Ripping CD's

Does anyone, first of all, rip CD's from the library of audiobooks that are broken down into those 3 minute segments for their Ipod? And secondly, does it become a big jumbled mess? I've been hesitant to try it because it just seemed like it would become unwieldy and I would be more frustrated anything, so I just leave the library audios in my car, unlike others on my Ipod that I listen to when cleaning house, filing for work or whatever.

I haven't ever had a problem with them becoming a mess. When I rip them in order, they tend to stay in order. Some audiobooks even have track names that ensure they stay correct like 8a, 8b, 8c...9a, 9b, 9c. Because I want to be able to take my audiobook in the car, in to work, in the house to clean, I basically ALWAYS put them on my Ipod.

I'm with DoB - I've never had it be a problem. I don't know what software you use, but iTunes automatically checks an online database for track names, and almost all audiobooks in the database have track names that keep the files in order. Alternatively, iTunes also lets you join tracks from a CD into one big MP3 when you import, so you'd have an entire CD in one file, and they can't get out of order. (It's under Advanced > Join CD Tracks).

Great information, thank you. I do use Itunes. I'll have to check for that advanced joining option (see it!). I've got an audio waiting for me to pick up at the library, and hopefully I'll get over there today and can give it a try. Thanks for your quick response and help.

The one caution I have for using this method is that because of the way iPods store files, listening to large (>10 SpongeBobFishpants: min.) files can wear out the hard drive motor more quickly, leading to iPod death. (I've had this happen to an iPod in the past, so I'm overly sensitive about it, although more recent models may have improved on this. Also, this doesn't apply to anything with a solid-state hard drive, like the Shuffle.)

In any case, be sure that the "remember playback position" option is checked for the joined files, so you can leave off in the middle of a track.

Itunes makes it easy. I have well on my way to 100's of audiobooks I've ripped from CD's. The easiest way to do it from iTunes is to just pop in the CD. The window will automatically ask you if you wan to burn it. SAY NO. Some audiobooks have up to 99 tracks per disc. That gets to be cumbersome if you have multiple audiobooks on your iPod. Before you burn it highlight all the tracks. Then go to the advanced tab and choose join CD tracks. This makes each CD a single track (don't worry, you can still make it book-markable). When you combine tracks you never have more tracks than you have CD's for that book and it makes organizing them and menu scrolling on the iPod MUCH easier.This is also the best time to do major editing of the track if you don't like how the tracks have already been entered into gracenote. Simply hit option and left click while the tracks are highlighted and then choose "get info" on the pop up window and it will allow you to edit multiple tracks at one time. (Play with it, you'll learn). Now you can hit the button at the bottom of the screen to burn the CD. Once it is completed left click on the track for the info. This is where you can fine tune and tweak. From options choose the media kind "audiobook" (this will load it into the audiobook menu on your iPod. If you dont do this it will stay in the music only menu) also click on "remember playback position" and "skip shuffling" (there is nothing more diconcerting than having a track of The Grapes of Wrath segue right into Bread and Jam For Frances. If you have downloaded the cover from the net you can drag it and drop it right into the window on the artwork tab. Then fine tune anything you want changed or added on the "get info" tab. If you follow these instructions your audiobooks that you burn will be as close as possible to the audiobook downloads you buy. I actually prefer them as I have more options.

Just a note. This is a WHOLE lot easier than it used to be. Until just a few versions of iTunes ago, if you burned your own ausiobooks you had to manually go in and change the file type of each track to make it book-markable and have it load into the audiobooks menu. It was a pain and if you forgot one or two tracks it was a headache to find the problem and correct it.

Hope this helps.

You can do it without joining all the tracks, too in order to keep the motor from possibly dying. To keep different audiobooks from getting mixed up with one another in my Ipod, I just create smart playlists on Itunes for each audiobook, and just listen within that playlist.

I'm not sure what you mean by keeping the motor from dying? What motor?

>8 SpongeBobFishpants:, See fyrefly's message in number 5. I didn't know about that, but I trust her knowledge. I've just never bothered to join my tracks because it isn't necessary for me to keep them ordered, plus if I DO manage to somehow get out of my bookmarked place, it is much easier to find where I was when the tracks are 3-7 minutes long.

Interesting, I've not heard that before. (She must have posted hers as I was posting mine... I didn't see it the first time around). I've not had the problem with the hard drive motor burning out luckily. My problem is that I have SO many audiobooks (I never know what listening whim will strike me) that if I don't combine them it takes forever to scroll through all the tracks and finding one among thousands is a nightmare. My copy of the Man In The Iron Mask alone would have been 1400 tracks if I hadn't combined it. I just don't have that much patience. Personally I'm just waiting for them to switch all the iPods over to the flash memory so there are no more moving parts.

You can do them all as smart playlists, though. Then you just check in your playlists and pick the one you want, and don't worry about the number of tracks. Either way works, really, though. Different strokes and all that.

I don't know how common hard drive motor burn-out is, but since it happened to me, it feels earth-shaking. In my understanding it's basically the same sort of problem as why you have to de-frag your computer... files get written in the available slots, and when a track first starts playing, your iPod will "spin up" - you can feel it do this - and read the entirety of the track into short-term memory. For long tracks, it not only has to spin-up multiple times, but the file might be stored in chunks in different locations on the hard drive, so the bit that reads the file has to spin up AND move around. Like I said, they've probably improved on this, especially on the newer iPods that also do video - which are going to be much larger files.

However, one dead iPod is enough to keep me on short files thereafter. I actually set up "double" smart playlists - so that it only pulls one book per playlist, and then I add a condition for "play count = 0", so that as I listen to a track, it takes it off the playlist. Combined with the "remember my playback position", that means that I can just go into my playlist, and the top song will be wherever I stopped listening.

Apparently you can defrag your iPod. Who knew? There seems to be quite the argument about whether it's worth it or recommended though.

the only problem i've had ripping cd's has been when i forget to change the shuffle mode in the player. on more than one of occasion i've have had that "i knew that sounded odd" experience.

i do have problems downloading from the public library. tracks are the length of a disk!

>14 mejix:
If you're using the newest version of Itunes you can specify under a track's options for it to be skipped in shuffle mode (and you can do multiple tracks at once).

I don't use an iPod (nor iTunes), and use my player manufacturer's (cowon) software to rip each CD as a single track, labeling them by either title or author: Dickens 01, Dickens 02, etc.

Yesterday I joined, I ripped, and I listened and it's working great - thank you!!

Sometimes my ripped audio books won't play in order if they're formated as music or audiobooks and I also like to keep track of which tracks I've listened to, so I always change the format to 'Itunes U' and make it sync 'all unplayed episodes' to my iphone. Works for me very well.