My recent attempt to cleanup my iTunes library was a great success. As I began looking through my newly cleaned music library in depth, I noticed that some music I had previously ripped was not in Apple Lossless. As I went to re-rip those CDs I also found over 100 more CDs that I had never ripped! I figured that wasn’t a big deal as my old Mac has two internal CD burners and I have an old high-speed LaCie CD-RW external machine. Surely with three CD mechanisms going, I’d be able to finish ripping my CDs in no-time.
The first thing I did was go to iTunes’ preferences and under “General” I selected “Import CD and Eject” as the option for what to do when inserting a CD. I then made sure that under “Import Settings” button things were set to the Apple Lossless codec.
As I began ripping CDs, I noticed that even though I had 3 CDs in 3 CD drives, iTunes would only rip them one at a time. On the one hand, that was great. I’d stick in a CD and when it was done ripping it would eject it and I could go on to the second one. On the other hand, I had three drives and it would be a lot easier and faster if I could use them all at the same time.
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| Phile Audio will use use multiple CD/DVD drives simultaneously to rip music. |
After doing some research, it appears as though it’s impossible for iTunes to rip multiple CDs concurrently. It also appears that there isn’t a workaround for that. In fact, there aren’t many options at all to help you rip multiple CDs concurrently. The only product that appears to do this is a piece of software called Phile Audio. Download the Phile Audio Software
The software will rip from multiple CD/DVD drives simultaneously and will also rip to multiple file formats simultaneously. It is a stand-alone app and uses the FreeDB online database to lookup songs and albums. It doesn’t use GraceNote, which is what iTunes and TuneUp use. From what I read online, some people’s reviews of FreeDB are great and others’ are mixed.
At $7.99, the app isn’t expensive. But I ultimately didn’t buy it. You might ask why given that I could have been done in 1/3 of the time. The primary reason is that I had already gotten through 2/3 of my ripping at that point and I was multitasking and doing other things while the CDs were ripping. If I had thought of it at the beginning, I certainly would have tried it.
For those who are looking to rip their collection, I wanted to pass along my research. I’d be very curious to hear from anyone who has used Phile Audio about your impressions.
You can contact me at: info@pooraudiophile.com or visit me at:
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