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[Doug]

When MusicMatch went under years ago, JRiver showed me that I would be able to import MusicMatch non-standard tags into JRiver's jukebox and preserve thousands of my files. I've always been grateful.

I have Win7 now and downloaded the MC18 trial.  Ripping CD's to MP3 is slower than what I'm used to, at about 3x to 5x.  Is this normal for everyone else? Is there something I can do?

Thanks!

With MusicMatch on my old system:
Hardware - Pentium 4 from 2005, 512Mb RAM
OS - Windows 2000
Software - Musicmatch 7
Format - MP3
Quality - VBR at 100% or MP3 at 256kbs
SPEED: 12X
Time to rip a CD: 5 minutes

With JRiver on my New system:
Hardware - dual Xeon CPU, 16Gb RAM, fast SSD
OS - Windows 7
Software - JRiver MC 18.0.194
Format - MP3
Quality - VBR using LAME VBR and Normal Quality, Copy Mode=Secure, Read Speed=Max.
SPEED: 3X
Time to rip same CD: 20 minutes

OR - with Quality of CBR at 128kbs Copy Mode=Normal
SPEED: 4X to sometimes 6x
Time to rip same CD: 15 minutes

I checked the ATAPI driver in Control Panel, it is set to DMA.

I also installed MC17 on my old Windows 2000 system; rip speeds were similar to MC18 on my new Win7 system.

[JimH]

Secure ripping is slower.  Check if it's set.

The MP3 encoder MC uses is slight slower but considered better quality.  You could probably find more on this with a search on the Internet.

[Frobozz]

Ripping speed in secure mode depends on the capabilities of the CD drive.  Some drives can rip in secure mode faster than others, some much faster.

For the two drives I have in my desktop computer I can get secure ripping speeds in MC of 11X and 14X.  With my laptop I'd be happy to get 4X speed for a secure mode rip.  It depends on the drive.

The drives I have in my desktop are a TSSTcorp CD/DVD drive that came stock with an HP desktop.  It turned out to be a very good ripping drive so I've kept it.  I also have an old Plextor CD drive.

It is difficult to recommend specific drives to use because the models change so rapidly.  By the time someone can recommend a drive it is probably already out of production and on to a new model.  About the best you can do is google around to find drives that have a good reputation for being a good ripping with EAC (Exact Audio Copy).  If it's a good drive for EAC it will be a good drive for MC.  Look for drives from a manufacturer with good reputation for ripping drives and look for similar model numbers for what is known to be good.  And cross your fingers.

If the drive in your old system was doing good then you might try that drive in your new system.
I don't believe MusicMatch did secure mode ripping.  Non-secure mode rips are faster than secure mode rips.

You can have MC rip in "normal" mode rather than "secure" mode.  Normal mode will be faster but won't be able to detect read errors like secure mode can.

[Listener]

Ripping speed in secure mode depends on the capabilities of the CD drive.  Some drives can rip in secure mode faster than others, some much faster.

For the two drives I have in my desktop computer I can get secure ripping speeds in MC of 11X and 14X.  With my laptop I'd be happy to get 4X speed for a secure mode rip.  It depends on the drive.

The drives I have in my desktop are a TSSTcorp CD/DVD drive that came stock with an HP desktop.  It turned out to be a very good ripping drive so I've kept it.  I also have an old Plextor CD drive.

It is difficult to recommend specific drives to use because the models change so rapidly.  By the time someone can recommend a drive it is probably already out of production and on to a new model.  About the best you can do is google around to find drives that have a good reputation for being a good ripping with EAC (Exact Audio Copy).  If it's a good drive for EAC it will be a good drive for MC.  Look for drives from a manufacturer with good reputation for ripping drives and look for similar model numbers for what is known to be good.  And cross your fingers.

If the drive in your old system was doing good then you might try that drive in your new system.
I don't believe MusicMatch did secure mode ripping.  Non-secure mode rips are faster than secure mode rips.

You can have MC rip in "normal" mode rather than "secure" mode.  Normal mode will be faster but won't be able to detect read errors like secure mode can.

Good advice, Forbuzz.  I've had good results with a TSST and several Samsung DVD drives.

TSST = Toshiba + Samsung in a joint venture.  Equivalent drives are sold under the Samsung name at retail.  Don't get "slim" or laptop drives, they are about 1/2 as fast.  The SH-222, 223 and 243 drives are all good.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827151266

Bill

[Doug]

Thanks - to the three of you - for the help!

Secure ripping is slower.  Check if it's set.

The MP3 encoder MC uses is slight slower but considered better quality.  You could probably find more on this with a search on the Internet.

Thanks Jim, that's a good point; I had read that the MC encoder was far superior.  Actually I had turned off MC's secure ripping and deliberately set quality to 128kbs using the lower resolution CBR encoder, hoping that might approximate Musicmatch in VBR mode - but speed only went up by 1x.  More on this below.

Ripping speed in secure mode depends on the capabilities of the CD drive.  Some drives can rip in secure mode faster than others, some much faster.

For the two drives I have in my desktop computer I can get secure ripping speeds in MC of 11X and 14X.  With my laptop I'd be happy to get 4X speed for a secure mode rip.  It depends on the drive.

The drives I have in my desktop are a TSSTcorp CD/DVD drive that came stock with an HP desktop.  It turned out to be a very good ripping drive so I've kept it.  I also have an old Plextor CD drive.

It is difficult to recommend specific drives to use because the models change so rapidly.  By the time someone can recommend a drive it is probably already out of production and on to a new model.  About the best you can do is google around to find drives that have a good reputation for being a good ripping with EAC (Exact Audio Copy).  If it's a good drive for EAC it will be a good drive for MC.  Look for drives from a manufacturer with good reputation for ripping drives and look for similar model numbers for what is known to be good.  And cross your fingers.

If the drive in your old system was doing good then you might try that drive in your new system.
I don't believe MusicMatch did secure mode ripping.  Non-secure mode rips are faster than secure mode rips.

You can have MC rip in "normal" mode rather than "secure" mode.  Normal mode will be faster but won't be able to detect read errors like secure mode can.

Wow - like Listener said, great response Frobuzz! Thanks for putting the time into that - it was useful to me and maybe others. And thanks Listener for the drive recommendations.  You're right, there was no specified option in MusicMatch circa year 2006 for secure mode ripping (although they did offer MP3 vs MP3Pro - back in the day).  Strangely though, the same desktop system and CD drive that ripped at 12x using MusicMatch was ripping at 4x using JRiver with secure mode turned off and the MP3 encoder set to "faster CBR" at only 128kbs.

Now the weird part (sounds like I'm about to sell you diet tricks, huh?).  After ripping two dozen CD's in MC at 3-4x, the speed gradually increased, to (for most CDs) about 12x. Sometimes 16x.  I'm relatively computer literate - I had no other processes going on during the intially slow CD ripping. MC was not importing tracks. Task manager showed no activity. I just started to get better speed. Prior to posting my question, I had found a post from someone else who had experienced the same speed progression, and I just assumed he was probably importing tracks, running a background virus scan, windows update, something going on that he didn't notice.   But I'm fairly certain that wasn't the case on my machine, at least, it wasn't anything very obvious to me.  So - if someone else is reading this in future - my advice would be to persevere for a while. I don't know why, but it certainly seemed to have worked for me!  And I'm certainly pleased to be using MC. Thanks again for the comments.

[MGD_King]

Now the weird part (sounds like I'm about to sell you diet tricks, huh?).  After ripping two dozen CD's in MC at 3-4x, the speed gradually increased, to (for most CDs) about 12x. Sometimes 16x. 

I've experienced rips like this as well and the only thing that I can point my finger to is the CD itself. I've had brand new CDs that I've taken the shrink wrap off of, placed the disc in the drive, ripped it to FLAC, and MC reported 6x speed at best. I then took a CD that I purchased over 15 years ago and ripped it to FLAC (same settings) and MC ripped it at 14x, peaking at 20x. Doesn't make any sense at all. I would think that newer CDs would rip faster, but maybe the quality of the pressing has diminished over the years requiring more re-reads during the rip process?

[rayooo]

I've experienced rips like this as well and the only thing that I can point my finger to is the CD itself. I've had brand new CDs that I've taken the shrink wrap off of, placed the disc in the drive, ripped it to FLAC, and MC reported 6x speed at best. I then took a CD that I purchased over 15 years ago and ripped it to FLAC (same settings) and MC ripped it at 14x, peaking at 20x. Doesn't make any sense at all. I would think that newer CDs would rip faster, but maybe the quality of the pressing has diminished over the years requiring more re-reads during the rip process?

I've noticed this exact same thing!

[Listener]

I sometimes check the progress of a ripping operation.  The speed reported starts low (~ 3X) and steadily increases to the end of the process (often 10-15X at the end.)

The pattern is not always the same.  For some CDs, the ripping speed increases more slowly and for a few CDs, it never gets about 6X.

I'd guess that the DVD drive and/or MC is learning as it goes along.

Bill

[MGD_King]

I sometimes check the progress of a ripping operation.  The speed reported starts low (~ 3X) and steadily increases to the end of the process (often 10-15X at the end.)

This is because the data is being read faster at the end of the disc. Here's why:

The rotation speed for an audio CD is roughly 500 RPM at the beginning of the disc, which is also the inner-most portion of the disc that can be read. The outer edge of the disc spins much slower at around 200 RPM. Why? Because the laser reads data at a constant rate, and the data passes the laser faster at the outer edge, so the rotation has to be slowed down to match the required read for the laser in order to match the DAC that's built-in to a conventional CD player (car or home stereo). For data CDs, however, that doesn't apply because there isn't a DAC and data can be read by the laser at any speed. So when your CD-ROM drive is spinning the disc at 12,000 RPM (24x500 RPM), the data that is being read at the edge of the disc is passing by the laser much faster which transfers the data quicker to MC, which can encode the rip faster.

At least that's what I think. I could be wrong and probably am so feel free to correct me.  

[Listener]

This is because the data is being read faster at the end of the disc. Here's why:

The rotation speed for an audio CD is roughly 500 RPM at the beginning of the disc, which is also the inner-most portion of the disc that can be read. The outer edge of the disc spins much slower at around 200 RPM. Why? Because the laser reads data at a constant rate, and the data passes the laser faster at the outer edge, so the rotation has to be slowed down to match the required read for the laser in order to match the DAC that's built-in to a conventional CD player (car or home stereo). For data CDs, however, that doesn't apply because there isn't a DAC and data can be read by the laser at any speed. So when your CD-ROM drive is spinning the disc at 12,000 RPM (24x500 RPM), the data that is being read at the edge of the disc is passing by the laser much faster which transfers the data quicker to MC, which can encode the rip faster.

At least that's what I think. I could be wrong and probably am so feel free to correct me.  

I based my post on actual experience. I understand your explanation but it just doesn't explain the difference in ripping speed I observe.  You describe a  difference in data rate at a given rotational speed between the start and the end in only 2.5.  The observed change is much more than that.   

I can hear the difference in sound as the DVD driver spins faster.   That correlates well with the current ripping speed MC displays. The change in ripping doesn't happen in the same way on every CD.  It certainly isn't linear as the process moves across the CD.

My point is that there is intelligence and adaptation in the way MC+OS+Drive rips a CD.

Bill

[Frobozz]

I think some of the speed discrepancy may be due to the firmware in some drives and how that firmware behaves.  Some drives seem to slow down for a bad section of the disc and then not speed up afterwards.  My suspicion is that is more of a firmware issue than a software (MC) issue.

[Doug]

Thanks everyone for all the replies. I've been traveling for a while and was unable to respond, but it was good of everyone to pitch in with their ideas.