Using the Tools

Let's go through the process of ripping a CD as an example. From a command-line prompt (indicated by '%'), run:

% cd2track

This will access your CD and extract all the audio files on it into the default audio format, resulting in files named 'track01.cdda.wav', 'track02.cdda.wav' and so forth. But if you wanted MP3 files, there's more work to be done.

% track2track -t mp3 *.wav

Will convert those .wav files to MP3 files (indicated by the -t mp3 flag which tells the program what file type we want). Unfortunately, that gives us raw, untagged MP3s without names. That's where the XMCD data comes in. XMCD files, retrieved from FreeDB, contain the information we need.

% cd2xmcd -x album.xmcd
% track2track -x album.xmcd -t mp3 *.wav

Fetches the data to a file called 'album.xmcd' which we then feed to track2track so it knows what to call our new MP3 files. Combining cd2track, cd2xmcd and track2track is a nice way to rip audio in batches. For instance, since ripping and converting happen at different speeds, you could run each process in its own window to keep your computer as busy as possible.

However, there is an easier way. cd2track doesn't have to rip CDs to .wav files; it can go directly to MP3s if you ask it to. It still requires an XMCD file to know what to name those tracks, but our ripping process can be reduced to:

% cd2xmcd -x album.xmcd
% cd2track -x album.xmcd -t mp3

If you don't like the names in album.xmcd, feel free to edit it either with the editxmcd program or a text editor.

Lossless audio is just as easy to work with. Creating FLAC files from a CD is a almost identical:

% cd2xmcd -x album.xmcd
% cd2track -x album.xmcd -t flac

But since FLAC files are pretty big, you might want to convert them for portable use:

% track2track -t mp3 *.flac

Unlike going from .wav to .mp3, these FLAC files are already tagged with information and so an XMCD file isn't required.