What's New in LP Ripper

Version 9

Analyse Tracks 

An improved technique for analysing tracks has been implemented. This should result in fewer errors when trying to locate indistinct track gaps that are found on some recordings. 

The Sensitivity and Automatic options settings have been replaced by Analyse preferences specifying minimum values for Track gap and Track length.

Trim Tracks

The Trim Tracks window is resizable - up to full screen if required.

• Changes in window width alter the width of both the upper display (all tracks) and the lower display (the currently selected track).
• Changes in window height alter the height of the lower display.
• The displays are drawn significantly faster than they were previously.
• The size and position of the Trim Tracks window are remembered from one LP Ripper session to the next.

Copy / Paste / Edit Track Names

There are three new items on the Edit menu: Copy Track Names, Paste Track Names and Edit Track Names.

• Copy Track Names copies all the track names to the Windows clipboard. Subsequently they could be used in a CD labelling program, to print on a CD jewel case insert etc.
• Paste Track Names enables you to update all the track names from a track listing previously copied to the Windows clipboard from e.g. a website or database of track listings.
• Edit Track Names allows you to modify the existing track names in a text editing window.

Opening Files

• The list of most recently used files under the File > Open menu automatically excludes files which have since been deleted.  
• A preferences option allows you to specify the number of files that should be included in the most recently used list. Four is the default. Zero causes the list to be hidden.
• The File > Open dialog box displays WAV files only. The corresponding tracks (TRK) files are used if they exist, but do not appear in the dialog.

More WAV file variations supported

WAV files from a wider variety of sources e.g. Broadcast Wave files from digital recorders etc. are supported.

Version 8

Windows Vista Support

LP Recorder v8.5 and later is supported on Windows Vista as well as Windows 98 / ME and XP. 

The following Windows Vista features are supported:

• New style File Open / Save dialogs with search bars
• The new standard Segoe UI 9pt font

and, if your version of Windows Vista and your computer system have sufficient capabilities:

• Taskbar thumbnail previews
• Windows Flip thumbnail previews and Flip3D previews
• Translucent Aero Glass window borders

On earlier versions of Windows the standard Tahoma 8pt font is used.

Windows Media Player 11 Support

WAV files created using Windows Media Player 11 are supported.

Menus and Toolbars

Four different visual menu styles can be chosen to match your version of Windows and other Microsoft applications.

• Standard - As used in Windows 98 and Windows ME
• XP - As used in standard Windows XP applications
• Flat - As used in Microsoft Office XP
• Office 2003 - As used in Microsoft Office 2003

The four most recently opened files are now more convenient to access from the main File menu instead of a sub-menu.

The toolbars on the main LP Ripper screen and Trim Tracks screen can optionally be displayed with large icons for better visibility.

Equal-length Tracks

When LP Ripper analyses a recording to split it into tracks you can choose between the standard method, to split by detecting the silent gaps between tracks, or by the new method which allows you to create a specified number of equal-length tracks. This method of splitting tracks is useful for recordings which do not have clearly defined silent gaps between tracks e.g. spoken word recordings. Using this method, a one-hour recording of a lecture on a cassette tape or mini-disc could be split into twelve 5-minute tracks to be able to jump conveniently to different sections during playback.

Increased Track Limit

The number of tracks that can be created from a recording, by LP Ripper, has been increased from 64 to 99.

Trim Tracks

The playing marker indicates playing progress in the upper display showing all of the tracks, as well as in the single-track lower display. This is useful for locating the start / end of tracks, by listening, when large adjustments have to be made. Setting the preview length to 0 allows you to preview to play the selected track without a time limit.

If sections of recording before the start of the first track and after the end of the last have been trimmed, they are shown in grey on the overall tracks display.

Preview Tracks

The playing state (playing or paused) is shown in the status bar.
 

Version 7

Encoder Preferences

There are additional capabilities on the Encoder Preferences screen depending on which encoder you are using:

MP3 Information

The MP3 information combo box lets you control how much information about the track is stored with the MP3 file as an ID3 Tag. ID3 Tag information helps you to identify tracks when you play them in MP3 players that are capable of displaying the information e.g. Windows Media Player.

There are four possible options:

• None

No track information is saved.

• Track title and number only

The number and title of each track as listed in LP Ripper is automatically added to the MP3 file after it has been encoded.

• All - prompt for each track

Select this option if you want to store information in addition to the track name and number, and have a mixture of tracks from different LPs in your WAV file.

Whenever you encode a group of tracks, you will be prompted for the Artist name, Album title, Year, Genre (e.g. Pop, Rock, Classical, Jazz etc), the number and title of each track, and an optional comment. The prompt will appear for each track, before it is encoded, allowing you to enter different information for each track.

The default number of each track corresponds to its position in the list of tracks. The name of each track will default to the name as shown in LP Ripper.

The information that you enter is automatically added to the MP3 file after it has been encoded.

• All - prompt once for all tracks

Select this option if you want the same information, apart from track name and number, stored for all tracks in your WAV file.

Whenever you encode a group of tracks, you will be prompted for the Artist name, Album title, Year, Genre (e.g. Pop, Rock, Classical, Jazz etc), the number of the first track, and an optional comment. The prompt will appear once, just before the first track is encoded.

The default number of the first track corresponds to its position in the list of tracks. If you change this track number, the remaining tracks will be renumbered by the corresponding amount. e.g. if you number the first track 6, the second track will be numbered 7, the third, 8 etc. The name of each track is set to the name as shown in LP Ripper.

The information that you enter is automatically added to the MP3 file after it has been encoded.

Audio Quality

The Audio Quality slider bar lets you control the size and quality of the MP3 or WMA file. It is measured as an encoding rate of Kilobytes per second (Kbps). There are five possible settings from 64 Kbps to 192 Kbps. The smaller values result in smaller files but the resulting audio quality is not as good. The default value of 128 Kbps results in a good compromise between size and quality.

Custom Encoder

The Custom Encoder preferences allow you to configure encoders to use compressed file formats other than MP3 or WMA.
 

Version 6

Windows XP Themes

LP Ripper now has the new look and feel of Windows XP and makes full use of Windows XP themes, menu appearance and enhanced common controls.  The screenshots on the CFB Software website and in the Help file are taken from a system running on Windows XP.  An option allows you to select the traditional menu and toolbar look and feel, if you prefer.

This version of LP Ripper is also compatible with the older operating systems Windows 98, Windows ME and Windows 2000, and it is still fully supported on those systems. LP Ripper automatically determines which system it is running on and uses the appropriate controls.

Trim Tracks

The Trim Tracks feature has a number of useful enhancements and additional features that allow virtually all editing tasks to be done from the Trim Tracks display.

• Single-click on the mouse left-button in the upper tracks display to select a track. The track start / end marker nearest to the mouse cursor becomes the active marker.
   
• Single-click on the mouse left-button in the lower tracks display to make the track marker jump to the position of the mouse cursor. This can be used as a quick way to drag the track marker.
   
• The track start and end times can be entered directly as well as by using the spin buttons or dragging the track markers. The correct time format mm:ss.s, must be used as displayed. For example, 3:05, 4:19.2 etc.
   
• The name of the track can be changed.
   
• A new tool bar includes the new Merge Previous, Merge Next  and existing Split Tracks functions so you don't have to go back to the main menu to use them. You can see the result of the merge or split instantly on the graphical display.
   
• The tool bar also includes a new function Join Tracks. Use this if you have adjusted the end marker of one track and want the start marker of the next track to be moved to the same position - or vice versa. The current track marker is the one that is adjusted.
   
• The tool bar functions are also available on a popup menu on this screen with shortcut keys for quick keyboard use.
   
• The OK button is no longer the default button, to minimise the chance of exiting the screen unintentionally.
   
• The player control keyboard shortcuts have been changed to avoid clashes with data entry and are now more compatible with Windows Media Player.
   

  Ctrl+P	Play / Pause
  Ctrl+S	Stop
  Ctrl+B	Previous track (Back)
  Ctrl+F	Next track (Forward)

  
  

• The Previous and Next controls are disabled for the start of the first track and the end of the last track respectively.
   
• Fade can also be previewed when the preview is unlimited (zero seconds).

Split and Merge Tracks

• Merge tracks has been replaced with two commands, Merge Previous and Merge Next to make it clearer which tracks are being merged.
   
• Split Tracks has been enhanced to split the track at the position which is most likely to be a gap. If there are no gaps identified, the track is split in the middle as before.

Analyse Tracks

If you have trimmed the start of the first track and the end of the last track they are no longer reset back to the start and end of the recording when Analyse Tracks is run a second or subsequent times.  Any sounds before the start of the first track or the end of the last track are simply ignored.

This is most useful when there is a long period of silence (more than 20 seconds, say) at the beginning or end of a recording. This spurious silence can swamp the true track gaps and make it difficult for LP Ripper to identify them properly.

With Version 6, when analysing a recording with long leading or trailing silences, you should get better results if you:

1. Run Analyse Tracks.

2. Use Trim Tracks to move the start of the first track and end of the last track to their correct positions.

3. Run Analyse Tracks again.

Preview Tracks

• The Preview Tracks function can be used to preview a track from any starting point using the track bar slider control. The total time of the track and the time remaining to play are displayed and continuously updated.
   
• If you have more than one audio device installed you can select which one to use from Preferences → Options → Settings → Playback Device. This setting is independent of your default Windows playback device.
   
• The player control keyboard shortcuts have been changed to be more compatible with Trim Tracks preview and Windows Media Player.
   

  Ctrl+P	Play / Pause
  Ctrl+S	Stop
  Ctrl+B	Previous track (Back)
  Ctrl+F	Next track (Forward)

  
  

• The Previous and Next controls are disabled for the first track and the last track respectively.

Other Enhancements

• The tracks file, if present, is automatically located and used whenever the related WAV file is opened.
  
  
• When the cursor is positioned on a menu item, button or other control, a short help message, describing its use, appears in the status bar of the main screen. An option allows you to suppress these messages if you prefer.
   
• The Preferences function is a single choice on the new Options menu.
   
• The Connect All button in the Edit Tracks function has been renamed to Join All and its functionality changed to be more consistent with the Trim Tracks Join function. The start of each track is repositioned to coincide with the end of the previous track and the length of each track is adjusted accordingly.
   
• The list of four most recently opened files on the File menu has been moved to a separate File → Reopen submenu.
   
• A separate online step by step Quick Start Guide is included to help newcomers with their first recording.
   
• The screen positions of the Trim Tracks, Preferences and Preset Encoder Preferences windows are remembered and reused from session to session.
   
• The Preset Encoder Preferences screen is resizable to accommodate long encoder command lines. The number of possible custom entries has been doubled to 20.
   
• Troubleshooting section in the Help file.
   
• Support for WMA 9 encoder is detailed in the Help file.
   
• The CFB Software website can be accessed directly from the Help menu.

Trial Version Limitation

• The trial version save / encode limit of 25 seconds per track has been removed but only the first two tracks can be saved or encoded.
   

Version 5

Fade In / Fade Out

When trimming tracks you can adjust the amount of fade-in / fade-out for each individual track. This is useful for fading the applause on live recordings, or to avoid sudden cutoffs when the original tracks run into each other. The fade can be instantly previewed to hear the resulting effect.

MP3 and WMA Encoder Support

WMA (Windows Media Audio) is Microsoft?s alternative format to MP3 files for compressing music files as promoted in Windows XP / Media Player 8. LP Ripper uses the Microsoft WMA encoder utility to produce WMA files in a similar way to how it encodes MP3 files.

Encoder setup is now much simpler when using the recommended encoders Fraunhofer?s FastEnc and Microsoft?s WMA encoder utility. However, you can still use Custom setups using other encoders if preferred.

Improved Ease of Use

The Files menu lists the four most-recently opened files to make it easier to re-open them.

Preview length value can be typed in directly as well as incremented.

F2 function key can be used to change track names.

CTRL-O and CTRL-S can be used as hot keys for Open and Save.

The Space, Period, Page Down and Page Up keys can be used as an alternative to the existing buttons to control the preview player functions Play / Pause, Stop, Next and Previous in the Preview Tracks and Trim Tracks functions.

Merge and Split tracks has been included on the popup menu for convenience.

New popup menu functions Select All and Select None allow you to quickly change the selection of tracks to be saved or encoded.

Preferences

Default selections for tracks to be saved and encoded can be set to All or None.

Default fade-in and fade-out values can be saved.

Tool Tips can be switched off if preferred.

New Help System

The on-line help has been rewritten to use Microsoft?s HTML Help system. You can now directly access the CFB Software website from the Help file.

Improved Reliability

The Trim Preview has been completely redesigned to eliminate intermittent playback tracking problems.

Some third-party programs (e.g. Creative's WaveStudio, Steinberg's Wavelab etc.) can create WAV files with extended non-standard, or application-specific, header information. LP Ripper is now able to process a number of these without problems.

WAV files larger than 2Gb (3 Hours and 20 Minutes+) are rejected with a suitable error message.

Invalid track filenames are reported with a suitable error message.