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What causes skips in the conversion from CD to digital?

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January 07, 2019, 05:53 PM
ffips
What causes skips in the conversion from CD to digital?
On a laptop, a CD will play music with no skips.

Same laptop and CD "ripping to library" through Windows Media Player. The newly created digital file has skips in it.

CD is purchased from store and as I understand, what Inam doing is legal since it is for my personal use and not ahared or sold.

What is the cause and what is the remedy?

Thanks in advance.
January 07, 2019, 06:19 PM
jhe888
Errors in the ripping software. Some software offers the chance to compare the rip to the original.

I use Exact Audio Copy, which makes good, accurate digital files. It compares the two files. It also lets you rip to lossless files. They are much bigger, but sound much better.




The fish is mute, expressionless. The fish doesn't think because the fish knows everything.
January 07, 2019, 06:39 PM
craigcpa
Is your computer screen switching to screensaver?


==========================================
Just my 2¢
____________________________

Clowns to the left of me, Jokers to the right ♫♫♫
January 07, 2019, 06:44 PM
ffips
quote:
Originally posted by jhe888:
Errors in the ripping software. Some software offers the chance to compare the rip to the original.

I use Exact Audio Copy, which makes good, accurate digital files. It compares the two files. It also lets you rip to lossless files. They are much bigger, but sound much better.


I will check into some other software, thank you.

quote:
Originally posted by craigcpa:
Is your computer screen switching to screensaver?


No sir.
January 07, 2019, 06:52 PM
Gibb
How old is the CD? Some Sony CDs had anti-copy 'protections' that they had to settle a lawsuit over. This was early 2000's though.




I shall respect you until you open your mouth, from that point on, you must earn it yourself.
January 07, 2019, 07:10 PM
ffips
quote:
Originally posted by Gibb:
How old is the CD? Some Sony CDs had anti-copy 'protections' that they had to settle a lawsuit over. This was early 2000's though.


Will check, but most are mid 90s early 2000s. This one was a Warner label.

I haven't specifically attempted to time the skips tondetermine if it is some other process.

Seems like a buffer under run to me.
January 07, 2019, 07:27 PM
cruiser68
Another vote for EAC (Exact Audio Copy). Used it to rip my entire CD collection many years ago. I ripped everything lossless and resized for portable music players.
January 07, 2019, 07:37 PM
686Owner
Well my experience is from years ago, but Possibly it plays at 1x, but tries to rip it at 16x or above and it isn't being read correctly (wobble) or the processor can't keep up. Try ripping at a lower speed?
January 07, 2019, 08:09 PM
0-0
As a rule, I always burn disks no faster than x8 if I want to end up with a disc i can trust.

0-0


"OP is a troll" - Flashlightboy, 12/18/20
January 07, 2019, 08:13 PM
smschulz
I rip all my CD's to FLAC with dbPoweramp CD Ripper.
Sometimes I get read errors and use a different CD unit (USB) and it reads fine.
Also sometimes the USB unit has problems and I revert to the internal SATA unit.
No reason over one or the other. Confused
So the moral of the story is to try a different CD unit if you can.
January 07, 2019, 09:09 PM
zoom6zoom
i use EAC also. It's possible you are running into buffer issues with the Windows Media app.




I have my own style of humor. I call it Snarkasm.
January 08, 2019, 08:55 AM
Leemur
quote:
Originally posted by cruiser68:
Another vote for EAC (Exact Audio Copy). Used it to rip my entire CD collection many years ago. I ripped everything lossless and resized for portable music players.


Another fan of EAC here. Can’t recall ever having issues using it to rip CDs.
January 08, 2019, 09:01 AM
btanchors
A related question. If I want to rip my entire CD library and store it, what is the best format to rip the files to? I want maximum fidelity/sound, and do not care much about how much storage it uses.

I assume lossless is the right answer, but what formats are lossless? There are so many different formats I am confused.

I eventually want to use one of those network streamers to be able to stream the music within my house.
January 08, 2019, 10:00 AM
zoom6zoom
FLAC is the lossless format I use. It seems to be the most prevalent. Disk storage is stupid cheap these days, but I don't find the files to be all that big, either.
It's easy to convert FLAC to other formats if needed. I just run the VLC app on my phone rather than converting.




I have my own style of humor. I call it Snarkasm.
January 08, 2019, 10:14 AM
oddball
I also use Exact Audio Copy to rip CDs into FLAC files. Also use Foobar 2000 for ripping CDs into disc images and wav files.

quote:
Originally posted by btanchors:
A related question. If I want to rip my entire CD library and store it, what is the best format to rip the files to? I want maximum fidelity/sound, and do not care much about how much storage it uses.


If you're starting out without anything ripped already, I would rip wav files if you had at least 500 GB to 1 TB in storage, depending how many albums you plan to convert. If storage is a slight concern, I would use the FLAC format.



"I’m not going to read Time Magazine, I’m not going to read Newsweek, I’m not going to read any of these magazines; I mean, because they have too much to lose by printing the truth"- Bob Dylan, 1965
January 08, 2019, 11:17 AM
snidera
quote:
Originally posted by oddball:
I also use Exact Audio Copy to rip CDs into FLAC files. Also use Foobar 2000 for ripping CDs into disc images and wav files.

quote:
Originally posted by btanchors:
A related question. If I want to rip my entire CD library and store it, what is the best format to rip the files to? I want maximum fidelity/sound, and do not care much about how much storage it uses.


If you're starting out without anything ripped already, I would rip wav files if you had at least 500 GB to 1 TB in storage, depending how many albums you plan to convert. If storage is a slight concern, I would use the FLAC format.


Been a long time since I've used a .wav file, does it have any ID tagging? If not - HELL NO. too hard to manage large libraries w/o tagging.

FLAC is lossless - as in you lose no quality.
For mp3, 192kbps is where I find I can't tell the difference on a 'good' system (bose in truck, shure headphones, decent home system). I rip to 320kbps just to be sure, but if I *cough* acquire music, as long as it's >192kbps, I'm fine with it.

I've used EAC in the distant past & it did fine. Don't know if it has auto-tagging, but that's a feature I must have. I have 15k+ songs. mp3s are taking up ~125GB.
I use mediamokey to rip to mp3 - auto tags, embeds album art & puts it nicely in a library for me. Makes it really easy to add to autoplaylist &/or send to my phone or truck SD card.
mp3tag to edit tags if the auto-tagging isn't quite right (I get rid of sub-genres - 'metal' or 'rock' instead of 'hair metal' or 'classic rock').
January 08, 2019, 02:55 PM
BurtonRW
Nobody has brought it up yet, but your firewall (and even AV, although less likely) can cause the kind of glitch you describe when transferring or writing audio data files.

Isolate from the interwebz, turn it off, and try again. Bet you get a clean copy.

-Rob




I predict that there will be many suggestions and statements about the law made here, and some of them will be spectacularly wrong. - jhe888

A=A
January 08, 2019, 03:17 PM
smschulz
quote:
Originally posted by BurtonRW:
Nobody has brought it up yet, but your firewall (and even AV, although less likely) can cause the kind of glitch you describe when transferring or writing audio data files.

Isolate from the interwebz, turn it off, and try again. Bet you get a clean copy.

-Rob


Just curious . how would a local RIP from a device (CD) to an internal software program be affected by a firewall??? Confused
January 23, 2019, 05:07 PM
ffips
EAC for the win. A previously ripped CD with skips now has no skips.

I did hit a CD today with a runtime error. Acted like the needle hit the center sticker on the record and locked up EAC (yes, I used record even though I was ripping a CD Wink ). It is as if the lens of the reader can't come in far enough for the track.
January 23, 2019, 05:53 PM
cyanide357
The skips are most likely due to a copy protection built into the disk that manifests when you RIP it. Most likely the mechanism of intentionally adding data flaws in the physical pressing of the cd.

The software you used to convert it to mp3 detects the flaw in the data (issues with the checksums - since cd audio is digital anyway) and tries to correct it and this inserts the skip / no audio when you listen to it. Sometimes it inserts an audible beep instead of silence.

You'll need to find a program that is smart enough to ignore this and give you clean audio. The software recommended already may do this.

The various copy protection schemes over the years have ranged from this kind of trick through to other more nefarious methods such as installing malicious software on your pc (a rootkit) that phones home.