Getting started
This is a short guide to get you
started.
I am taking screenshots from my own
screen, so please don't look at the consistency in any of the
bars (titlebar, taskbar, addressbar...) as they make completely
no sense and it is not important
Some images have been resized to reduce download time. It can
still take some time however, because this is a one-page guide.
(FrontPage tells me it can take 118 seconds on a normal 56K modem
line to load this page
)
The guide contains the following
items:
General tip: if you don't know
what a certain item or setting means, click the question mark in
the title bar of the window, then click on the particular
setting. Or, go to Help -> Help for this window. Then you'll get
detailed information and/or explanation.
First, download Audiograbber (free
or
full version).
Install it, by opening agsetup.exe
or agfreesetup.exe. There are lots of different ways to open it
so I won't give a screenshot of that
Select your language (if your
language isn't listed, that is no problem as you can always add
it later). Click OK.
I'll continue with U.S. English.
You'll see a welcoming window window. Click Next.
Select a folder to install
Audiograbber here. Default is "c:\audiograbber", I install it in
"C:\Program Files\Audiograbber", I like it if my programs reside
there. (Side note: multiple installations of Audiograbber are no
problem, just install to different folders).
Click Next, Audiograbber will be
installed.
Click Finished. Audiograbber is now
installed.
If you want to
install your own language if it wasn't included in the setup,
you can download it separately. Go to the
download site and find your own
language. In my case it is "Dutch".
Navigate to the folder where you
installed Audiograbber's and save it.
The language file is installed.
Now you've done that, download the LAME encoder
on the download page. This
is to ensure you get high quality MP3 files. (No need to start
Audiograbber yet.)
Don't forget where you saved it,
because we'll open it in a program like
JustZIPit or
WinZip:
Select only "lame_enc.dll" (as seen
above). Click 'Extract' on the toolbar.
Navigate to the folder where you
installed Audiograbber. Make sure the settings are like the
above picture (it will probably be fine, but we don't want the
entire LAME documentation in Audiograbber's folder, right?
).
Now click 'Extract'. You've installed the LAME encoder.
Let's open up Audiograbber. It's
about time, isn't it? You can do so by double-clicking on the
Audiograbber icon on the desktop (it's a big hand).
Audiograbber will show up with a Tip
of the Day. You can leave it on for a while, there are some
useful tips in it. Audiograbber will also ask for a serial
number if you installed the full version. Read the tip and close
the window.
We'll continue with installing the
language file. You know, the .lng file we saved earlier. Go to
File -> Choose Language -> [your language]. Voila! Audiograbber
is translated! I'll continue with the English version, it's
easier with this guide
I'll be ripping a CD I bought some
time ago but wasn't encoded correctly at the time. Don't look at
the artist, okay?
Now go to General settings. Important is the folder where you
want your files stored. Play around with the naming settings,
and choose what you like best. If you want to change a drive or
a setting if you experience problems, this is the place to do
it.
Very important is to set the
encoding settings right. Go to MP3 settings. Select LameEnc
under internal encoders. Now choose your encoding quality. I
recommend Constant bitrate, 160kbps, Joint Stereo, High Quality.
These settings give you MP3's which sound very much like the
original CD. I personally prefer the settings as in the
screenshot, they give just about the highest quality achievable
without sacrificing too much hard drive space.
You can grab directly to an MP3 file, which is easiest, and
doesn't cost so much temporary space. If Audiograbber detects a
lot of speed problems you might want to switch to MP3 file via
intermediate wave file.
Proceed to ripping. You can enter
the names of the tracks in Audiograbber itself (by selecting a
track and pressing 'F2'), or click the
'Freedb' button (with the nice little penguin
) to get them from the Internet.
Now just click
Grab! (Normally you'll get a speed around 10-32x, depending on
your drive. Mine is ripping very slowly at the moment, but hey I
have a lot of programs running okay?
)
When Audiograbber is finished all
files should reside on your harddrive. Open your favourite MP3
player (Winamp is a very
good one!) and simply add the files to a playlist. You should
refer to the guide of the player, but I think this will work for
just about every player: go to Windows Explorer, navigate to the
folder where you saved the files. Select them all, and press
[Enter].
If your computer is set up right,
your player will start, all files will be in the playlist, and
it will start playing! (If you have Windows XP like me and no
other player is installed, Windows Media Player will pop up, I
personally like Winamp better).
Have fun!
Note: if you have the free version
you'll only be able to rip half of the files. However, if you
restart the program, a different half will be selected. So, you
can write down the tracks you have ripped, restart the program,
and rip the tracks you didn't rip already. You'll end up with
all the tracks on your drive after all. (See why there's a good
reason to buy the full version?
)
(One more hint: you can fool around
with all the settings, if something doesn't work any more simply
set it back to what it was and everything is fine again
)
Guide made by Frank
Kusters, webmaster of
audiograbber.nl.
