cdparanoia - Use your CDROM drive to read audio tracks.... and have it actually work right!

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cdparanoia

cdparanoia extracts audio from compact discs directly as data, with no analog step between, and writes the data to a file or pipe in WAV, AIFC, or raw 16 bit linear PCM. It is used internally by common audio CD rippers and it's pretty unlikely you'll have to use it directly : those rippers do the job perfectly out-of-the-box.
Then someday you find old CDs in a box forgotten in your parents' garage / attic. So many souvenirs !!! But how are you going to play those tunes from the past since you have no CD player anymore ? A solution is to convert everything to MP3 (and enjoy nostalgia ).

This is when the said rippers come into action, which usually works just fine... except for burned CDs. The default reading / error correction options are not always enough and you'll have to "go manual".

Analyze an audio CD :

cdparanoia -Q
cdparanoia III release 10.2 (September 11, 2008)

Table of contents (audio tracks only):
track        length               begin        copy pre ch
===========================================================
  1.     7943 [01:45.68]        0 [00:00.00]    no   no  2
  2.    14722 [03:16.22]     7943 [01:45.68]    no   no  2		note the 'begin' value : 7943
  3.     7426 [01:39.01]    22665 [05:02.15]    no   no  2
  4.    14792 [03:17.17]    30091 [06:41.16]    no   no  2
  5.    11785 [02:37.10]    44883 [09:58.33]    no   no  2
  6.    12200 [02:42.50]    56668 [12:35.43]    no   no  2
  7.     8849 [01:57.74]    68868 [15:18.18]    no   no  2
  8.    10173 [02:15.48]    77717 [17:16.17]    no   no  2
  9.    12773 [02:50.23]    87890 [19:31.65]    no   no  2
 10.    14311 [03:10.61]   100663 [22:22.13]    no   no  2
 11.    14961 [03:19.36]   114974 [25:32.74]    no   no  2
 12.    14685 [03:15.60]   129935 [28:52.35]    no   no  2
 13.    10183 [02:15.58]   144620 [32:08.20]    no   no  2
 14.    13443 [02:59.18]   154803 [34:24.03]    no   no  2
 15.     7462 [01:39.37]   168246 [37:23.21]    no   no  2
 16.    14718 [03:16.18]   175708 [39:02.58]    no   no  2
 17.     5433 [01:12.33]   190426 [42:19.01]    no   no  2
 18.    18690 [04:09.15]   195859 [43:31.34]    no   no  2
 19.    10679 [02:22.29]   214549 [47:40.49]    no   no  2
 20.    13875 [03:05.00]   225228 [50:03.03]    no   no  2
 21.    10419 [02:18.69]   239103 [53:08.03]    no   no  2
 22.     6453 [01:26.03]   249522 [55:26.72]    no   no  2
TOTAL  255975 [56:53.00]    (audio only)

Extract single track as wav :

cdparanoia 1 -w track.wav

Rip full disk :

cdparanoia 1-22 -w whatever -B
cdparanoia III release 10.2 (September 11, 2008)

Ripping from sector       0 (track  1 [0:00.00])
	  to sector  255974 (track 22 [1:26.02])

outputting to track01.whatever
 (== PROGRESS == [                              | 007942 00 ] == :^D * ==)		7942 matches the sector number seen earlier 

outputting to track02.whatever
 (== PROGRESS == [                              | 022664 00 ] == :^D * ==)

outputting to track03.whatever
 (== PROGRESS == [                              | 030090 00 ] == :^D * ==)

outputting to track04.whatever
 (== PROGRESS == [                              | 044882 00 ] == :^D * ==)

outputting to track05.whatever
 (== PROGRESS == [                              | 056667 00 ] == :^D * ==)

outputting to track06.whatever
 (== PROGRESS == [                              | 068867 00 ] == :^D * ==)

outputting to track07.whatever
 (== PROGRESS == [                              | 077716 00 ] == :^D * ==)

FAQ :