Feature
DIGITIZING YOUR AUDIOBOOKS
by Kirk McElhearn
Like many audiobook listeners, you may have embraced digital formats, using iPods and other music players to listen to your audiobooks. These may be titles purchased online from companies such as Audible.com. They may be MP3 files downloaded through public libraries. Or they may be books that you have converted, or "ripped," from CDs.
If you've never converted audiobook CDs, you'll find "ripping" is very simple, though it takes a little practice. The software you use allows you to optimize file size and sound quality, to name and organize your files, to play them on the computer, and to transfer them to your portable player. Here's how to rip your audiobooks so your listening is easy and enjoyable.
Starting Out
In this article, I'll be taking you through Apple's iTunes application (www.apple.com/itunes) to rip audiobooks. iTunes is free and easy to use, and it's available for both Mac and Windows. It offers several features that are ideal for audiobooks, and, even if you don't have an iPod, you can use iTunes to create files for your player. However, if you prefer to use a different program, you may apply much of this information to other software that works in a similar manner.
To begin with, open iTunes; then take any audiobook CD and put it in your computer's CD drive. The CD will show up in iTunes' Source list. If your computer is connected to the Internet, iTunes will check the Gracenote CD Database to try and find names for the CD and its tracks. (If this doesn't happen, choose Advanced > Get CD Track Names.) In the best case, you'll have names for each track on the CD, as well as the title and author of the book; in the all-too-frequent case, alas, you won't see anything other than a list of track numbers.
Not to worry. Whether or not iTunes has found track information, you can change what it displays. Most people want to identify the book's author under Artist and the name of the book under Album; this makes it easier to find your books on your player. To do this, select all of the tracks of the CD (Edit > Select All); then choose File > Get Info. This displays an info window, in which you can type or change any of the information you want for all the tracks. Enter the author's name in the Artist field, the title in the Album field, and—
this is useful to keep your books in order—the CD number in the Disc Number field. Click OK to write this information to the tracks.
Getting Ready to Rip
iTunes, by default, rips in AAC, a file format that the iPod supports but that most other players don't. If you want to listen to your books only on an iPod or on a computer with iTunes, this is your best choice, but if you want to
listen to them on other players, or with different software, you should change the format to MP3. To make this change, go to iTunes' Preferences (on Mac, iTunes > Preferences, on Windows, Edit > Preferences), then click Advanced, and then Importing. In the Import Using menu, select MP3 Encoder. Don't close that Importing window yet, though . . .
One of the most important decisions you should make when ripping your audiobooks is what quality you want the files to have. This quality depends on two choices: the audio bit rate and the number of channels: mono or stereo. The former determines how much compression is used when ripping the files; the higher the bit rate, the better the quality, but the larger the files. High bit rates are only really useful for music, though; audiobooks, with only voice, use a limited frequency range and sound just fine with lower bit rates. For example, many downloadable audiobooks use 32 kbps, which sounds all right. If you want your books to sound better, you can go higher, say to 64 or 96 kbps.
I mentioned above that you should leave open the window where you chose your importing format. Here is where you also choose the bit rate. From the Setting menu, choose one of the bit rates displayed or choose Custom, which opens a new window. At the top of the window, the Stereo Bit Rate menu lets you choose the quality you want. If you want your files as 64 kbps, choose that. However, most audiobooks sound fine in mono, unless they are full-cast recordings. In that case, choose 128 kbps, and, lower on that window, choose Mono from the Stereo Mode menu. This rips your books on one channel (mono) at a stereo bit rate of 128 kbps, or half that for mono files.
You can ignore the rest of the settings, with one exception. If you're using AAC for your files, you'll see an option labeled Optimize for Voice. Check this, and iTunes will strip out the high and low frequencies—
the ones that voices don't include—
to compress your files more efficiently. You'll get a better sounding voice at any given bit rate with this option.
Now that you've made all your choices, click OK on each open window, and you're ready to rip. Digitizing Your Book It's now time to rip your first CD.
But first, there's one more thing you might want to do. If you look at an audiobook CD, it is generally made up of a number of tracks, anywhere from 10 to a couple dozen. If you rip the CD as it is, you'll have that many tracks. Multiply this by the number of CDs, and that means that your book can be hard to wrangle. iTunes offers a useful feature whereby you can join tracks together as you rip the CD. Select all the tracks of the CD; then choose Advanced > Join CD Tracks. You'll notice that the display changes to show a bracket along the left side of the track info. If you rip the CD like this, you'll have a single track, which makes it much easier to organize your books.
While you're at it, there's another setting that is useful if you use iTunes or an iPod to listen to your books. Select all the tracks; then choose File > Get Info. At the bottom of this window, you'll see a Remember Position setting. Choose Yes, and you'll be able to "bookmark" your tracks. When you stop listening, iTunes or your iPod will remember where you stopped, so you can pick up your book where you left off.
Now that everything is ready, click the Import CD button at the bottom of the iTunes window. It will take a few minutes for your CD to be digitized. Repeat this for each CD, and you'll have an entire book ready to listen to. Just create a playlist with your files—
make sure they're in order; that's why I said you should enter the disc number for each CD—
and start listening, or sync your iPod to listen on the go. If you want to use the files with another player or different software, click on one of them and then choose File > Show in Finder (on a Mac) or File > Show in Windows Explorer, if you're using Windows. You can then copy the files wherever you want.
With these simple techniques, you can rip all your audiobooks and never need to use your CDs again. Many people find it easier to manage a bunch of digital files than to tote CDs and insert them into players. Once you start ripping, you may never go back!
FEB/MAR 08
© AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine
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