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Just wondering what the best way to get samples from CD tracks would be.

Would you get better quality samples from:

1) Putting the CD in your disc drive on the computer, and ripping a file.

or

2) Putting the CD in your CD player, and connecting this to your audio interface to record via the DAW.

I'm guessing option 1, but just wanted to check. Presumably it depends on various factors and settings, like sample bitrate? What factors come into play, and what settings would give the best quality sample to use within a production?

I'm just getting into production, so any advice on this or other sampling methods would be well appreciated.

Id say ripping will give you better quality 99.9% of the time.

ripping, only problem is that you would then need to record it on your comp or bypass the read-only aspect; make sure the file isn't getting compressed when you come to that

Rip with Exact Audio Copy (or it's euqivalent depending on your OS) to WAV files and do whatever you want.
Sampling thru CD-player and soundcard will add an unecesserry D/A->A/D step to process.

Cheers for the replies.

Could I just use iTunes to rip the tracks then, as long as I rip them to WAV? Or would that still not give as good a quality rip as a specialist product like Exact Audio Copy? I'm using OSX btw.

I honestly can't imagine needing to use something besides iTunes...

fragments wrote:I honestly can't imagine needing to use something besides iTunes...

Me neither..

Rip tracks from the cd, they go to your iTunes, drag them to daw from there, slice into pieces and bounce to audio.

I have just realised that I've never ripped sounds from other tunes in any of my music.

Actually (in Windows) EAC do the most precise rips (if configured right), that's why I recommended that software.