Ok heres something you could try. go download the binary from the following site:
http://www.animus-facticius.org/lame_dm/lame_dm_preset.zip

The presets are activated by "--dm-preset" followed by, "standard, xtreme, insane, metal"
Here is what the following presets specify:

Standard Preset = --nspsytune -V2 -mj -h --lowpass 19.5 -b112 --nssafejoint --athtype 4
--dm-highfreq 3

Xtreme Preset = --nspsytune -V2 -mj -h --lowpass 19.5 -b112 --nssafejoint --athtype 2
--dm-highfreq 3 -Y

Insane Preset = --nspsytune -V1 -mj -h --lowpass 19.5 -b112 --nssafejoint --athtype 2

I have been using the extreme preset and haven't had any problems so far. I have an amd duron running at 800mhz and i usually get 2x encoding speed. The nssafejoint switch is for a new more accurate joint stereo.

Sean

Hi.

Regarding encoding times of lame:
Using my settings posted earlier in this thread, lame encodes at about 80% of playing speed (or needs 72minutes to encode a 60 minute CD). If I use CBR encoding instead of VBR, it is much faster than this (but I can't remember exactly how fast, I think about 2x playing speed). That is on a PIII with 500MHz.
If you use EAC to rip, try using its backgroud encoding option (EAC -> EAC Options -> Tools -> On extraction, start external compressors queued in background). It really helps alot, especially when batch-encoding a whole bunch of CDs.

cu,
sven


proud MkII owner (12GB blue/green/smoked, #080000113)

It does seem that MusicMatch generates bad headers though. I have to use Mp3-Tag Studio to fix my VBR headers before Winamp will work correctly with them (displaying the correct duration, accurate seeking, etc.)

I haven't ripped any music for a while (getting my new computer set up). On the old machine, running Linux, I ran grip + lame and everything worked quite well.

On the new machine, I'm running Win2000 and I just spent the $20 on Audiograbber. I also have a snazzy Plextor 16/10/40A IDE CD-RW drive that allegedly does audo extraction at the full 40X. In practice, I'll get audio extraction at somewhere between 20 and 30x, and then lame (with the r3mix flags) runs at between 8x and 10x speed (on my 1GHz Athlon).

However...

My machine occasionally decides to just hang. Freeze. Hit the reset button. The problem seems related to the Plextor drive because when I switch to using my Toshiba DVD-ROM drive, everything works flawlessly (albeit much slower than the Plextor). I even upgraded my Plextor firmware to the latest release. No effect.

Anybody else had problems like this? Could my Plextor drive be flakey?

Also, of all the Windows extraction tools I've tried, they all pale in comparison to grip on Linux. grip is smart enough to run lame on the previous track while extracting the current one, and it has a GUI that doesn't drive you completely batty (unlike AudioGrabber which just gets all confused when CDDB hasn't heard of your CD). It's almost enough to make me want to set the machine up to dual boot -- purely to run grip. I actually tried running grip on Linux through VMware, but it turned out that audio extraction just doesn't seem to work that way at all. *sigh*

Try installing an asapi driver. You can find a good free one here: http://www.vob.de/us/Downloads.htm

Sean

Is the drive spinning up each time?

I used to have that problem when ripping, but Audiograbber has a feature that's called spin up disc before reading. It's under the rip offset tab under settings.

Don't know if that's your problem or not but maybe

Amazing! This turned out to be the answer. I installed the ASAPI driver from the URL you listed, switched AudioGrabber to use the "ASPI Manager" instead of "Windows calls", selected "buffered burst copy", and everything now works great. (I already had "spin up disc" turned on.)

It even successfully ripped a used CD I have that my old computer couldn't even begin to rip properly.

Paging Mr. Fabris: please put this in the FAQ somewhere!

I'm glad it worked, for some reason the versions of asapi that ship with windows and nt calls give plextor drives fits.

Sean

Done. Added it to the "Best way to rip" FAQ. Thanks.

___________
Tony Fabris

I bet that's why my sony 12x speed I use at work is choking too under W2k. Hmm, must try this.

Cheers,
Hans

PS. My plextor 16/10/40 at home burns cd's at 16 speed even while my DLT Tape drive is backing up and restoring stuff (at about 80 megs/minute)... Tried it today, never even got below 75 percent buffer. Gotta love Linux.



Mk2 - Blue & Red - 080000431

I've had good luck with "Media Box" + LAME.

Media box (www.e-soft.co.uk I believe) is a cool little ripper, but it also has fun playback features lilke auto-dj mixing (cross fade, etc)

The only two downers are:
1> It uses CDDB only, not any of the free alternatives (free as in speech that is)
2> it's $25 to register..

Otherwise I've been having great luck with it + 192k abr lame encoding.