CD ripper

A CD ripper, CD grabber or CD extractor is a piece of software which is tailored to extract raw digital audio from compact discs (in format commonly called CDDA with extension .cda) to computer hard disk as a Wave file, often as a step toward converting it to an MP3-encoded file. To rip is to convert to Wave file.

A modern CD ripper will not only extract the CDDA audio portion of a CD, but also encode it (functions like encoder) on the fly into an audio compressed file format such as MP3, Vorbis or FLAC. An MP3 encoder compresses the WAV file so that it is about one-twelfth the size of the original digital sound file. It will often also aid in naming the files according to the title, artist and song numbering information from audio CD databases like CDDB or MusicBrainz.

The media files produced by a CD ripper are typically played back using media player software, although there are also portable MP3 players like Apple Computer's iPod that can play audio files.

Some audio products provide all three programs together as a package.

The first CD ripper was CDDA2WAV from Xing. Nowadays there are many rippers; two of the more popular ones are CDex for Microsoft Windows and GRIP for Linux, both of which produce both MP3, FLAC and Vorbis files as well as automating CDDB lookups.

Some CD rippers include:

• CDDA2WAV from Xing
• CDex for Microsoft Windows
• GRIP for Linux
• iTunes for Mac OS
• MusicMatch Jukebox

Many of these programs combine the functionality of ripping, encoding, and "burning" (writing to a CD). You can create CDs from audio files using

See also: DVD ripper, Hard disk recorder

External links

• CDex
• GRIP
• The Lycos MP3 Beginners' Guide