• Click on the Rip Audio CD option from the Tools menu.

• Insert an Audio CD into your CD-ROM/DVD drive and wait for Windows Auto Play to show. Select Rip Audio CD in Helium Music Manager and click OK.

• On the Add Music Wizard dialog (shown at startup if not disabled), click the Rip and Audio CD button.

This is what happens when the CD Ripper dialog shows and an Audio CD is inserted:

• The contents of the Audio CD in your first CD-ROM/DVD device (if there are more than one) will be read.

• The tracks will be added to the track list of the CD Ripper dialog. If the track list shows a No Audio CD inserted label you either need to insert an Audio CD into your device or you need to change the device under the CD-ROM drive list.

• Artist, album and track information is automatically downloaded (when available) using the selected plug-in for downloading Track Information (Audio CD). Freedb is the default plug-in for this purpose. You can select which download plug-ins to use by clicking the Options button.

• If Auto-download cover is selected, Helium Music Manager will try to download a cover automatically for the found CD using the available plug-ins. This cover will be automatically stored in the ripped CD's destination folder and applied as a album cover if the ripped CD will be added to your Database after ripping. The plug-ins used to download covers can be selected from Options.
  
  Note:
  Track information must have been successfully downloaded before a album cover can be downloaded.

Now you are ready to make modifications to the tag contents if necessary. Modification in the CD Ripper track list is done using the embedded Tag Editor (Spreadsheet mode) to allow easy editing.

When you are ready to rip the selected tracks, click the OK button and the ripping process will begin.

Note:

• The CD Ripper can rip to MP3, WAV, OGG and FLAC. Ripping to MP3 requires the LAME MP3 Encoder executable on your computer. This can be downloaded from various sources online.

• If the encoder pack above is installed, tracks will be encoded to MP3 in the quality of 192 kbit/s using Constant Bitrate. If you want to change these options, click the Options button on the bottom toolbar of the CD Ripper. Read more about the CD Ripper options in the CD Ripper Options help section.