My buddy Rich emailed me today and asked me how to rip CDs to mp3 files so he can to them on his new Cowon music player. Yeah, I know he's a bit behind the times, but the important thing is that he's on the train now. So here's what I told him.

OK, download Quintessential Player:

http://www.quinnware.com/

It's not open source, but it's the best media player I know of for Windows, as it handles EVERYTHING - music, video, ripping, managing, etc. Also download these plugins:

http://www.quinnware.com/list_plugins.php?plugin=126
http://www.quinnware.com/list_plugins.php?plugin=42
http://www.quinnware.com/list_plugins.php?plugin=25 <-- THE MOST IMPORTANT

Install Quintessential Player and then the plugins. Now open Quintessential Player.

Right-click in the player & go to Preferences (or press ctrl p).

On the Settings tab, go to the Encoder section & choose Encode Format.

Make these changes:

Select Encoding Format: MP3 Audio
Encoder Method: Average Bitrate, and move the slider all the way to the right, so that it says ~320 (This will result in mp3s as close to the CD as possible, but they will be much bigger in file size. My attitude is "so what?". I'd rather have good sound, with the trade-off of larger files. If you want smaller files, or if you can't hear the difference, move the slider until it's at 192.)

Press Save & Close.

Now, insert a CD. It should show up in Quintessential Player automatically. It should also connect online & auto enter all the track names, etc.

Right-click on a track, & choose Encode All (or something like that). Choose mp3 with the LAME encoder.

A few minutes later (it's really fast), Quintessential Player will be done. By default, it places tunes in the My Documents\My Music folder.

Quintessential Player will also act as a media library for you, showing you all your music, etc.

Hope that helps. Let me know if you need more guidance.

Scott

(Check out all of our posts on music and mp3.)