Can I have my CDs back?

When I designed this site originally I tried to cover all the options, including a FAQS (frequently asked questions) page to address the details of our CD ripping service. It’s not modest but I thought I’d done a pretty good job.

Then we got clients ringing to ask the questions they thought were obvious but I had just not thought of, hence many additions by way of FAQs or free standing web pages. We got to the point where I think 99.99% of what you need is here on the site. Until yesterday ..... Two questions.

First, do you send my CDs back? Yes, of course. It had seemed so obvious to me that I hadn’t thought it necessary to say so. To make it completely clear I’ve added a FAQ entry to say so and I repeat it here. Yes, we do send your CDs back to you.

Second, how much can I save? Are you really that much cheaper than the opposition? Yes, we really are. We recently quoted for a major CD ripping project of over 3,000 CDs. Our clients secretary rang to ask if we could confirm by email what we would charge. Our nearest competitor had quoted 70p per CD and she just wanted to be certain. So I was more than happy to send her an email to confirm, yes, it really is just 50p per CD and that she was saving her boss £600.

Big, Big, Big CD Ripping Project

I'm waiting for a courier. Yesterday we had a motorcycle courier visit us but that was with just 110 CDs. Today is different.

I am waiting for our biggest ever CD ripping service order - a little over 3,000 CDs. It takes us into a new league as well as keeping us busy for a good few days.

Ripping CDs on this scale is really very little different to ripping smaller collections. We work to get the best sound, best album data and album art. However there are some things which are different. When we knew we had got the order we scratched our heads and came up with a special workflow process to incorporate extra steps to make sure we get it right first time.

First, Data Grooming is critical. Being able to find the music you want is essential when you're dealing with such a large music library. With a hundred or two CDs you might be content to scroll through a chunk to find the album, artist or track you want - with 3,000? Impossible. Albums need to come together so handling multi-album sets is vital as done badly the final CD could be hundreds of entries away. Nightmare.

Similarly we need to smooth out composer names, just a little confusion over Mozart, Mozart WA or WA Mozart will make an enormous mess.

In terms of data volumes we're into a different league. We've had to upgrade one of our PCs so we're certain to have enough space to finally merge all the work from our six computers when we finally bring it all together. Along the way we need to control precisely which CDs have been ripped, which drives the data is stored on, and make sure it's all backed up safely at the end of each day. Just think how you'd feel getting to 2,900+ and finding a hard drive failure wiped out all those hours and hours of work.

When it's all ripped and Data Grooming is complete we just have one final but not small step to take. It all has to be put onto a network connected hard drive. To make this as easy as possible we've upgraded our router and I've earmarked this task to be overseen by our new Mac Mini. Even so I think we'll be lucky to get this lot across in under 72 hours. But that stage seems an awful lot of CDs away.

MP3 - How many MP3 tracks on a CD?

Our focus as a CD ripping service is getting digital music from a CD and into a data file format. It’s helpful to be reminded from time to time how useful it is to go the other way. It can be very useful, say for an in car sound system. One of our clients asked a simple question - how many MP3s can I get on a CD?

OK, a standard CD with music, such as you used to buy in HMV, stores just over an hour, say 70 minutes. However in data terms that’s around 750 Mb.

MP3 music is in data file format so the roundabout answer is as much music as will take up 750 Mb. As a CD ripping service we rip at 256 kbps into AAC format, the equivalent in MP3 would be 320 kbps. In our format you’d get much more music in digital format, around 7 CDs worth. As MP3 files the answer would be around 5 CDs worth. Roughly.

You could get more if you dropped the quality setting, so the music files are more compressed. The quality is worse, but that may not be a problem if the in car sound system is less than top notch. You could go down to 128 kbps for music and the sound might be acceptable.

If you were recording spoken voice (such as audio books) you can drop as low as 64 kbps and the quality will be acceptable, there just isn’t so much data in a speech compared to a symphony.

So, how many MP3s can you get on a CD? This CD ripping service says 5,7 music CDs or 12 CDs worth of spoken voice.

How do you burn an MP3 CD? It can easily be done using iTunes.

Insurance?

I've had never even thought of it. As a CD ripping service we get asked many questions, but this has never crossed my mind nor popped into the heads of the people who ring us.

If you lose your music files, can you claim on your house insurance? Well, according to today's Times it's highly unlikely that you'd get your money back and it would only be for tracks you'd bought from iTunes Music Store.

For security you'll need a comprehensive online backup service.