I am converting a ton of old cds to my computer (eventually to land in itunes) and some of them aren't store bought, but burnt compilations. I want to see the bit rates of the tracks as they are on the cds without importing them, as I dont want to encode them as wavs if they are truly low quality mp3s, and dont want to set the bit rates higher than they originally are on the cd for mp3 conversion. Some of this stuff may be such poor quality that I should just throw them out. I cant tell by looking at the cd in itunes or by "exploring" through windows. Any ideas on how I can retreive this info? Is there a way to set itunes or to use any other ripping software to rip the tracks at their actual bitrates instead of designating a bit rate to rip is as? Thanks for any input.
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Re: Software to read bit rates on cds?
Thu, August 30, 2007 - 12:22 PMare these audio cds or data cds?
if it's in audio cd format that can played by any standard cd player, then by default they're all 1411 .wav quality, even if they began life as low quality mp3s they've been upsampled to .wav file size, though obviously it won't sound any better than the original mp3. If you then recode to low quality mp3, that's a double low quality conversion. Sorry, no way around that. -
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Re: Software to read bit rates on cds?
Thu, August 30, 2007 - 12:24 PMjust to clarify, all audio cds are 44.1kHz 16 bit, no matter where they started life. That is why a standard audio cd always holds the same length of music, it's always approximately 10MB per minute, 44.1khz/16 bit is 10MB per minute of stereo audio.
hope that helps. -
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Re: Software to read bit rates on cds?
Thu, August 30, 2007 - 1:04 PMThanks j3j3my. I have both audio and data discs...found that I can see the bit rates on the data discs through Windows Media Player but the audio discs...ya that sucks. Guess Ill have to just decipher those by ear and see if they sound good.
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Re: Software to read bit rates on cds?
Fri, December 14, 2007 - 2:50 PMNot true j3r3my..... There's 8, 16, 24, and 32 bit rates. Yes, all commercial CDs are 16 bit.....using a higher bit rate isn't cost effective. Honestly, I can't tell the difference between 16 and a higher bit rate........fucking microsoft programmers all have their egos, no???
Anyway most .wav to MP3 converters will let you choose what size MP3 file you would like the wav converted to. My sound forge 8 has tons of options when it comes to bit rates....I believe the highest is a 64 bit (IEEE float)
As far as the record vs. CD quality thing........I record many records into digital format. People who spin vinyl always have the argument that vinyl sounds better than digital. Only if the vinyl is brand new. Every time you play a record, the sound quality gets worse. Digital tracks never change. I have to do so much restoration with many of my older GEMS cause they all have lost that killer sound.
All I can say is THANK GOD FOR DIGITAL!!!!! -
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Re: Software to read bit rates on cds?
Fri, December 14, 2007 - 3:14 PMnot sure exactly what I said that wasn't true... but, anything other than a 16 bit wave file won't do you much good when burning to a CD, it'll have to be dithered to 16 before burning. As far as the differences between 16 and 24, etc doesn't have much to do with the original question, suffice to say that when recording tracks most people prefer 24 or 32 bit for mixes, it gives you basically 144bd of headroom and avoids a lot of that nasty digital clipping which used to plague digital recorders in the 90s... check this for a fairly simplistic (but good) explanation www.tweakheadz.com/16_vs_24...audio.htm
I don't think there's any reason to go above 16bit for end product recordings (i.e. songs in iTunes), besides the fact that most applications won't playback a 24 bit file anyway.
mp3 compression is a different story and the original point was that if a 128kbps mp3 was upsampled to a wave file, it now has the resolution of a wave file (with all the nasty artifacts built in). You can't really apply an 8, 16, 24, 32, 64 bit argument to mp3s, its a kbps issue and I think there is an argument for using 256 over 128 for instance.
That said, with harddrive space getting so cheap and iPods getting so large I am moving away from ripping my CDs to mp3s and going straight for the uncompressed wave format. Like you said Darkstar, they don't degrade in quality and no one will really hear much outside the 16 bit 44.1kHz range anyway... ;) -
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Re: Software to read bit rates on cds?
Fri, December 14, 2007 - 10:39 PMRight on....I don't believe I said you were wrong, nor was arguing with you....I was only trying to get across just how many bit rates there are and the record vs. CD thing.. Sorry if I sounded as though I was picking a fight....not at all over here brother. I never tried to burn a set using a bit rate higher than 16.....nice to know that.....thanks. Native Instruments has some incredible plug ins for Sound Forge. The many compressor/gate plug ins and the multi / ultra maximizers are so simple to use, you can make an 196kbps MP3 sound like the original wav file. Also, its so easy to get rid of the hollowed out sound related to MP3's by using the multimaximizer. This plug in is a maximizer wit a built in linEQ broadband equalizer. I cant bump the new Native plug ins enough. They have come so far and we can only expect products that will blow every thing else, same products, different makers, out of the H2O.
By the way.......what was the original question anyways????
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What do you believe?? A wav has 1,411 kbps stored on a music CD...the best MP3 quality sound has 320 kbps stored. This is a dramatic difference and it makes sense that wav CDs would sound much better than MP3's. However, most people, people who are not DJs or producers, cannot tell what is what, after listening t the 2.
Some good reads about "bit rates" & variations of "kbps" (128, 320,96 160, 256, 192 )..................
www.slate.com/id/2163508
www.crutchfieldadvisor.com/ISEO....html
blogs.pcworld.com/staffblog...03993.html
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Re: Software to read bit rates on cds?
Mon, December 17, 2007 - 11:12 AM"A wav has 1,411 kbps stored on a music CD...the best MP3 quality sound has 320 kbps stored. This is a dramatic difference and it makes sense that wav CDs would sound much better than MP3's. However, most people, people who are not DJs or producers, cannot tell what is what, after listening t the 2. "
Agreed. I am a total gearslut and audiophile when it comes to recording my music, but I listen to mp3s on a crappy stereo in my own time, which even I find very idiosyncratic... I am perfectly happy to listen to mp3s, my girlfriend on the other hand knows nothing about recording and can't stand listening to mp3s. go figure.
The only thing that bugs me about mp3s, is that I totally think I hear my cellphone ringing in the background while listening to mp3s, I don't get that from CDs, vinyl, DVDs etc. Very strange. (there is a psychological term now for a form of anxiety correlated with hearing your cellphone ring when it isn't, so maybe I'm just plain nuts...) ;) -
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Re: Software to read bit rates on cds?
Mon, December 17, 2007 - 5:41 PMI don't know if it is just because I have Sound Forge on my PC but anytime I run my cursor over an audio file folder anywhere on my hard drive, I will get a little block of information that tells me the type of file (wav, aiff, mp3), the size, and the bitrate....it's kind of nifty but Sound Forge is not cheap and I don't know if the LE version would do the same thing. -
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Re: Software to read bit rates on cds?
Tue, December 18, 2007 - 8:38 AMI believe Windows actually does that too, as I don't have Sound Forge and mine does the same thing... nice feature, i use it a lot.
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