Easy CD Ripper, MP3 CD Burner & Converter

8to32 is a small suite of audio tools for ripping CDs and converting music between formats. Easy CD Ripper extracts audio CD tracks to MP3, WAV, WMA, VQF, OGG and APE with excellent output quality and high ripping speed.

Need to make a disc you can play in the car? See the MP3 CD Burner, or read about the awards the software has received. Not sure what separates MP3 from APE or VQF? The About page has a plain-English glossary of every format listed above.

Why a ripper and converter still matter

Even as streaming took over, a lot of people still keep large libraries of audio CDs and loose music files in a mix of formats. Ripping a CD to MP3 or a lossless format keeps a personal, offline copy of music you already own, while a converter lets you move tracks between MP3, WAV, WMA, OGG, APE and AAC so they play on whatever device you happen to use — phone, car stereo, or an older media player that only understands certain formats.

The 8to32 tools were built around that everyday need: extract a CD quickly with good output quality, tidy up the tags, and convert or burn the result with as few clicks as possible. This page preserves information about the software for reference.

Frequently asked questions

Should I rip to MP3 or to a lossless format? MP3 saves a great deal of space and plays on virtually any device, but it is a lossy format, so some audio detail is discarded. A lossless format such as APE or WAV keeps an exact copy of the disc at the cost of much larger files. If a small library matters most, rip to MP3 at a high bitrate; if you want an archival-quality copy, rip to a lossless format and convert to MP3 later only when you need it.

What MP3 bitrate should I use? Higher bitrates sound better but produce bigger files. 320 kbps is the highest standard MP3 bitrate and a common choice for music you want to keep; 192–256 kbps is a sensible balance of quality and file size for everyday listening.

Constant bitrate or variable bitrate? A constant-bitrate (CBR) file spends the same number of bits on every second of audio, whether the passage is a dense chorus or near-silence. A variable-bitrate (VBR) file lets the encoder spend more where the music is complex and less where it is simple, so it usually reaches the same perceived quality in a smaller file — but the figure quoted for a VBR track is an average, not a fixed rate. The trade-off is compatibility: some older hardware players and simpler software estimate a track’s length from its file size and first frame, so a VBR file can show the wrong duration or seek inaccurately. For a computer or a phone, VBR is the more efficient choice; for an old portable or a car deck, plain CBR is the safer one.

Does ripping a CD damage the disc? No. Ripping only reads the disc — it never writes to it — so the original CD is left unchanged. Once the tracks are extracted you can burn them back to a fresh audio CD or copy them to another device.

Why edit ID3 tags, and what does CDDB lookup do? ID3 tags are the small labels stored inside an MP3 file — artist, album, track title, year — and they are what your player shows on screen and what keeps a music library sortable. Easy CD Ripper can fill them in automatically with its free CDDB lookup, which matches the disc against an online database of albums so ripped tracks come out properly named instead of “Track 01”, and the built-in tag editor lets you correct anything the lookup misses.

Why does a ripped track have clicks or skips in it? Almost always because the drive could not read part of the disc cleanly. Dust, fingerprints and fine scratches scatter the laser, and the faster the drive spins the less time it has to re-read a damaged spot — so the failure ends up in the file as a click, a stutter or a burst of noise. Wipe the disc with a soft dry cloth, wiping from the centre straight out to the edge rather than around in circles, then re-rip just the affected track at a slower speed. If the same passage fails every time, the damage is physical rather than dirt, and another drive will sometimes read what yours cannot.