CDex
CDex is the quintessential software utility for converting your a CD collection into any number of computer file formats - the main two being either WAV or MP3. This program is lean, it’s fast and it is very accurate producing flawless rips almost every single time. That means adding tunes to your growing computer music library tends to be a lot less time-consuming than the other options out there. And with it being an open-source project, the price is right too, which will make many a DJ giddy - it’s a free download!
This streamlined little utility is not your typical flashy, eye-candy, bloated program like many you see today. No this baby has a very low overhead in system resources, taking up just 6MB RAM when you open it up! It also comes with a wide variety of codecs already installed, eliminating the need to download anything additional and placing in this or that directory in order to make decent copies of your music. The current version is backwards compatible with Windows 95 as well as working in Windows Vista and being very stable in all Microsoft OS in between (I’ve used it in 98 SE, 2000 Pro, XP Home and XP Pro 64-bit). Although future releases will see the demise of support for the older Windows OS.
Natively supported codecs:
- Lame MP3 encoder
- Internal MP2 encoder
- APE lossless audio format
- Ogg Vorbis encoder
- Fraunhofer MP3 encoder (Windows MP3)
- NTT VQF encoder
- FAAC encoder
- Windows WMA8
Being that CDex extracts the audio digitally, it is called a CD ripper or a CDDA utility. Naturally the program creates WAV files too, that being the first step the program takes if you convert it to any one of the above mentioned compressed formats. Of course for those who are still stuck using MP3s, the program also supports the use of ID3v1 and ID3v2 tags, which can be inserted during the initial process of creating the files.
Other features of this program include:
- Direct recording of multiple tracks
- Read / store album information from/to the cdplayer.ini file
- Read / store album information from/to a local and/or remote CD Database (CDDB)
- Supports CD-Text (if the CD/DVD drive supports it)
- Advanced jitter correction (based on the cd-paranoia ripping library)
- Indicates track progress and jitter control
- Normalization of audio signal
- Supports just about any CD/DVD drive
- Conversion of external WAV files
- Support for M3U and PLS play list files
- Best of all, it’s free (GPL license, source code available)
- Several languages are supported
The really great thing about this program is that you don’t need anything other than a PC (sorry all you Mac users) with a good optical drive - that’s it! Of course things such as processor speed, installed RAM, bus speeds and the condition of the CDs you are ripping are all going to effect the average time it takes to rip. Typically I set the program up to run on one or several unused machines while I use my main office computer to do other work, all I have to do is swap CDs out of the trys, click a few buttons and my music library groaws by leaps and bounds! This program also supports the creation of FLAC files too.
Here’s some screen shots for you:
CDex ready to rip!
CDex ripping to WAV
To learn more about this program and to download it, be sure to visit the CDex web site.
Tags: ape, cd ripper, cdda, cdex, encoder, faac, flac, fraunhofer mp3, lame mp3, mp2, mp3, ntt vqf, ogg vorbis, Reviews: DJ Software, ripping & encoding, software, wav, wma8
