An iPod system for Linux - Part 2 - Using Sound Juicer to squeeze out that music
12 October 2006
In previous posts, we discussed the ipod firmware, and talked in general about how to replicate the functions of iTunes in Linux.
In this post we will setup the Sound Juicer application to extract songs from a CD and save them to MP3 so they can go onto an iPod.
Sound Juicer is the default Gnome CD audio extraction ('ripping') tool. On my machine (a Gentoo AMD64 box), I had Sound Juicer and Lame (mp3 support) already installed. If you do not then you need to get them from your distro's normal package management system.
So I was almost good to go, except that Sound Juicer needs to be told that you want to use MP3s. It is theoretically possible that your distro may have already done this step for you. If it has then please do let me know using the comments.
1 Open 'Sound Juicer'
I had to click 'Applications' then "Sound & Video" then 'Sound Juicer CD Extractor'.
2. Open the Preferences Window.
Then we need to click on 'Edit' then 'Preferences'.
3. Maybe it just works?
At the bottom of the panel, you will see 'Output Format', as in the screenshot above (click on the screenshots to enlarge). For me, MP3 was not an option yet. If it is for you then select it and you are done, skip to step 6. Otherwise, we need to add MP3.
4. Make a new profile.
You need to click on 'Edit Profiles', then click 'New'. Give it a name, I chose "MP3, Lossy, for iPod'.
5. Edit the new profile.
Now select the new profile and click 'Edit'. You will see a window like the following:
The top two fields can be anything. For the next field, enter the following:
- audio/x-raw-int,rate=44100,channels=2 ! lame name=enc*
(Thanks for Jacob Emcken for that tip).
The last field has to be mp3.
Tick the Active box and the press okay. You now have MP3 avaliable as an option:
Close this and go back to the preferences window.
6. Choose the Preferences
Now choose MP3 as the output format. Then choose where you want the extracted music to go ('music folder', then close the Preferences Window.
Now this first part is done. We can now extract songs and they will be saved as mp3s, ready for your iPod.
1 Phill says...
I usually use Grip for Audio CD extraction, although I think it might be a bit more confusing to people who are new to Linux!
Posted at 8:21 a.m. on October 13, 2006
2 _JusSx_ says...
i use cdfs kernel module ( http://trappist.elis.ugent.be/~ronsse/cdfs/) and once media is mounted i run from gnu bash: for i in *.wav; do lame -mj -b 320 $i /tmp/$i.mp3; done That tastes more unix
Posted at 6:52 p.m. on October 13, 2006
3 AJS says...
Usually I rip CDs from the command line using cdparanoia and then convert them to MP3s using lame;
$ cdparanoia -B $ #several mv statements $ for i in *; do lame -h $i && rm $i; done
KDE users can also just type audiocd:/ in Konqueror with a music CD in the drive. This gives several virtual directories, containing the CD tracks in .wav, .ogg and .mp3 formats.
Posted at 3:19 p.m. on November 20, 2006
4 link says...
hi...
Agree...
Posted at 1:43 p.m. on August 2, 2007
5 Richard Lyons says...
Big thanks to AJS. The command line solution he offers works for me perfectly -- though I wish I could see how to automate renaming the files produced from track01.cdda.wav to symph5_cmin_op67_i.allegro-con-brio.wav and so on.
And why did I prefer the cli solution? Apart from its simplicity and unixiness, because none of the gui ways worked. For me, sound juicer produced garbage files, in some cases larger than the original track, and grip produced white noise. As to Konqueror, it just shouted "Protocol not supported - audiocd". So as usual, if the gui gizmos let you down, go back to cli!
Posted at 8:37 a.m. on August 21, 2007