Originally, this was going to be a one page article. Well into the project, it was found to be getting to be a large file. In order to reduce download time and make specific information easier to find, it was decided to break the single page into four parts. With our prolific use of graphics, shorter articles will most definitely download faster. With a section for each program and one for device configuration, it will be quicker and easier to determine whether a specific problem has been addressed in this series. After reader feedback, two more sections were added to this series, a FAQ and the Printing File Lists article.
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If you have followed the INport users manual, you recorded an album or at least one side of an album with LPRecorder which gave you one large wave file. You then used Wave Corrector De-Click to remove the pops and clicks. Although it sounds pretty good, that large file is not easy to handle and may be choking your system if you are trying to play it on your computer. That's where LPRipper comes in. This program separates the file into individual tracks/songs, which are much easier to handle for the various players and computers with lower amounts of ram. With the use of a codec, LPRipper will also output the music into your favorite format.
Starting LPRipper opens this simplistic appearing window. To continue you need to give it a target file. This is accomplished by clicking the folder icon in the tool bar or clicking "File" in the menu bar then clicking "Open" on the drop down file menu. Either route will open a navigation window. To conserve space the view of the "File" drop down menu is the framed inset. This accidentally gives a view of LPRipper running under both Windows Vista and Windows XP with the inset being the XP version. The file use history on the "File" drop down menu will come in very handy. This will also save you some steps, time and confusion while converting an entire record collection.
The "Open File" dialog shown here is the result of clicking the folder icon on the toolbar or clicking "Open" on the "File" drop down menu. The arrow in the upper left corner points out the screen title. The arrow to the far left shows where to look for the folder that holds the file. When you find it and click on it, the contents are then shown in the large central section. Click on the wave file and then click the "Open" button. LPRipper will then go into action. Unfortunately, I was concentrating on screen shots and didn't notice that I had opened a file that hadn't been de-clicked. These are the steps that can be skipped when using default filenames and the file usage history of the "File" drop down menu.
When LPRipper has opened your selected file the "Analyze record" screen appears. The upper arrow indicates a text box labeled "No of tracks". Since the file that was opened was a recording of an entire album containing 10 songs, the number 10 goes into the text box by either typing it in or using the little spin buttons to increase or decrease the number in the text box to match the number of songs on the LP. Below this is the section heading "Split tracks by:". The radio buttons in this section determine how LPRipper will separate the file into individual songs/tracks. Since it is rare to find songs of equal length on any media, it makes sense to always use the "detecting silence between tracks" radio button, although you can run into difficulty with this practice. A song/track that has a silent spot can throw off the track count creating extra work in the editing window. In such cases you might be better off using the "creating equal-length tracks" radio button. When you have made your choices click the "OK" button and LPRipper will go to work.
When the analysis is complete the main screen will list the songs/tracks with the name of the original plus the track number. The filename "record-10" doesn't tell you much especially if you like to mix songs for playback. To correct this situation click "Edit" on the menu bar then on the drop down menu click "Edit Tracks".
When the "Edit Tracks" window opens you will be able to rename each track with the original song title or with whatever else you might want to rename it. Decide whether or not you wish to maintain the original order. Because of the sorts done by Windows Explorer, if you do want to keep the original track order after renaming the files to the song titles you will have need to start the new track title with the double digit track number that was appended to the filename. For instance, "record-04" would become "04-Your Song Title". When saved as individual tracks and viewed in an explorer window the "Sort by name" feature of the explorer window could rearrange the order. The use of leading numbers prevents this. Be sure to use the double digit track number with leading zeroes to prevent a resort that looks like this: 1, 10, 11, 12, 2, 3, etc. When finished with the task of renaming the tracks click "OK".
What happens if after spending all that time typing in new track names you discover you don't have time to finish processing the file with LPRipper? Or your computer shuts down before you have a chance to finish. Do you loose all that work? Not if you choose to use the tracks file. The new names are saved in the tracks file when you click the "OK" button. Fortunately, use of the tracks file is the default setting and the next time you open that particular file with LPRipper the tracks file is read and all the work you had done previously is still available even though the file itself hasn't changed. A nice feature to have.
Now that you have the tracks renamed there is still a little more to do. Due to surface noise or quiet spots in the music the tracks may not have been split exactly right. By clicking "Edit" then clicking "Trim Tracks" on the drop down menu you will get an edit window that will allow changing where the tracks have been split. I should mention that this could have been done on the "Edit Tracks" window by changing the start and end times. For this you need to obtain the length of time for each track from the source LP.
The "Trim Tracks" window is easily the most complicated view of this three program set. Even so the layout is uncluttered. The tool bar under the window title holds merge, split and join tools. Below the tool bar is a graphical representation of the entire wave file with which one is working. The active track title is positioned beneath the file graph. Beneath that is the graphical representation of several seconds of the beginning or end of the active track depending on how the controls are set. The bottom portion of the window contains all the controls.
With this close up view you will notice that two of the tools in the toolbar are dimmed/inactive. Notice also the yellow section in the graph is the "active track" and from the track title you can see that this is track 1. When any of the other tracks get selected the "Merge Previous" tool will activate, since there will be something before the active track with which to merge. The vertical lines which extend the full height of the graph are track markers. Each of these markers is actually two markers, an end marker and a start marker. When one is shifted the "Join" tool will activate. The purpose of this tool is to shift the unmoved marker to the same position as the a marker that was just moved.
A quick note on the track markers. Start markers are green. End markers are red. In the active track graph only the markers for the selected track are visible. That means unless you have a very short track you never see start and end markers at the same time. Also, when moving a marker you never know for sure where the marker for the next track is if you decide to put it back. Fortunately, there is a third marker that can be used as a work around. This marker shows when previewing a track. To use this marker, after moving a start marker return to the previous track and preview the end.
On switching back to the track you adjusted, the yellow preview marker will remain visible marking the end of the previous track. Now you can put the start marker back in its original position. Yes, you could just click the "Cancel" button to accomplish this task. On the other hand, if these were the last two tracks and you had all the others adjusted exactly the way you wanted them then this work around could save you from loosing work with the "Cancel" button. With time, I'm sure other work arounds will become apparent.
There are two sets of controls for manipulating the view on the track graph. The radio buttons labeled "Start" and "End" will move you to the start or end of the active track. They will not change the status of which track is active. The arrows of the "VCR" type controls for previewing tracks will serve the same function. Tool tips label them simply "Next" for the boxed arrow and "Previous" for the other. When viewing the "Start" of a track clicking the "Next" control will take you to the "End" of the active track like the "End" radio button will do. Click again and it will change the "Active" status to the next track in line and move you to the "Start" of that track. The other arrow works the same only in the opposite direction.
There are two ways to adjust the start and end of each track. Either set the start and end points by changing the value in the text boxes next to the "Start" and "End" radio buttons or use your mouse to move the markers on the graph. At the bottom is an extra feature, "Fade", which can be used as a "fade in" or a "fade out". The value in the text box is how many seconds you want the fade to last.
Although some of the controls in this next group have already been discussed, we will cover them again. The combo box at the top will allow you to jump to the track on which you want to work. Below the combo box are the "VCR" type controls that allow you to preview the portion of the track on which you are working. From left to right these controls are play/start (the green arrow shown here), stop (the dimmed rectangle), pause (two vertical lines), next(the boxed arrow) and finally previous. The last two are the controls which have already been discussed. Below the "VCR" controls is a text box with spin buttons which is labeled "Length". This control adjusts the amount of the track that will be previewed. A setting of zero will play the entire track. To the right of the "VCR" style controls are the typical "OK" and "Cancel" buttons.
Although LPRipper usually does a good job of separating the individual tracks, there are times when due to quiet spots in the track or low input volume it doesn't come out quite right. You may well find albums that require the use of both the "Edit Tracks" and the "Trim Tracks" windows to get everything lined out properly. I've found instances that required setting the end of a track in "Trim Tracks" then using "Edit Tracks" to set the start of the next track. In one instance the last track had the start point toward the beginning of the undivided wave file and ended up in the middle of a track toward the middle of the file, so beware.
Assuming that you have edited the track and have all as you want it, you will be now be ready to finish the task. This is accomplished by clicking file on the menu bar and selecting "Save Tracks" on the drop down menu. LPRipper does the job in less time than it took for you to set all the markers. The result is individual wave files the number of which is equal to the number of tracks you specified earlier. These can now be burned to an audio CD with your preferred CD burner program. That covers the basics, however, there are other controls and functions to be examined. The "Encode Tracks" function in particular.
Before tackling audio encoding, we'll quickly cover the tool bar. The tools from left to right are "Open" and "Preview Tracks" which can be found on the "File" menu. The next two "Edit Tracks" and "Trim Tracks" are from the "Edit" menu. The last two "Save Tracks" and "Encode Tracks" are also found on the "File" menu. In the menu bar are "Options" and "Help" selections. The Help files of LPRipper and LPRecorder work for the Vista version unlike those of Wave Corrector. These are fairly decent so don't hesitate to use them if you run into a problem.
As shown here the "Options" menu provides a single selection. When clicked the "Preferences" selection opens a four tabbed window that provides access to settings that will appear familiar as they are similar to those in LPRecorder and perhaps even Wave Corrector.
The "Directories" tab allows you to set LPRippers default directories. Under the section heading "Wave Directory" are controls for setting the input directory (the directory from which LPRipper reads files for processing). The setting "The wave directory last used" is already selected on program installation. By clicking the radio button next to "Directory" you can specify the directory by typing it into the text box or use the "Folder" button to navigate to the folder of your choice. The section labeled "Target Directory" allows setting an output directory (where to put processed files). You can accept the default or specify a directory in the same manner as the input directory.
The "Settings" tab of the "Preferences" window gives you access to several ways to change the behavior of LPRipper. To use a playback device other than the Windows default, providing of course that you have more than one device to choose from, you select it in the combo box labeled "Playback device". This setting does not affect the Windows default but does save you from having to change the Windows Control Panel setting if you do have another device you want to use with LPRipper. The "Sensitivity" setting changes how LPRipper separates the wave file into individual tracks. If you are having trouble getting the correct number of tracks this is the setting to change. The "Default Silence" adds the amount of quiet time/silence that you want to all of your tracks automatically. Placing values in the "Default Fade" settings boxes will cause all of the tracks to "Fade In" and "Fade Out" the length of time you choose.
The "Options" tab has settings similar to LPRecorders "Options" window and these perform a similar function in LPRipper. There are a couple of additional options here that need to be covered. The "Use CD padding" check box is for use with CD burners that require that you burn data in multiples of 2352 bytes. With this box checked LPRipper adds enough zero bytes to each track (pads) to meet this requirement. The other setting "Select Tracks" deals with the "Edit Tracks" screen. When first opened all the tracks have a check mark in their corresponding check boxes (are selected). By clicking the radio button labeled "None" none of the tracks will be selected when the "Edit Tracks" window opens.
The "Encoder" tab allows you to switch encoding features on and off. First you will need to download the encoder or encoders you want to use. CFB Software the producers of LPRecorder and LPRipper have links to the encoders that they recommend and have configured LPRipper to use with little intervention on the part of the end user. For FastEncc, which is available as a zip file, all that is necessary is to unzip the downloaded file and place the contents into the same directory as LPRipper. As for the Windows Media 8 encoding utility, there is no guarantee how long it will be available. Although I was able to download this file, I kept getting error messages from the Microsoft site. I'm guessing this file won't be available from Microsoft for very long. The "Encoder Type" combo box allows you to select which encoder to use for the encoding process. The combo box labeled "MP3 information" allows you to select how you enter such information as artist, date, genre, album title and other comments. There is also a selection for skipping the information all together. The "Audio quality" slider allows you to adjust the encoding for the best quality, the smallest size or a compromise. The "Show encoder window" check box when checked allows a view of the DOS/Command window when the encoder is called during the encoding process. The curious, such as myself, will have this box checked until they get tired of seeing the Command window popping up only to disappear before you can really see what is happening.
LPRipper will work with other command line encoders. You will need to configure these yourself. To use these choose "Other" in the "Encoder Type" combo box. This will open a text box in the bottom of the window for the path to the encoder and a text box in which to enter the encoder parameters. The first two items to enter into the parameters box is the required "infile.wav" and "outfile.mp3" with a space between them.
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