Strange thing on the new laptop, ripping with CDex has slowed down a lot.  At first I assumed it was just a nasty cheap laptop DVD drive – except the old machine was a nasty laptop too.  Then I suspected some speed limiter thing – maybe the new drive dated back to when the music biz thought mp3s were evil and were pressuring manufacturers to fiddle their drives so they didn’t rip fast.  Then I realised CDex is only slow if its error-checking while it rips.  The problem is a setting in CDex which, strangely, was never a problem on the older, slower, computer, but is on the new one’s drive.  So its just poor design, presumably, nothing more sinister.  The drive in question is a TSST TS-L632H.  A bit flimsy, apparently with firmware that used to cause iTunes burning errors until the manufacturer stopped ostriching and fixed it, but no worse than any other laptop drive.

The CDex setting is Enable Jitter Correction on the CD Drive tab of the Options screen.  Turning this off speeds up ripping a lot, but the software’s author suggest this is a very bad idea unless you have a top-quality drive.  Its a lot slower – maybe 30-35 minutes a CD rather than 7-10, but you really don’t want to be re-ripping everything because weeks later you notice a problem.  I just rip steadily, a few discs at a time, while I’m away from the computer doing something else (so the waiting doesn’t aggravate me).

If you haven’t met CDex, its an open source CD ripper (and other things like line-in recording, should you want it).  Available here.  There’s a terrifying number of settings to fiddle with, most fairly well documented.  Just for reference, I’ve never managed to find a copy of the winaspi.dll file (Nero seem to have pulled it from their website), so I just don’t bother, just use the native NT one, and it doesn’t seem to make much of a difference.  The main reason to use CDex is it faster and has better error recovery than most other rippers, including the iTunes and WMP ones.  I’d give a link for that statement, but I read it somewhere on the web way back when I first started using CDex and can’t find it now, so I’ll just have to call it my opinion.

There are some useful non-default settings for CDex 1.50 on XP (tweaked over the years and based on comments in various blogs and sites, most of which – with apologies to the original authors – I’ve since lost track of).  These are just what works for me, but have a try and see what you think yourself (these are all in the options screen’s tabs):

Generic Tab: Change ID3 Tag version to ID3-V2 (which stores more info) and Track number format to 0N (leading zero – 0TN does track x of y format).

Filename Tab: as you prefer for locations and so forth.  This is the other reason to prefer CDex to iTunes.  I buy a lot of junk in sales which I want to listen to before formally and permanently adding it to my library.  Its easier to keep a separate file of ripped CDs which may or may not soon be deleted.

CD Drive Tab: I tend to set ripping method to Paranoia, Full (more info here, but it runs faster than the standard algorithm and sidesteps the need for the slower Jitter Correction option).  I also tick Eject CD (to save looking at the computer all the time – the screen saver goes on but there’s an audible click when the CD ejects).  With the TS-L632H, using the Auto-Detect algorithm seemed to improve the speed somewhat.  Basically, let it run and pick a line that says Passed.  I have absolutely no idea what the different numbers mean, and arbitrarily chose the top line.  If you have a winaspi.dll file, untick the Use Native NT SCSI library box.

Encoder Tab: I tend to use LAME, rip at 256 kbps (space is cheap but quality is a diminishing return thing against size).  I use VBR-default (which may mean the bitrate settings are irrelevant, but I’m not sure so I leave both on).  I also turn J-stereo on because someone, somewhere on the web said it improved quality.

In the CDDB settings tabs, put your real email address in the box on the Remote CDDB Tab.  The freedb people don’t spam, and if you ever submit track names they may need to contact you if there’s a problem.  Tick autoconnect to remote CDDB to save clicking the button each time.

That’s all about CDex.

Finally, remember the ‘Songs for Tibet’ album I mentioned the other day.  Well it turns out the Chinese have decided to block iTunes because it carries the album.  All of iTunes, the entire store.  Presumably just to show Apple what for.  Isn’t spite cute in a major government?

WHAT I’M LISTENING TO: Andrea Hamilton’s new album on Amie Street (acoustic rock sung by a woman with an extraordinary, powerful voice), Hraun (Icelandic folk, some in English, some in what I assume is Icelandic, with big amped-up guitar solos), and Nikki Williams (rock with a lot of punk and a hint of blues, and at the moment, still free).