Ripping or converting a CD to MP3 format is easier than you may think. You would only require Windows Media Player as converting software to rip the CD to MP3. Because of the fact that Windows Media Player is by default installed when you had installed the Windows, you do not actually require any converting tool or media to be bought or downloaded. You can also use VLC Media Player to rip CD to MP3 and this software is also popular and very easy to convert any format.
Why Ripping a CD to MP3 is Necessary?
This is an important question that you may ask- why can’t we just copy the music files from the CD to the hard drive; why bother ripping it? It is because of the fact that the storing arrangement of files on a CD and on a hard drive is not the same. The CD stores information in raw digital formats; it uses a continuous spiral technique from inside to the last segment to store your music files. On the other hand, the hard drive uses circular tracks to store information as bits/bytes.
Music CDs were invented during the 1970s at a time when no one thought one day these CDs will be inserted into computers. This is the reason why the files on the old music CDs cannot be read directly by the computer; you must rip the CD to get discoverable formats like MP3, WAV, or WMA, etc. by the Windows.
Let us check. Insert a CD containing music/sound files. Now, go to ‘This PC’ of Windows 10 or ‘My Computer’ of older versions and check out the CD drive. You should find a CD disk look-alike figure on a drive; open it.
Look at the containing files carefully. These files are not in MP3/WAV/WMA formats which are basically the top sound formats of Windows. Rather, the files are in .cda format which is actually made by your CD drive. These are only the representation of their location and not the actual files from the CD.
If you click on a file and see its property, you will find out that the size in bytes/kilobytes; whereas, we know that a 5-minute song takes up to at least 3 to 4 megabytes. To confirm that these are not audio files, copy and paste one of them to your hard drive and open it; there will be no sound coming and an error message will be shown.
How to Rip CD to MP3 with Windows Media Player
Now that we are sure that opening audio files directly from a CD is not possible, we must rip the CD to get the files in MP3 formats. To do this, follow the steps provided here:
Step 1: Open your Windows Media Player. You can find it by searching from the Windows search box on the bottom left of the screen.
Step 2: Now, go to ‘View’ and then to ‘Library’.
Step 3: On the library screen of Windows Media Player, you should find the inserted CD with an icon. Click on it to view the containing files which need to be converted to audio formats.
Step 4: Click on ‘Rip settings’ at, top of your screen, and then on our desired format-‘MP3’. You can also choose the ‘WAV’ format if you would like to.
Step 5: Stay on the ‘Rip settings’ to change audio quality. Choosing the best quality produces a larger file size and it is totally up to you.
Step 6: Now, hit the ‘Rip CD’ option after selecting the files which need to be converted to MP3 format.
Step 7: Wait a few seconds. The following figure shows that files are being ripped or are already ripped.
Step 8: To see the ripped files, go to your music folder under drive(C). There may be a sub-folder automatically created; click on it to see the converted MP3 files.
Step 9: Let’s check whether the CD/ DVD was actually ripped or not. Select a file and go to its property. You will find that the file is 5MB to 10 MB in size depending on the quality you selected. Also, the type of file is shown as .mp3 which means the files on the CD were converted to the audible format.
Step 10: Open one of the converted MP3 files and you will be able to hear the sound.
How to Rip CD to MP3 with VLC Media Player
If you are not comfortable using Windows Media Player, then you can do the ripping of the CD with VLC Media Player too which is very common as well. The process is very simple as follows:
Step 1: Open your VLC player; choose ‘Media’ and then ‘Convert/Save’.
Step 2: On the top select the ‘Disc’ menu. Here, click on the ‘Audio CD’ and select the inserted disc device.
Step 3: Now, on the bottom of the screen, click on ‘Convert/Save’ and then select ‘Convert’.
Step 4: A new window will pop up from where select the profile as ‘Audio-CD’ from the drag-down menu.
Step 5: Hit the settings icon just beside the profile option.
Step 6: Select the desired audio format option; in our case, it is ‘MP3’. Save it.
Step 7: Now, we want to select the destination folder where the converted files will be saved. To do this, click on the ‘Browse’ option.
Step 8: Select the folder where you want to save the files; by default, the folder is ‘Music’ under C drive.
Step 9: Back to the previous windows; hit the ‘Start’ button; the CD will start to rip.
Step 10: Go to the selected folder to check if the files were converted. Open the converted audio files and enjoy the music.
Conclusion
How easy is ripping CD to MP3 using either Windows Media Player or VLC Media Player? Isn’t it? Hopefully, you can do it from now on without any trouble. Bye for today.
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