[Resolved] Looking for recommendations -- CD Ripper


Hey hey, I have been using Sound Juicer on my Ubuntu 24 / KDE 5 PC and it works, but it doesn't handle the tags for my MP3 files very nicely. I've also used abcde, at the terminal, and that can be better but it takes a lot finessing at the CLI to get the result I want.

Is there a better CD ripper application that will run on Ubuntu and can make setting the MP3 tags dead simple?

Thanks for any ideas!

Edit: Fixed a typo

ETA: Asunder looks good, does what I need and works well on my PC. Thanks for everyone's ideas and help!

This entry was edited (1 day ago)
in reply to perishthethought

I use whipper. It's a command-line application but it's easy to use and works great every single time.
At first you should let it analyze your drive which is the only step more involved. Here's a mini tutorial for that I wrote for myself but you can also read it on the project page where it's probably more up to date:

  1. Analyze the drive's caching behavior: $ sudo whipper drive analyze
  2. Find the drive's offset. Consult the [[AccurateRip's CD Drive Offset database|http://www.accuraterip.com/driveoffsets.htm]] for your drive.
    Drive information can be retrieved with $ whipper drive list.
    $ sudo whipper offset find -o insert-numeric-value-here. If you omit the -o argument, whipper will try a long, popularity-sorted list of drive offsets.
    If you can't confirm your drive offset value but wish to set a default regardless, set read_offset = insert-numeric-value-here in whipper.conf.
    Offsets confirmed with $ whipper offset find are automatically written to the configuration file. If specifying the offset manually, please note that:
    if positive it must be written as a number without sign (ex: +102 -> 102), if negative it must include the sign.
  3. After that you just rip any disc by running: $ whipper cd rip


And just as an example, here's my ~/.config/whipper/whipper.conf:

[main]
path_filter_fat = True
path_filter_special = False

[drive:<drive ID>]
vendor = <vendor>
model = <model>
release = <release>
read_offset = <my offset>

[whipper.cd.rip]
unknown = True
output_directory = ~/music/_ripped
track_template = new/%%A/%%y - %%d/%%t - %%n
disc_template = new/%%A/%%y - %%d/%%A - %%d
This entry was edited (1 day ago)
in reply to perishthethought

Looking up Picard's instructions... They recommend whipper, as others have done in the thread.

It can do the tagging for you, but it's important to note that music CDs do not contain metadata.

All the rippers that exist, look up what the CD is online, based on stuff like number of tracks, their lengths, and order. iTunes was the ripping software everyone used back in the day, because Apple made and maintained the first extensive database that could be used to automatically tag ripped music.

Modern rippers typically rely on MusicBrainz (like Picard).

As such there is no 100% reliable auto-tagging ripper, because a disc might match more than one album, or not be in the database. Such cases will always require manual intervention.

This entry was edited (2 days ago)