Post An iPod system for Linux - Part 2 - Using Sound Juicer to squeeze out that music

In previous posts, we discussed the ipod firmware, and talked in general about how to replicate the functions of iTunes in Linux.

In this post we will setup the Sound Juicer application to extract songs from a CD and save them to MP3 so they can go onto an iPod.

Sound Juicer is the default Gnome CD audio extraction ('ripping') tool. On my machine (a Gentoo AMD64 box), I had Sound Juicer and Lame (mp3 support) already installed. If you do not then you need to get them from your distro's normal package management system.

So I was almost good to go, except that Sound Juicer needs to be told that you want to use MP3s. It is theoretically possible that your distro may have already done this step for you. If it has then please do let me know using the comments.

1 Open 'Sound Juicer'

I had to click 'Applications' then "Sound & Video" then 'Sound Juicer CD Extractor'.

2. Open the Preferences Window.

Then we need to click on 'Edit' then 'Preferences'.

3. Maybe it just works?

At the bottom of the panel, you will see 'Output Format', as in the screenshot above (click on the screenshots to enlarge). For me, MP3 was not an option yet. If it is for you then select it and you are done, skip to step 6. Otherwise, we need to add MP3.

4. Make a new profile.

You need to click on 'Edit Profiles', then click 'New'. Give it a name, I chose "MP3, Lossy, for iPod'.

5. Edit the new profile.

Now select the new profile and click 'Edit'. You will see a window like the following:

The top two fields can be anything. For the next field, enter the following:

audio/x-raw-int,rate=44100,channels=2 ! lame name=enc*

(Thanks for Jacob Emcken for that tip).

The last field has to be mp3.

Tick the Active box and the press okay. You now have MP3 avaliable as an option:

Close this and go back to the preferences window.

6. Choose the Preferences

Now choose MP3 as the output format. Then choose where you want the extracted music to go ('music folder', then close the Preferences Window.

Now this first part is done. We can now extract songs and they will be saved as mp3s, ready for your iPod.

5 thoughts on “An iPod system for Linux - Part 2 - Using Sound Juicer to squeeze out that music”

I usually use <a class="reference external" href="http://nostatic.org/grip/">Grip</a> for Audio CD extraction, although I think it might be a
bit more confusing to people who are new to Linux!

i use cdfs kernel module ( <a class="reference external" href="http://trappist.elis.ugent.be/~ronsse/cdfs/">http://trappist.elis.ugent.be/~ronsse/cdfs/</a>) and
once media is mounted i run from gnu bash: for i in <a href="#id1">*</a>.wav; do lame -mj -b 320
$i /tmp/$i.mp3; done
That tastes more unix
<div class="system-message" id="id1">
System Message: WARNING/2 (<tt class="docutils"><string></tt>, line 1); <a href="#id2">backlink</a>
Inline emphasis start-string without end-string.</div>

Usually I rip CDs from the command line using cdparanoia and then convert
them to MP3s using lame;
$ cdparanoia -B
$ #several mv statements
$ for i in <a href="#id1">*</a>; do lame -h $i && rm $i; done
<div class="system-message" id="id1">
System Message: WARNING/2 (<tt class="docutils"><string></tt>, line 4); <a href="#id2">backlink</a>
Inline emphasis start-string without end-string.</div>
KDE users can also just type audiocd<img src="/static/forum/img/smilies/hmm.png"> in Konqueror with a music CD in the
drive. This gives several virtual directories, containing the CD tracks in
.wav, .ogg and .mp3 formats.

hi...
Agree...

Big thanks to AJS. The command line solution he offers works for me perfectly
-- though I wish I could see how to automate renaming the files produced from
track01.cdda.wav to symph5_cmin_op67_i.allegro-con-brio.wav and so on.
And why did I prefer the cli solution? Apart from its simplicity and
unixiness, because none of the gui ways worked. For me, sound juicer produced
garbage files, in some cases larger than the original track, and grip
produced white noise. As to Konqueror, it just shouted "Protocol not
supported - audiocd". So as usual, if the gui gizmos let you down, go back to
cli!

Phill on October 13, 2006 at 08:21 a.m. said:

I usually use <a class="reference external" href="http://nostatic.org/grip/">Grip</a> for Audio CD extraction, although I think it might be a
bit more confusing to people who are new to Linux!
_JusSx_ on October 13, 2006 at 06:52 p.m. said:

i use cdfs kernel module ( <a class="reference external" href="http://trappist.elis.ugent.be/~ronsse/cdfs/">http://trappist.elis.ugent.be/~ronsse/cdfs/</a>) and
once media is mounted i run from gnu bash: for i in <a href="#id1">*</a>.wav; do lame -mj -b 320
$i /tmp/$i.mp3; done
That tastes more unix
<div class="system-message" id="id1">
System Message: WARNING/2 (<tt class="docutils"><string></tt>, line 1); <a href="#id2">backlink</a>
Inline emphasis start-string without end-string.</div>
AJS on November 20, 2006 at 03:19 p.m. said:

Usually I rip CDs from the command line using cdparanoia and then convert
them to MP3s using lame;
$ cdparanoia -B
$ #several mv statements
$ for i in <a href="#id1">*</a>; do lame -h $i && rm $i; done
<div class="system-message" id="id1">
System Message: WARNING/2 (<tt class="docutils"><string></tt>, line 4); <a href="#id2">backlink</a>
Inline emphasis start-string without end-string.</div>
KDE users can also just type audiocd<img src="/static/forum/img/smilies/hmm.png"> in Konqueror with a music CD in the
drive. This gives several virtual directories, containing the CD tracks in
.wav, .ogg and .mp3 formats.
link on August 2, 2007 at 01:43 p.m. said:

hi...
Agree...
Richard Lyons on August 21, 2007 at 08:37 a.m. said:

Big thanks to AJS. The command line solution he offers works for me perfectly
-- though I wish I could see how to automate renaming the files produced from
track01.cdda.wav to symph5_cmin_op67_i.allegro-con-brio.wav and so on.
And why did I prefer the cli solution? Apart from its simplicity and
unixiness, because none of the gui ways worked. For me, sound juicer produced
garbage files, in some cases larger than the original track, and grip
produced white noise. As to Konqueror, it just shouted "Protocol not
supported - audiocd". So as usual, if the gui gizmos let you down, go back to
cli!

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An iPod system for Linux - Part 2 - Using Sound Juicer to squeeze out that music

5 thoughts on “An iPod system for Linux - Part 2 - Using Sound Juicer to squeeze out that music”