Using Icedax and LAME to Rip Music CD

This short guide will help you rip a CD with a few command-line tools. Download the following files and put them in a folder, such as C:\WINDOWS.

• cygwin1.dll
  
• icedax.exe
  
• lame.exe
  

Insert your music CD into the CD-ROM drive and open a command prompt (cmd.exe). First, run the following command to find your CD-ROM drive.

icedax -scanbus

The following command will display the contents of your CD:

icedax dev='D:' cddb=1 -J

The following command will save the second track as track2.wav:

icedax dev='D:' cddb=1 track=2 track2.wav

The following command will save each track as track##.wav:

for %i in (1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10) do icedax dev='D:' cddb=1 track=%i track%i.wav

For brief help on icedax command, type:

icedax -h

Using LAME to encode MP3 from .WAV files

LAME is a free MP3 encoder. I've written how to compile LAME in a previous post. The numerous options of LAME can be confusing to new users. After reading the output of lame --help, lame --preset help and lame --longhelp, I decided to go with one of the following presets and the -h option:

• fm/radio/tape => 112kbps
  
• hifi => 160kbps
  
• cd => 192kbps
  
• studio => 256kbps
  

The following is options related to ID3 tagging:

  ID3 tag options:
    --tt <title>    audio/song title (max 30 chars for version 1 tag)
    --ta <artist>   audio/song artist (max 30 chars for version 1 tag)
    --tl <album>    audio/song album (max 30 chars for version 1 tag)
    --ty <year>     audio/song year of issue (1 to 9999)
    --tc <comment>  user-defined text (max 30 chars for v1 tag, 28 for v1.1)
    --tn <track[/total]>   audio/song track number and (optionally) the total
                           number of tracks on the original recording. (track
                           and total each 1 to 255. just the track number
                           creates v1.1 tag, providing a total forces v2.0).
    --tg <genre>    audio/song genre (name or number in list)

Here's an example LAME command using my favorite preset hifi:

LAME --preset hifi -h --tt "House Party Remix" track3.wav PartyRemix.mp3

This converts track3.wav to PartyRemix.mp3 using ABR 160kbps hifi encoding.