I’ve been testing all the various cd ripper packages on my Debian Lenny Distro of Linux but none of them would rip to mp3′s. They would rip ok to OGG files, but I can’t play those on my cellphone’s mp3 player. As you know from my other tutorial, that it’s a breeze to load your cellphone with mp3′s.

Well, I finally found a package that will rip audio cd’s to mp’3 in Linux! Let me walk you thru how to set it up and use it.

Use your package manager, or aptitiude, to install kAudioCreator. Comment if you need to know how to do this or look at this tutorial that walks thru installing stuff in Linux. I downloaded it using my package manager Synaptic, searching for the keyword: kAudioCreator

After Kaudiocreator is installed, you will find the icon off your menu. Mine happens to be located at Applications | Sound & Video | kAudioCreator

Insert your legally purchased CD into the cdrom drive. Now, on my linux system, SoundJuicer automatically pops up. No big, just close whatever program automatically opens.

When you open kAudioCreator for the first time, you will get an error message that tells you to configure your settings. No problem, we were going to do that anyway right!

And everytime you open kAudioCreator you will get a prompt about how to format your information from CDDB, the CD database that automatically fills in your artist, album and track information. Just select your preferred format:

Next we will configure the encoder. Click on the left icon that looks like a funnel:

Click on MP3 as the encoder type. Now we have to set the encoded file location and format. Here’s where it gets a bit tricky, trying to figure out the correct fomatting for how you want the tracks stored and written as files. The default location and format is:

~/%{extension}/%{albumartist}/%{albumtitle}/%{artist} – %{number} – %{title}.%{extension}

Let me walk you thru what each part means, so you can change as you prefer:

~ will put the files in a folder at your home directory.

/%{extension}/%{albumartist}/%{albumtitle}/% will put them in a folder based on the extension, in the default case, a folder called mp3. Then in a folder named for the album’s artist, and finally in a folder named after  the album title.

{artist} – %{number} – %{title}.%{extension} will names these files Artist – TrackNumber – Title of Track.mp3

So, the only thing I had to edit was where to store the files. I wanted them to go into an existing folder called Music. Everything else was cool so I simply removed {extension} and added Music to the path like so:

~/Music/%{albumartist}/%{albumtitle}/%{artist} – %{number} – %{title}.%{extension}

There is a File Location and Formatting Wizard if you need help and a beautiful “Defaults” button to reset everything. A note on the Defaults button. If you click it, it will set ALL the settings back to default. All as in every panel All. Use carefully.

I didn’t care for the wizard, but here’s a screen capture if you want to see it:

Next thing to set is the Ripper information. Click on the left icon that looks like a blue widget. Here we set the Default Temporary Directory, where kAudioCreator will use space to rip and then encode the files. This directory has to be writable, so for simplicity I just use my home directory. kAudioCreator cleans up these files automatically after ripping, so there’s no leftover junk in the home directory. Enter the location you want to use as a Default Temporary Directory and any other settings you want here:

Now, once these are set you won’t have to do this everytime. Yay! Let’s rip a cd! When you insert a cd, remember another program might popup, but close that program and open kAudioCreator. You’ll get the prompt for how to format your CDDB, choose one and you’ll have this screen:

Click either Select All Tracks or manually click the track(s) you want to rip. When you select a track, a check mark will be next to it like this:

Now click on the Rip widget icon:

To watch the status of kAudioCreator ripping your tracks (and then encoding them to mp3), click on the Job Status tab. It will rip first to OGG:

Then encode to MP3:

Finally saving it to your specified location:

So that’s it! Post any comments or questions on this tutorial below.