Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: MP3 Static when Ripping

This is topic MP3 Static when Ripping in forum Film-Yak at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Barry Floyd (Member # 385) on 08-31-2011, 11:00 AM:

Here's the deal. Earlier this summer, we replaced our CD players in the booth with rack mounted dual CD/MP3 media players. Basically I can either play a regular CD or load a USB thumb drive with 2+ hours of MP3's stick it in the front panel of the player and walk off. Everything has worked fine up until
about 3 weeks ago. For some reason, now when I go to "rip" music from a CD and convert it to MP3 format it starts to produce a lot of "static". I mean so much static that you can't even hear the music. Some of the MP3's are clear as a bell where others are so "static-y" that you can't make anything out.

What would be the culprit? I'm using my Toshiba laptop, running the latest edition of "REAL player" for the ripping. The only thing I can think of that's changed in the last couple of weeks on my laptop is I upgraded to a newer version of Internet Explorer.

I had the company who supplies our pre-show music (non-sync as you indoor guys call it) try to send me discs already converted to MP3 format, but it didn't seem to work, in fact the static issue were worse with the new discs.

It's worked flawlessly all summer long up until now.

Clueless here....

Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 08-31-2011, 11:24 AM:

Do you hear the static only when you play the mp3 on the booth player? What about when you play it on a different player? What about when you play it on the computer you're using to do the rip?

Do you hear the static if you play a different mp3 file, or a mp3 file that you ripped "back-when" when it was still working?

Posted by Barry Floyd (Member # 385) on 08-31-2011, 11:55 AM:

Yes, I get the static when I play it on the computer it was ripped on, and on both of our new media players in the booths. MP3's that I ripped earlier in the summer seem to be crystal clear. This has all just started to happen within the last month. Can't figure out what when haywire.

If I play the CD's that the "rips" are made from, they are crystal clear as well, both in the computer CD player and the media players CD drawer.

Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 08-31-2011, 12:12 PM:

Apparently your problem is on the ripping end, not the playback.

Perhaps a different CD ripping program would be worth looking at?

I suspect (with no actual knowledge) that timing is an important factor when ripping a CD so if your CPU is overloaded you may not get good results when ripping a CD.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 08-31-2011, 01:18 PM:

I've always used either Windows Media Player or Asunder to rip CDs, and have had perfectly OK results with both. My only complaint is that neither will rip CD-Text data into the audio file's metadata (even WMP with the CD-Text plugin), though if you're ripping a commercially published CD for which WMP has the album and track data in its online database, it will take the metadata from there. However, I have a lot of CDs with CD-Text I've created myself from LPs, 78s and radio broadcasts for which this isn't the case, obviously, and there it's a bit of a pain.

The only static-issue I've ever had is in the case of a couple of CDs with scratches on them that have resulted in normal playback issues as well; but even then, only very rarely. My gut feeling is that this is a ripping software issue, especially if the files are playing back with audible artefacts in more than one player.

Posted by Damien Taylor (Member # 4255) on 08-31-2011, 01:49 PM:

I didn't come in here to purposely start anything, but please know that RealPlayer was without a doubt the worst piece of software ever written. I assume the newer versions continue the trend of installing heaps of useless crap and generally just doing whatever the hell it wants. Please uninstall it immediately and replace with something else, like Windows Media Player, which isn't full of ad/spyware and shipped with your computer.

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 08-31-2011, 01:58 PM:

...agree about Real Player ...I haven't use Real in quite a few years from now due to the massive adware and spyware attached to this program.

goto this site for an excellent Mp3 player..

Windows Media player is very good for ripping, but always have your settings to "normalize" when ripping - that is like an auto level control for the ripping process.

-Monte

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 08-31-2011, 09:43 PM:

Use LAME to rip your MP3s. Use ONLY alt-preset-insane