If you're new to MP3s and Digital Audio Players in general, "ripping" is the techno-babble term for extracting a song from an audio CD and turning it into an MP3 (or like-formatted audio file) which can be played back on a computer or Digital Audio Player (DAP), like the iPod.

While there are many solutions for ripping CD audio to your PC, Apple's iTunes jukebox software offers speed, ease of use, and best of all, no cost. Getting the music from your audio CD collection onto your computer couldn't be simpler. 

In this tutorial, we'll take you through the iTunes music ripping process in three simple steps.

Step 1: Tell iTunes What You Want

Before you begin ripping CDs with iTunes, it's important that the software know what type of audio files you want to create.  There are several types of audio files with various benefits and deficits, but the format most of us know and love is MP3.  To set up iTunes to create MP3 files, open iTunes and browse to the Edit > Preferences menu.  Select the Advanced tab:

In the Advanced menu, select the Importing sub-tab.  This is where you set iTunes to rip audio tracks to the format you would like. 

In the Import Using field, select "MP3 Encoder." This tells iTunes that you want to rip audio into MP3 files (you can also choose AAC or Apple Lossless, but these selections will limit the compatibility of the ripped audio files; MP3 works with everything).

In the Setting drop-down menu, select the audio quality. The "kbps" suffix stands for kilobits per second.  The higher the number of kbps in which an audio file is encoded, the higher quality the audio (this is called bitrate).  We recommend the 160kbps or 192kbps setting (shown above).  The higher the bitrate, the better your music will sound, but higher bitrate also means that ripped files larger.  It's all about size v. quality.  

Once you've set the preferences as you want them, click OK and go back to the main iTunes screen.

Step Two: The iTunes Import CD Function

You've set iTunes to rip audio in the format (MP3, etc.) and quality (192kpbs, etc.) you want.  It's now time to get started transferring audio from a CD to your computer's hard drive. 

With iTunes open, place an audio CD in your computer's optical drive (CD/DVD).  iTunes will scan the CD, download available track information from the Internet (if you're connected), and prepare to rip the audio tracks from the disc using the parameters you gave iTunes in Step 1. 

After scanning the music CD, iTunes will display the title of the CD in the Source area and the audio content of the CD in the main screen.  The soft-button in the lower right-hand corner will also change to Import CD:

A checked blue box to the left of each track name indicates that track has been selected for ripping. If you don't wish to rip the entire CD, check only the songs you wish to rip. We're copying only three songs from our old Matchbox Twenty: Yourself of Someone Like You CD, so we only check the boxes next to those tracks:

After selecting your tracks, click the Import CD button in the lower right-hand corner of the iTunes window:

Once you click the Import CD button, iTunes takes over, automatically running and completing the ripping process.  It's best that you not use your computer during this time, particularly if your computer is not a newer, powerful system:

Step Three: Locate & Manage Ripped Audio

When iTunes has completed the ripping process, the audio tracks will have been copied to your hard drive and automatically show up in your iTunes Library under Music:

Since the ripped tracks are now in your iTunes Library, you can play them in iTunes or drag-and-drop them directly to your iPod. 

But, what if you don't have an iPod and need to use the files with another program? Or perhaps you want to merge the newly-ripped MP3 audio files with your existing MP3 collection?  To do that, you'll need to locate the files on your computer's hard drive.

The first step in locating your ripped tracks is checking to see where iTunes chose to store them.  By default, this location is C:\My Documents\My Music\iTunes\iTunes Music\Artist\Album.  For example, in our case, the three ripped audio tracks are stored in C:\My Documents\My Music\iTunes\iTunes Music\Prince\The Hits\:

If this is not the location your files were ripped to, you can find the location in iTunes by clicking Edit > Preferences > Advanced (tab) and selecting the General sub-tab.  The storage location for ripped and purchased music is shown here, and you can also change the location if you prefer another:

Final Thoughts

Copying songs from your audio CDs to your computer, and eventually to your Digital Audio Player, is an excellent way of having what you want to hear available whenever and wherever you want it.  If you prefer other MP3 jukebox music software, like WinAMP, you can easily add your newly ripped files to its playlist once you know where the MP3 files are stored.

You can experiment with other audio formats like Apple Lossless and AAC; both files will play on your computer and your iPod.  Keep in mind, however, that these audio file types will not play on the vast majority of non-iPod Digital Audio Players.

If you want to copy a large number of CDs to your hard drive and sort the songs out later, use the Import CD and Eject feature.  Again, in the Edit > Preferences > Advanced (tab) > Importing (sub-tab) menu, select Import CD and Eject from the On CD Insert drop-down menu.  This setting will keep you from having to sit at your PC and confirm each rip; each time you insert a music CD while iTunes is running, it will rip the entire CD, add the songs to your library, and eject the disc automatically.

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