How to rip an Audio CD in Linux (3 ways)
This tutorial will show you step by step how to rip music from an Audio CD to your GNU/Linux computer.
The steps on this page will show you how to copy music from your Audio CD to your computer's hard drive in MP3, WMA, WAV, or FLAC audio format.
The steps on this page work for most Linux distributions, such as Ubuntu, Linux Mint, MX Linux, Manjaro, Debian, Arch Linux, and other Linux distributions.
Methods:
What is ripping a CD?
Ripping a CD is copying audio tracks from an Audio CD to a computer.
CD rippers for Linux
A CD ripper is software that converts audio tracks on an audio CD to standard computer audio files, such as WAV, MP3, or FLAC.
Below are Linux programs for ripping Audio CDs to a computer.
- Asunder
- soundKonverter
- K3b
How to copy (rip) music from a CD to a computer in Linux using Asunder
You can find Asunder in the software center of Ubuntu, Linux Mint, MX Linux, Manjaro, and probably also in the software centers of other Linux distributions.
Note: Many Linux distributions do not include MP3 support out-of-the-box for legal reasons. But you can enable MP3 support by installing the right MP3 encoding libraries or plugins.
If you want to rip music from your CD to MP3 audio format using Asunder, then you need “Lame”, which is an MP3 encoding library. You can find “Lame” in the software center of your Linux distribution.
1. Insert the music CD you want to rip into the CD drive of your computer.
2. Open Asunder.
3. Click on Preferences located in the top menu.
A small “Preferences” window will appear.
4. At Destination folder, you can see and change the location on your computer where Asunder will save the songs.
5. Click on the Encode tab.
6. Now you can select an audio format, like WAV, MP3, OGG Vorbis, FLAC, or another audio format.
Notes:
- If you want the best quality, then you should select the WAV audio format. The file size of the files will be much larger with this audio format.
- If you select MP3, then you should uncheck the Variable bit rate (VBR) option and select a bitrate of 256Kbps or 320Kbps.
7. Click on the OK button at the bottom right of the “Preferences” window.
8. You can uncheck (deselect) the songs you don't want to rip to your computer.
9. When you're ready, you click on the Rip button located in the bottom right corner of Asunder.
Asunder will now rip (copy) music from your audio CD to your computer's hard drive.
How to copy (rip) music from a CD to a computer in Linux using soundKonverter
You can find soundKonverter in the software center of Ubuntu, Linux Mint, MX Linux, Manjaro, and probably also in the software centers of other Linux distributions.
Note: Many Linux distributions do not include MP3 support out-of-the-box for legal reasons. But you can enable MP3 support by installing the right MP3 encoding libraries or plugins.
If you want to rip music from your CD to MP3 audio format using soundKonverter, then you need “Lame”, which is an MP3 encoding library. You can find “Lame” in the software center of your Linux distribution.
1. Insert the music CD you want to rip into the CD drive of your computer.
2. Open soundKonverter.
3. Click on File located in the top left corner of soundKonverter.
4. Click on Add CD tracks.
A “Add CD tracks” window will appear.
Note: If a “Select CDDB Entry” window appears, you select a CDDB entry and then click on the OK button to continue.
5. You can uncheck (deselect) the songs you don't want to rip to your computer.
6. Click on the Proceed button located in the bottom right corner of soundKonverter.
7. Now you can select the desired quality and audio format.
Notes:
- If you want the best quality, then you should select the Lossless quality option. This will give you songs in the WAV audio format. The file size of the files will be much larger with this audio format.
- If you want to rip music from your CD to the MP3 audio format, then you should select the High or Very High quality option, and then select MP3 at Format.
8. At Destination, you can see and change the location on your computer where soundKonverter will save the songs. To change this location, you click on the folder icon at the right.
Note: If you want more advanced settings, then you click on the Detailed tab located next to Simple in the top left corner.
9. Click on the OK button located in the bottom right corner of the window.
10. If you still want to remove songs, then you can do so by right-clicking the song and then click on Remove.
11. When you're ready, you click on the Start button located in the bottom left corner of soundKonverter.
SoundKonverter will now rip (copy) music from your audio CD to your computer's hard drive.
How to copy (rip) music from a CD to a computer in Linux using K3b
You can find K3b in the software center of Ubuntu, Linux Mint, MX Linux, Manjaro, and probably also in the software centers of other Linux distributions.
Note: Many Linux distributions do not include MP3 support out-of-the-box for legal reasons. But you can enable MP3 support by installing the right MP3 encoding libraries or plugins.
If you want to rip music from your CD to MP3 audio format using K3b, then you need MAD MP3 decoding library as well as the K3b MAD MP3 decoder plugin (the plugin may already be installed but not functional due to the missing libmad).
I did the following in Linux Mint to make it work: open Software Manager, enter k3b into the search bar, and install libk3b7-extracodecs.
1. Insert the music CD you want to rip into the CD drive of your computer.
2. Open K3b.
3. In the top left section of K3b, you click on your CD.
Now you will see the songs that are on the CD in the right section of K3b.
4. You can uncheck (deselect) the songs you don't want to rip to your computer.
5. Click on Start Ripping located above the list of songs.
A “CD Ripping” window will appear.
6. At Filetype, you can select an audio format, like Wav, MPEG 1 Layer III (MP3), or Ogg-Vorbis.
Note: If you want the best quality, then you should select Wav. The file size of the files will be much larger with this audio format.
7. If you want to rip music from your CD to the MP3 audio format, then click on the gear button located next to the Filetype selection button.
But if you don't want to rip your CD to MP3, then skip this step till step 13 and continue with step 14.
A “K3b Lame MP3 Encoder” window will appear.
8. Select the Manual settings option.
9. Click on the Change Settings button.
A “(Lame) Manual Quality Settings” window will appear.
10. Make sure that the Constant Bitrate option is selected.
11. Select a bitrate of 256Kbps or 320Kbps.
12. Click on the OK button located in the bottom right corner of the “(Lame) Manual Quality Settings” window to save the settings and close the window.
13. Click on the OK button located in the bottom right corner of the “K3b Lame MP3 Encoder” window to save the settings and close the window.
14. At Target Folder, you can see and change the location on your computer where K3b will save the songs. To change this location, you click on the folder button located next to the location field.
15. When you're ready, you click on the Start Ripping button located in the bottom right corner of the “CD Ripping” window.
K3b will now rip (copy) music from your audio CD to your computer's hard drive.
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