Making MP3s from CDs

Clearing up some myths

Ripping software has moved on enough that a full click-by-click walkthrough isn't really needed any more — most modern ripping tools (iTunes/Apple Music, and equivalents) handle this well out of the box. What's stayed useful is the background on bitrates and re-encoding.

You can only get poop from poop

If you're handed an MP3 encoded at 128kbps, that's the ceiling of its quality — re-encoding it to 320kbps doesn't recover any lost detail, it just produces a larger file that still sounds like a 128kbps file. Re-encoding a low-resolution source can actively make it sound worse, not better, so it's not worth the drive space.

Running a low-quality file through an audio editor with some corrective EQ before re-encoding can sometimes help it sound a little better in isolation — but a straight up-res on its own achieves nothing.

WAV/AIFF is still the best starting point

Given the choice, and a fast enough connection, always download the uncompressed WAV or AIFF version over a lossy MP3 — you can always encode down to MP3 afterwards if you need to, but you can't get detail back once it's gone. WAV and AIFF consistently hold up better in a club sound system, even a well set-up one.

Not everyone has MP3-capable decks

Worth planning for: some clubs still only take standard audio CDs. That's two separate problems — turning up with only MP3 CDs and not being able to play at all, and (if you're used to browsing a couple of hundred MP3s on a handful of discs) suddenly having to navigate 20-30 regular audio CDs instead. Research the booth before you arrive.

Think about how you label things

If you print CD labels or use printable discs, plan what information actually fits. On audio CDs I keep to around seven tunes per disc (including remixes, so often closer to 20 tracks total) and pair that with a printed inlay, so I'm not relying purely on memory to know what's on which disc.