Part II. Digital extraction of CD-Audio

Digital extraction of CD music, is an alternative to traditional analog recording or transfer of sound. Analog electronics allways add to the noiselevel by each generation of rerecording or transfer. This is not the case when the soundsignal is kept in a digital format, and the main reason for doing soundwork digitally.

OS preparations first:

Before we go into the application software, a few things concerning enhancement of Windows 95, ASPI and SCSI support and more. If your source is an IDE CD-Rom, you might think you can skip this part. Don't - many rip programs use SCSI technique, even when the source is IDE. (Darned)

1. Replace the SCSI driver

The first thing to do, is to get better support for your SCSI adapter. If you use spock.mpd you can skip this part. In windows 95, backup and replace:

C:\Windows\System\Iosubsys\Fd16_700.mpd

This will improve on your CSI performance in any instance, CD-ripping or not. Simply rename the existing to fd16_700.old and copy the new one into the folder.

2. A word on Scsi1hlp.vxd

When you install software, you might get the one above updated automatically. This is normally a good thing. There is one exception to watch though. Some rip programs use SCSI apis when an IDE CD-Rom is the source. I believe it's a tweak of mscdex.exe or something. The point is, that those programs only work with the original old version of scsihlp!.vxd. If you bump into such a predicament, the program will tell you, and you can get the old version below.

C:\Windows\System\Iosubsys\Scsi1hlp.vxd

WARNING: replacing a newer version with the old above, might cause other programs to fault. The rule is, if it works, don't fix it.
IDE folks are excused for the ASPI part below.

3. The gory details of ASPI

In excess of the above, there is four files assisting windows 95 in keeping up appearances ASPIwise:

C:\Windows\System\Winaspi.dll
C:\Windows\System\Wnaspi32.dll
C:\Windows\System\Aspienum.vxd
C:\Windows\System\Iosubsys\Apix.vxd

Adaptec has done a lot of development in this field, and if you browse Adapted, you might have stumbled over:

Last time I was there, the above was moved though.

What the heck - get the whole lot here. Remember to rename from *.ha to *.zip before unzipping the file.



CD-Audio ripping with CoolEdit v1.53:

I have tried two or three different IDE-CD-Roms as source, neither accepted by CoolEdit. At least one of the three is capable of digital extraction, in conjuction with another program. If you want to use CoolEdit v1.53, use a SCSI CD-Rom as source. Besides the Philips CDD3600, I have earlier used a Plextor 6 speed CD-Rom. The latter comes with its own ripping program for Windows 3.x.

If you use an unregistered version of CoolEdit, and get:

click the top two radio buttons, and OK


If you don't see the CD-R controls bottom left, click the CD icon top right:

Select track number, and click the red-dot button. Remember, you can only do extraction, when CoolEdit is setup to 44KHz 16 bit stereo. A single track of popular music 3-5 minutes, will eat 40-55MB of your drive.

CD-Audio ripping with other programs:

As I mentioned earlier, CoolEdit won't do IDE, and is not as reliable as other programs. My two favourites are:

Audiograbber by Jackie Franck. Started with 1.41, and is now at ?.?? and:



CD n Go by Jose Mejuto.

Audiograbber is shareware, and you can't select between all tracks, unless you pay. That is, you might have to launch and close several times, to get you track(s) in the checkbox. It is more versatile in respect of settings for your particular configuration, and showing faults as they occur during extraction. It is the fastest ripper I have met. The CD-player function works with Audiovation.

CD and Go was freeware at my last visit. You get a full tracklist. You don't get warnings during extraction, but it is as reliable as Audiograbber in my opinion. CD-Player function works with Audiovation.
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