Gracenote; ripping CDs on Windows by jgn on Tuesday, January 1, 2008 in Listening

I rip my CDs on Windows . . . for my own personal use, of course. I used to use MusicMatch because I loved the "all you can eat" streaming subscription. But since MusicMatch got absorbed by Yahoo Music, it hasn't been an option (Yahoo Music's selection isn't as good, and I don't think the player is tied to AllMusic.com).

So anyway . . . A huge frustration with MusicMatch was that its CDDB sucked big time. Anything new or even slightly obscure would not be found, and I'd have to type in the songs myself. Plus, the MusicMatch ripper would not keep the per-track artist, which was deadly for anthologies.

In looking around for an alternative, I noticed that WinAmp pro throws in a subscription to Gracenote (probably the best CDDB out there - they were the orginators), and the Pro version of WinAmp is only about $20.

Wow, what a change. It has matched much more stuff, and WinAmp respects the per-track artists: So, particularly for quasi-historical anthologies (such as Mojo's) I'm not always going back to the CD case to see what they heck I'm listening to.

Meanwhile, Mighty Baby's track "Egyptian Tomb" (1969): Good grief, why didn't this get wider circulation!?

comments powered by Disqus