Chapter 13. Sound in Linux / 13.3. CDs: Playback and Ripping
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13.3. CDs: Playback and Ripping

There are many ways to listen to your favorite music tracks. Either play a CD or play digitalized versions of them. The following section features some CD player applications as well as some applications that can be used for the ripping and encoding of audio CDs.

[Important]CDDA and Analog CD Playback

There are two different ways of playing back audio CDs. CD and DVD drives capable of analog CD playback read out the audio data and send it to the sound output device. Some external drives connected via PCMCIA, FireWire, or USB need to use CDDA (Compact Disk Digital Audio) to extract the audio data first then play it as digital PCM. The players featured in the following sections do not support CDDA. Use XMMS if you need CDDA support.

13.3.1. KsCD—Audio CD Player

KsCD is an easy-to-use audio CD player. It integrates into the KDE taskbar and can be configured to start playing automatically after a CD has been inserted. To access the configuration menu, select ‘Extras’+‘Configure KsCD’. Fetch album and track information from a CDDB server on the Internet if KsCD is configured accordingly. You can also upload CDDB information to share it with others. Use the ‘CDDB’ dialog for information retrieval and upload.

Figure 13.6. The KsCD User Interface

The KsCD User Interface

13.3.2. GNOME CD Player Applet

This is a simple applet that integrates into a GNOME panel. Using the tools icon, configure its behavior and select a theme. Control the playback with the buttons at the bottom of the player window or using the context menu opened by right-clicking the panel icon or player window.

13.3.3. Compressing Audio Data

Audio compression can be handled by various tools. The following sections feature a command-line approach to encoding and playing audio data as well as some graphical applications capable of audio compression.

13.3.3.1. Command Line Tools for Encoding and Playback of Audio Data

Ogg Vorbis (package vorbis-tools) is a free audio compression format that is now supported by the majority of audio players. The Web page of the project is http://www.xiph.org/ogg/vorbis.

SUSE LINUX comes with several tools supporting Ogg Vorbis. oggenc is a command line tool used for encoding WAV files to Ogg. Just run oggenc myfile.wav to transform a given .wav file into Ogg Vorbis. The option -h displays an overview of the other parameters. Oggenc supports encoding with a variable bit rate. In this way, an even higher degree of compression can be achieved. Instead of the bit rate, specify the desired quality with the parameter -q. -b determines the average bit rate. -m and -M specify the minimum and maximum bit rate.

ogg123 is a command-line Ogg player. Start it with a command like ogg123 mysong.ogg.

13.3.3.2. Compressing Audio Data Using Grip

Grip is a GNOME CD player and ripper (see Figure 13.7, “Ripping Audio CDs with Grip”). The CD player functionality is entirely controlled by the buttons in the bottom part of the window. Control the ripping and encoding functionality using the tabs at the top of the window. To view and edit the track and album information or to select the tracks to rip, open the ‘Tracks’ tab. Select a track by clicking the check box next to the track title. To edit the track information, click ‘Toggle disc editor’ and submit your modifications. The ‘Rip’ tab selects the preferred rip mode and controls the ripping process. Access the entire Grip configuration under the ‘Config’ tab. Use ‘Status’ to check the status of the application.

Figure 13.7. Ripping Audio CDs with Grip

Ripping Audio CDs with Grip

13.3.3.3. Compressing Audio Data Using KAudioCreator

KAudioCreator is a lean CD ripper application (see Figure 13.8, “Ripping Audio CDs with KAudioCreator”). Once started, it lists all the tracks of your CD in the ‘CD Tracks’ tab. Select the tracks to rip and encode. To edit the track information, use the ‘Album Editor’ under ‘File’+‘Edit Album’. Otherwise just start the ripping and encoding with ‘File’+‘Rip Selection’. Watch the progress of these jobs using the ‘Jobs’ tab. If configured accordingly, KAudioCreator also generates playlist files for your selection that can be used by players, like amaroK or XMMS.

Figure 13.8. Ripping Audio CDs with KAudioCreator

Ripping Audio CDs with KAudioCreator

13.3.3.4. Compressing Audio CDs Using Konqueror

Before you start the actual ripping process with Konqueror, configure the handling of audio CDs and the Ogg Vorbis encoder in the KDE Control Center. Select ‘Sound & Multimedia’+‘Audio CDs’. The configuration module is divided into three tabs: ‘General’, ‘Names’, and ‘Ogg Vorbis Encoder’. Normally, a suitable CD device is detected automatically. Do not change this default setting unless the autodetection failed and you need to set the CD device manually. Error correction and encoder priority can also be set here. The tab ‘Ogg Vorbis Encoder’ determines the quality of the encoding. To configure online lookup of album, track, and artist information for your ripped audio data, select ‘Add Track Information’.

Start the ripping process by inserting the CD into the CD-ROM drive and enter audiocd:/ at the ‘Location’ bar. Konqueror then lists the tracks of the CD and some folders (see Figure 13.9, “Ripping Audio Data with Konqueror”).

Figure 13.9. Ripping Audio Data with Konqueror

Ripping Audio Data with Konqueror

To keep uncompressed audio data on your disk, just select the .wav files and drag them into another Konqueror window to copy them over to their final destination. To start the Ogg Vorbis encoding, drag the Ogg Vorbis folder to another Konqueror window. The encoding starts as soon as you drop the Ogg Vorbis folder to its destination.

SUSE LINUX User Guide 9.3
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