Extract (Rip) Audio Files from an Audio CD

Quite often, we end up wanting to copy our favorite songs from a CD to a computer, probably as MP3 files so that we can play them on a computer or an MP3 player. The process is very simple, but we just need some basic knowledge of the audio tracks and MP3 files. For more information on the differences between an Audio CD and Mp3 CD, see this article.

Some people call this process as simply "extracting" the audio files, while others call it "ripping". The same idea is to copy those music tracks from an audio CD to a computer. Most often, the MP3 format becomes the best option for those music files. The instructions below will help you create either MP3 files or WAV files.

The following sample instructions are based on a CD-copy software called Free Easy CD/DVD Burner v1.2. This is a free burning tool with advertising supported, but no spyware or adware. You can download this program from SnapFiles, or v4.2 here

There are many different programs can do audio ripping. Some of them are freeware. You can lookup the internet for different software with the keywords "Audio Ripping". This instruction is only a guideline.

You don't need to have a CD/DVD burner to rip audio files from an Audio CD. A CD-ROM (read-only) will do it.

1. If you have not installed a burning program, download the tool above and install it. Make sure you reboot after the installation.
2. Insert the Audio CD that you wish to rip.
3. If Windows automatically starts a player software and is playing the CD, stop and exit the player.
4. Open the Free Easy CD DVD Burner program.
5. Click on the "Audio CD Grabber" button on the top (1). The available tracks from the CD will show up under Audio Tracks box (2).
   
   
6. By default, all the tracks are selected for ripping. If you wish to rip only some certain tracks from the disc, click to remove the checkbox on the tracks that you want to skip.
   
   
7. Click "Ripper configuration" to determine the destination folder you want to save the files to.
   
   
8. The "Ripper configuration" window displays, the default destination folder is shown under "Output Path". If you wish to change this path, click on the browse button and change it. Once you're done, click "OK" to return.
   
   
9. If you wish to change the MP3 format settings (i.e. Bitrate, channel, etc...), you can click on the link "MP3 format configuration".
   
10. Once you're ready to rip, click "Rip now in MP3" if you want the files created as MP3, or click "Rip now in WAV" if you want the files created as WAV. Make sure you have enough hard drive space with the WAV option since the WAV files are big.
    
    
11. The program starts to rip the tracks one-by-one. When it's done, it will display a complete message.

Create an Audio CD from Mp3 Files

Although the MP3 format becomes more and more popular, there are still some players that only play the old style of music CDs - The Audio CDs. Fortunately, even if we have to stick with Audio CDs, the MP3 technology is still very helpful: We can easily find and download MP3 files from the internet. However, it is a good practice to check the quality of the MP3 file you downloaded before copy it out to a CD. Many of those files are created with a very low quality.

The information below will step you through the process how to create an audio CD from your MP3 files. Sometimes, you find that music files on your computer are not always MP3 files but in different formats such as Windows Media Audio (WMA) or WAVE (WAV). The same process can still be used. If you still question why? In the past, the proper steps to copy MP3 files to an audio disc are first converting the MP3 files to the uncompressed WAVE format, then use the CD-copy software to make an audio CD from these WAVE files. However, most of current the CD-copy software have this conversion capability built-in, and so they can recognize MP3 files and some other audio formats.

The following sample instructions use Free Easy CD/DVD Burner v1.2. This is a free burning tool with advertising supported, but no spyware or adware. You can download this program from Softpedia, or v4.2 here

1. If you have not installed a burning program, download the tool above and install it. Make sure you reboot after the installation.
2. Insert a blank CD.
3. Open the Free Easy CD DVD Burner program.
4. Click on the "Audio CD" button on the top (1).
   - The bottom bar (2) on this window shows the length (in minutes) of the CD. Typical Audio CD can hold up to 74 or 80 Minutes of audio.
   - The Total Duration (3) shows the addup length (in minutes) of all the audio files you have added.
   
   
   
5. Click on the "Add files to project" link.
   
   
   
6. The window "Select your audio files" opens. Browse to the location of your Mp3/WMA/WAV files and select the files you wish to add. You can use the mouse to select multiple files, or if you're not sure how to select multiple file, you can repeat the previous step to add more files. Click "Open".
   
   
   
7. If you wish to add more files, repeat the above steps. You can see the remain space on the disc by looking at the Total Duration or the bottom time bar. Note that, not like data CD, you cannot come back to this CD and add more files in the future. Once you burn the CD, it is final!
   
   
8. Once you're done adding all the files. Click on the link "Burn".
   
   
   
9. The program starts to analyze the audio files one-by-one. Once it's done, click "Burn Now !".
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10. The burning process starts and takes a few minutes depending on the size of files/folders you select and the speed of your burner.