Importing cd's then exporting to Hi bit rate MP3

Audacity Help Forum Windows
1

Hi,
This is my first post. - I am trying to convert/copy cd’s to hi bit rate MP3 to a USB stick for playing in a car.
No editing is involved but a simple method is required. I am using Win 8.1 & have just downloaded audacity, but it states that it cannot import CD’s directly.
So does that mean I have to first convert to Wav. etc & then convert again & save as hi bit rate MP3 ? However, I cannot see how to do this.

Any suggestions ?

Thanks.

2

Audio on a CD is not in conventional sound file format. They got the most room and highest fidelity they could by leaving out much of the conventional drive and file management. You can rip a CD with a CD ripper program such as CDex or equivalent. I believe iTunes for Windows can do that.

DO NOT get something that automatically saves to MP3 (unless it’s controlled or does it in a way you like). Music on a CD is perfect quality WAV-ish format. No compression or other damage. That’s the work you should import into Audacity for conversion to the MP3 of your choice.

Re-editing an MP3 causes sound damage.

Ideally, you rip the CD to high quality WAV files and save them as archive. Then you make the MP3s which are basically throw-aways as the CD gets banged up. That’s OK because you can just make more.

Koz

3

If you are not editing or recording, Audacity is not the right program for you…

Most [u]CD ripping programs[/u] can convert directly to MP3 and if it’s a popular CD, the artist, title, album information will be found on in an online database and automatically added as “tags” (metadata) embedded in the MP3.

I’ve used [u]EAC[/u] for a long time, but it can be tricky to configure and you have to download the LAME MP3 encoder separately. Recently, I tried [u]CUERipper[/u], and it was easier to use “out of the box”. CUERipper also has an new error-correction feature where it replace bad data with good data from a database.

If the tags are missing, or need editing, [u]MP3tag[/u] can edit tags without touching the MP3 audio data.

4

Thanks for your replies.
I have now found what seems to be the perfect program for this, - NCH express Ripper. It is very simple to set up, quick, free, and you can adjust settings up to 320 MPPS MP3 or 500 VBR AAC. I highly recommend it.

Thanks again for your help.