How to Rip Audio CDs on Linux

I recently canceled my Spotify subscription and went back to using my CDs. I restored my collection of 30 CDs from various genres, and I’ve really enjoyed the experience of listening to an album and focusing on its content rather than suggestions and blackout memory.

My last usage of streaming was just the same playlist of unknown artists playing in the background, it was just noise, and I couldn’t even remember what I was listening to.

Unlike in the past, when I bought a CD, I repeated the songs and read the lyrics. I shared that music with friends, and those were beautiful moments.

Why CD Ripping

As you know, CDs aren’t indestructible. I’ve lost a lot of great albums simply because they were destroyed by wear and tear. Physical scratches are very harmful to them because CDs rely on laser reflection, you see? Consequently, a CD’s lifespan can be limited. You should store your CDs in a dry place inside their original cases and avoid leaving them in a hot car, as extreme heat can warp the plastic.

Ripping a CD means saving the content to a hard drive on your computer or your NAS. MP3 is the worst storage idea. it was revolutionary for streaming, internet downloads, and fitting songs onto small MP3 players (I remember my first MP3 player had only 128MB of storage), but you lose all the audio quality that a CD can offer. So I rip them as FLAC/WAV format to preserve all CD quality.

How to RIP a CD

To RIP a CD, you’ll need a few packages to install and a small config you fix and you are ready to rip your CDs.

First, make sure these packages are available in your machine by typing this command:

sudo pacman -S abcde cdparanoia flac id3v2 wget

You also need some extra package using YAY of Paru:

paru -S cd-discid perl-webservice-musicbrainz perl-musicbrainz-discid

I actually use WAV because it’s supported everywhere.

Then, Add this config file in ~/.abcde.conf and copy/paste this code. You can also update it as you like.

# Where your music files will go
OUTPUTDIR="$HOME/Music"

# Folder + filename structure
OUTPUTFORMAT='${ARTISTFILE}/${ALBUMFILE}/${TRACKNUM} - ${TRACKFILE}'

# For compilation albums
VAOUTPUTFORMAT='Various/${ALBUMFILE}/${TRACKNUM} - ${ARTISTFILE} - ${TRACKFILE}'

# Output format, you can use flac if you want, mak
OUTPUTTYPE=wav

# Use cdparanoia
CDROMREADERSYNTAX=cdparanoia
CDPARANOIAOPTS="--never-skip=40"
CDDBMETHOD=musicbrainz
CDDISCID=cd-discid

# Metadata source
CDDBMETHOD=musicbrainz

# Nice filenames (lowercase, safe chars)
mungefilename ()
{
    echo "$@" | tr '[:upper:]' '[:lower:]' | sed 's/[^a-z0-9._-]/_/g'
}

Now, just insert you CD and run abcde command.

Just a quick heads-up: I’m sharing these memories for fun, but remember that the music and artwork on these CDs are protected by copyright.

Always check your local laws regarding ripping and personal backups!