Converting CDs to MP3s in Ubuntu

There are a number of ways to convert CDs into MP3s in Ubuntu. For me, the best choice is Sound Juicer because of it’s filename flexibility and ability to deal with compilations. Setting it all up is also very simple.

Only two packages are required from the repository. They can be installed with the following command:

sudo apt-get install sound-juicer gstreamer0.10-lame

The first package will install the ripping software, and the second package allows the music to be converted to MP3s. Next, we want to tell Sound Juicer to convert the files at 320kbps to keep the sound quality as high as possible. To do this, start Sound Juicer, go to Edit -> Preferences and at the bottom of the page, change the Output Format to CD Quality, MP3 (.mp3 type). Next, click Edit Profiles, select CD Quality, MP3, click Edit and change the GStreamer Pipeline setting to audio/x-raw-int,rate=44100,channels=2 ! lame name=enc bitrate=320 mode=0 ! id3v2mux.

Once that’s done, you’re set. Simply insert a CD, wait for the program to fetch the song details and click the Extract button. Voila, MP3s on your computer.

Update: this also works in Debian.

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