Tips For Importing CDs to Your PC1. Get connected. In the world of digital music it's essential that your digital music files contain artist, album and song data. This information, called ID3 tags, makes it possible to do things like search through your library of songs, organize playlists and bet your friends who sings that one-hit wonder. Your music management program needs to querry an online database to automatically look up song data, which is why it's essential that you're connected to the Internet when ripping music. 2. What's my name again? You'll find that some of your CDs--especially the home-made mix CDs your friends gave you--won't display any ID3 data once ripped. There's nothing wrong with the CDs, they just aren't listed in the online database. Not a problem, simply identify the track titles and album name yourself using a site like Gracenote, then just copy/paste the text into your music manager. 3. Think outside the (juke)box. Most music management ("jukebox") programs can rip your CDs, but there are free CD ripping programs available online that can do the job faster while giving you more control over the process. Once ripped, you can quickly and easily import the digital tunes into your music library. 4. Every little bit counts. Generally speaking, the higher the bit rate you choose for encoding, the better your music will sound. Bit rates of at least 160KB/second will retain more of the original track's sound quality than the common 128KB/second rate. As an added bonus, you may also find your CDs rip faster when compressing them at higher bit rates. 5. Adventures in hifi. If you'll be listening on a high-performance home or car audio system or using audiophile-grade headphones, consider ripping your CDs to a lossless format. These files require a lot more memory per song but will provide noticeably higher resolution sound that matches that of the original recording. 6. Call in outside help. When ripping a large collection of CDs, speed matters. Unfortunately, the CD/DVD drives built into many computers--especially laptops--aren't as fast as stand-alone external drives. Consider using an external drive with a fast CD read speed to save yourself some serious time waiting for each disc to rip. 7. Walk on the wild side. Another tip for speeding up the ripping process is to disable "error correction" in your jukebox or ripping software. Unless the CD is scratched or defective, error correction probably won't make a difference to the quality of the sound, though it can slow down the time it takes to rip a CD. 8. Avoid instant gratification. One final tip that will make a big difference in how fast it takes to rip your CDs is not listen to songs as you're ripping. It's tempting to listen to the songs--many of which you may not have listened to in years--as your going through your collection, but don't. It will significantly slow down the import process. These tips should help you get all of your music on CDs consolidated into your digital music library, ready to sync with your portable player or stream over your home network and enjoy wherever you are. More Audio Articles to Explore:
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