So, Ubuntu 10.04 LTS was released last week and it shipped with Rhythmbox 0.12.8. I thought I’d provide an update to one of the more popular posts on this site: HOW-TO: Enable MP3 ripping in Sound Juicer 2.22.0, and blather on a bit about how you shouldn’t be ripping to MP3 in the first place ;)
As noted in the comments in that previous post, Rhythmbox uses the same audio format and quality settings as Sound Juicer, so setting them in one place affects them in the other. But let’s focus on getting the results we want out of Rhythmbox, since that’s the Ubuntu default.
When you insert an audio CD, Rhythmbox will recognize and display it as a CD device in the left side pane (F9 toggles this pane’s visibility.) Selecting the CD, there are two ways to start ripping: you can either right-click and select “Extract to library“, or you can click the “Copy tracks to the library” button in the toolbar. Either way, the default behavior is to rip all tracks on the CD and encode them with a moderate, 160kbps bitrate, in the Ogg Vorbis format. While this is perfectly fine for most folks, audiophiles (like me and you) prefer a higher-quality file. Let’s set that bitrate to 320kbps.
Under the hood
Select “Edit > Preferences” from the Rhythmbox menu and go to the “Music” tab. Near the botton of this tab is a dropdown control labeled “Preferred format“, and it should be defaulted to “CD Quality, Lossy (.ogg type).” Click the “Edit” button next to it.
Once you are presented with the “Edit GNOME Audio Profiles” dialog, select “CD Quality, Lossy” profile and click “Edit.” This is where the meat and potatoes of the audio conversion is configured. What we’re interested in here is the “GStreamer pipeline” setting. By default, it should read something like:
audio/x-raw-float,rate=44100,channels=2 ! vorbisenc name=enc quality=.5 ! oggmux
The “quality” setting is what needs to be tweaked. Replace “quality=.5″ with “quality=.9″, so the entire string now reads:
audio/x-raw-float,rate=44100,channels=2 ! vorbisenc name=enc quality=.9 ! oggmux
Now, save your edit and you’re all set. Anytime an application uses this GNOME audio profile for the conversion process, the resulting file will be 320kbps and of type Ogg Vorbis. While this results in a larger file than the default 160kbps setting, disk space is cheap these days. And besides, your ears are worth it.
Why you shouldn’t use MP3
In a few words: because it isn’t open or free. Increasingly, proprietary software companies like Microsoft, Apple, and Adobe are pushing video and audio formats that restrict access, restrict rights, and restrict software developers and development. MP3 is one such format. For information on alternatives, be sure to visit the Free Software Foundation’s PlayOgg! campaign homepage.
Other format options
You probably noticed some other profiles were available while editing the “CD Quality, Lossy” settings. Here’s a quick rundown of those that might be useful to you while converting audio.
- CD Quality, Lossy (Ogg multimedia) – This option is selected by default. Ogg Vorbis, like other lossy audio formats (such as MP3 and AAC) discards some information from the original audio data, and while the resulting audio file is not a perfect replica of the CD audio, the differences are often not distinguishable to most listeners. As a result, .ogg files tend to have very small file sizes. Ogg Vorbis is an open format, developed by the Xiph.Org Foundation, which tends to produce smaller file sizes and higher quality audio than many other lossy formats – most notably, the MP3 format. While it is not as widespread as the older MP3 format, most music software can play Ogg Vorbis files, and many hardware players have incorporated support.
- CD Quality, Lossless (FLAC audio) – The FLAC audio format is a lossless format. No audio data is lost when converting to FLAC, even though it compresses audio files by as much as 70%. FLAC is popular in cases where high fidelity audio is needed, but be warned: collections of these files can get very large.
- CD Quality, AAC (MPEG-4 audio) – The AAC (short for Advanced Audio Coding) audio format is a standardized lossy format. It is a successor to the MP3 format and it achieves better sound quality than the MP3 format. Many software players and hardware players support the AAC format.
I hope this helps. Cheers!
I have a question
using sound juicer or rythmbox when ripping a CD, artist name is always missing as well as track number.
Does it comes from sound juicer or gstream or ?
Thank you
I have one good reason TO rip to mp3. It’s all mp3 player supports, so does my dvd player, every other computer and portable device I use including my phone as well. None of those devices support ogg or aac or flac or blah-blah.
So why not include how to get better quality mp3s on the bottom of this so it was not a complete waste of time.
Great question, ima douche-nozzle marketing campaign slave — err, realist. The short answer to your question is that it’s not included in this post for two reasons:
1.) It’s clearly explained in the previous post linked to at the top of this page. (Don’t skim and flame, sizzle-chest.)
2.) There are roughly 1100 posts (by my search, anyway) that tell you how to do it for MP3, but skip the other formats you dismissed.
There’s a longer answer as well, but I doubt you’d read it because of the sheer number of large words it requires.
A few devices you might want to look into, as you’ve expressed a genuine and clear interest in libre audio formats:
* Any SanDisk Sansa Fuze portable music player — plays OGG, FLAC, has great firmware, killer sound, and is a fraction of the cost of your McPhone or MP3 player (I am all but certain.)
* See above. Do you really still play MP3 files on your DVD player? Do you have a combination microwave-toaster oven that supports MP3 files as well?
* Your computer + the Internet. Point your Information Super Highway reader at http://xiph.org/downloads/. There you can get all you need to listen to music in the correct format.
Careful with that e-peen, Angry Young Consumer. Don’t put your half-blind eye out.
Crackin’ me up!
Heh … so, here we are almost a year later and I must admit that ima realist’s comment is funnier now than it was back then. I missed a few jab opportunities:
* He states he has ONE good reason to use MP3, and then he provides FIVE. I presume the ONE good reason didn’t seem so good after he typed it (that MP3 players play MP3 files much the same way that CD players play CDs.) No shit, Edison.
* It took him longer to write a comment complaining about how I wasted his time than it would have taken him to click the next fecking search result.
* If you have a DVD player that plays MP3 files, what are the chances that it won’t play the CD you’re attempting to rip in the first place?
* I just can’t let go of the vision of this guy jogging around his neighborhood with a portable generator on his back, listening to MP3 files on his DVD player.