Transfer CD onto memory sticks?

[victorgte]

I carry approx 200 CD's in my car. Now that my double DIN has a USB socket it seems a good idea to have all of my music on memory sticks instead.
Is it a tedious job or is there a service out there to transfer it all?
Luckily I have an Amazon account so I can have new albums sent direct to my iphone and plug that into the DD or use bluetooth.

[humphshumphs]

You will need to 'rip' each music CD to MP3 first, which does take time.

Windows Media Player will do it, as will something like WinAmp.

Amazon will allow you to download all your music as MP3 (well most of it anyway).

Then just copy this to the USB stick and away you go - BUT you may find that your head unit doesn't like the directory (folder) structure and won't play all the music.

On my sony, I had to create a directory for each album and then just copy the MP3 tracks into that after adding the track number at the beginning of the track name (so music became 01 music) this way they still played in the correct order.

Hope this makes sense

[uk_dave&gill]

Originally Posted by humphshumphs

Amazon will allow you to download all your music as MP3 (well most of it anyway).

As Richard says, pretty much anything you've bought on CD (and possibly vinyl?) from Amazon you can download the mp3 version for free!

Go to Amazon, then Your Account (top right) then Your Orders. You'll then see "x orders placed in [past six months]". If you click on "past six months" you'll get a dropdown for each year you've used Amazon, in my case going back to 1999!

Click on the year and then you'll see what you bought. For music, if you can download it, you'll get an "AutoRip" link next to it.

The exceptions to being downloadable are ones you've bought from 3rd Party suppliers, and anything you've bought marked as a gift. Interestingly, anything I've bought before 2002 seems to be unavailable too!

HTH

[victorgte]

Yes I get my Amazon purchases old and new downloaded but getting my 200 plus CD's tranfered is probably going to be a pain to do for a non techy bloke like me!

[uk_dave&gill]

Originally Posted by victorgte

Yes I get my Amazon purchases old and new downloaded but getting my 200 plus CD's tranfered is probably going to be a pain to do for a non techy bloke like me!

Well, a bit like getting photos scanned, there are services which will do it for you. A quick Google suggests it might cost up to a pound per CD (for example this London based service) so for 200 CDs you might be more inclined to do it yourself!

Usually, the actual ripping is easy. Windows normally has a function within it's media player, but probably best to use something like iTunes, which is free, easy to use, and also adds extras like album art etc.

The big thing is time! I've found that if you are going to do a lot at once, it can be so daunting that you give up before you start, so usually I try to rip anything new (or download from Amazon if I've bought from there) as and when I buy. But if you are starting from scratch, I'd suggest having a handful ready when you log on to your computer to check emails, browse the Internet etc. Pop them in when you are doing something else and it only takes a few minutes for each on. Ten a day would see you done in about three weeks!

Between us, myself and Gill have around 1000 CDs *, of which around 600 are ripped. Occasionally I'll have a session to do some more, but in all honesty, I tend to think that any I've not got ripped by now I probably won't bother with!

* I know two folk with huge collections - one around 50,000, one probably 70,000 - who I don't think rip any of them! They probably don't listen to them either!

[victorgte]

That makes a lot of sense thanks.
What stops me from using all of mine is the finding and handling of the discs. I need a 200 CD changer in the boot!
Will start by doing a handful at a time like you say. Next is find a PC. I use an ipad at home but I'm not sure my employer will appreciate me ripping cd's at work.
Thanks for all the input. I have a starting point and can now crack on.

[Fifer]

I've been using a freeware programme called "AudioGrabber" for many years now and highly recommend it. Any CD ripper won't be really fast, but this programme is about as fast as it gets. It is intuitive, you can add or remove individual track information, normalise tracks etc.

From their site.

Significant advantages:
A nice and easy to understandable user interface.
A good helpfile with descriptions of all functions and settings.
The program is very flexible and configurable and still easy to understand.
It works with almost all CD-ROM drives that can read digital audio.
Last but not least: it is free!

http://www.audiograbber.org/