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Pillage sub-navigation: Introduction :: Summary :: Requirements :: A walk through (video) :: A walk through (text) :: Notes :: Download :: Buy via Paypal

 

BREAKING NEWS: Version 1.1 of Pillage is coming VERY shortly. This is a significant upgrade to the base code, and makes the program compatible with both OS X 10.5.x, and the latest iTunes. Keep watching this space for the new version!

 

Pillage. The Introduction.

Most people that use Mac OS X rip their CDs using iTunes. Most people are happy doing that. If you have perfect CDs and flawless CD/DVD drives in your computer, and iTunes is set to use error correction, you are golden - right? Wrong.

Our friends using the Linux operating system have an excellent programs for ripping proper, secure (read: glitch/error/pop free) sound files from their CDs: CDParanoia. While not the prettiest program in the world (the application runs via a shell, with no real graphical user interface [gui]), it does the job...and very well.

Windows users also have great applications for secure ripping: EAC and CDex (which uses the CDParanoia program). Doesn't really help us Mac users, though.

While there is currently one application on OS X that uses CDParanoia, I wanted something simplier. Enter Tobias Sargeant, who ported the Linux version of CDParanoia to OS X, and Stefan Schüßler, who wrote an installer for Mr Sargeant's OS X port. These two men, putting hard work into getting CDParanoia ported onto OS X, made it possible for me to create Pillage.

As a DJ who uses ScratchLive when I spin, I need all of my music on my hard drive. Unlike some of my fellow DJ's, I go for quality in my files. Instead of mp3 files, I only spin AIFF files (can't put iTunes tags in a WAV file). When I ripped a CD, I always used iTunes error correction. I thought this was fine, until I started playing back some of the rips I did using the stock drives in my Macs. Glitch. Pop. Error. This would not be good while spinning at a club. I had ripped over 400 gig before I became too frustrated with bad rips, and looked into a better solution. Little did I know that I would have to write a program myself!

Apple's Xcode, weeks of coding, lack of sleep, and a strong desire to get a truly GUI version of CDParanoia. The drive behind Pillage!

 

Pillage. The Summary.

What this program essentially does is bypass iTunes for ripping CDs. You put a CD into your Mac, and set the info you want for the Song Name and Song Artist fields in iTunes. Switch to Pillage, enter the remaining info in the "Rip CDs Here" panel, and "Rip CD". When done, the program will put your CD rips into iTunes for you, rename the files properly, and delete the temporary rip files. Easy!

 

Pillage. The Requirements.

I tried to make this as easy and bulletproof as possible (well...as bulletproof as AppleScripting allows). To get Pillage running, you will need:

• A Mac, running System 10.3.9 or better (preferably better)
• Stefan Schüßler's port of CDParanoia installed
• iTunes, version 7.2 or better
• Terminal (this comes with your Mac)
• A lot of hard drive space...

 

Pillage. A walk through (video).

 

I have created five video tutorials for Pillage. I suggest you view the videos, and read the text walk through, before launching Pillage. Pillage is easy to operate, but it never hurts to be prepared.

Video Tutorial #1 - The Checklist

view in new window :: download video (mp4 video :: 13.0 meg)

Video Tutorial #2 - The Hard Drive

view in new window :: download video (mp4 video :: 8.2 meg)

Video Tutorial #3 - Name And Artist Metadata

view in new window :: download video (mp4 video :: 15.3 meg)

Video Tutorial #4 - Rip The CD

view in new window :: download video (mp4 video :: 11.5 meg)

Video Tutorial #5 - Emergency Panel

view in new window :: download video (mp4 video :: 29.7 meg)

 

Pillage. A walk through (text).

Before you start up Pillage, you should check to see if you have the following items set. While the program will check for you when you first start up, and will alert you of any possible errors, it never hurts to be prepared.

The check list. Note that Pillage will alert you if any of the following are not done, and will fix all of the below items, except launching iTunes and Terminal, and opening a terminal window with Terminal. When you click "Start Application Checklist", the following is some of what Pillage is checking for...

• Make sure you have properly installed Stefan Schüßler's CDParanoia application.
• Make sure iTunes and Terminal (found inside the "Utilities" folder of the "Applications" folder) are running.
• Make sure your version of iTunes is v7.2 or newer, and you are running OS X v10.3.0 or better (preferably better). How do you make sure? With iTunes running, go to the "iTunes" menu bar item, and select "About iTunes". For the OS X operating system, go to the Apple icon at the top left of the menu bar, and select "About This Mac".
• Enable GUI scripting. While Pillage will offer to set this for you, you can do this yourself as well. Launch "System Preferences", then click on the "Universal Access" icon. When that panl loads, at the bottom you will see, at the bottom of the screen, a checkbox with the text "Enable access for assistive devices" next to it. Enable that!
• Make sure that the Terminal application has a window open, and that in the preferences for that window ("File => Set Title..." in the menu bar) has the "Active Process Name" checkbox ticked.
• This is a key item to do BEFORE running Pillage! Go to iTunes, and from the "File" menu item, select "New Smart Playlist...". Be sure to configure it EXACTLY as you see in the screenshot. The playlist must be set to match any Name that contains the name .cdda (please note that period), and the playlist MUST be named "Pillage". Basically, set the window up to look exactly like the screenshot below, and you will be fine.

click to enlarge
 
• Pillage works with the Smart Playlist to rename the ripped files. To do so, it needs to do some seriously intense GUI scripting. When the program is running this step, it is just confirming that it knows which tab it will be clicking. This is not something you need to concern yourself with. Note, though, that this is one of the key reasons why you enabled GUI scripting.
• We all like to keep an organized iTunes Music folder, don't we? Well...you should! Pillage will only work if this feature is checked, so do it! :)

How to use Pillage. OK. You read all of the above, let it sink in, and are ready to get ripping. Double click the "Pillage" button icon (backstory: the button is the fire button from a Galaga video game), and fire up the program. You will immediately be greeted with a two panel window. Within "Start Here First", you will see a "Start Application Checklist" button. This automagically runs through everything mentioned in the above check list. If the program encounters a problem during the checklist, it will tell you. After you run the checklist, you need to Set the CDParanoia AIFF Temp File Folder. In other words, you need to select a folder that has at least 800 MB free on it. This is where the temporary CDParanoia rips go. Basically, when you use this program, you will essentially need double the hard drive space for a disc (up to 800MB to rip, and then another 800MB space to copy to iTunes). I recommend you use a very large hard drive, as you will be more than likely ripping a LOT of CDs!

Rip CDs Here. When you put a CD into your Mac, it will come up in your iTunes. From there, set the Song Name and Song Artist information however you want it (either manually, or from the CDDB). Now, go to Pillage, and enter the additional information requested. If all you want to put is the "Album Title", that is fine. Personally, I put all the remaining tag information into the "Album Title" field. For example, when ripping The Beatles "Love", I enter the following:

Album Artist: The Beatles
Album Title: Love
Record Label: Apple / Capitol
CD Catalog Number: 0946 3 79810 2 3
Country Of Manufacture: US
Format: CD

When done, the tag will be formatted like so: "Love (Apple / Capitol US CD 0946 3 79810 2 3)" (without quotes). You have the ability to preview how the tag will look within the application. Also, you have a few other options...

Fix Mix Name Parenthesis. When I rip my CDs, I get very particular on how the formatting of the Song Name field is done. I prefer a track to be formatted like this: (Set Me Free) Remotivate Me [Release Mix]. If the song name has some words in parenthesis, they should remain that way. However, when listing mixes, I prefer brackets for the mix title. If you do as well, the Fix Mix Name Parenthesis button is for you. Simply select the CD playlist in iTunes, then click this button. It will either fix the songs you have pre-selected, or all of the tracks.

Add Text To End Of Song Name. Sometimes, you may be ripping a live CD, or some other type of CD where you wish to add the same information to the end of every Song Name. Well, simply click this button, and enter the text you want added, and the program will add it for you. Use caution when typing. If you make a typo, and hit enter, that typo will pop up on every track of the CD you are about to rip. Then you'll have to re-type the text manually on each track. Boo!

Rip CD. Finally, when you are ready, click the Rip CD button. You will see the Terminal window pop up, and a lot of text start appearing. That is CDParanoia running. The CDParanoia app with Terminal will display a progress bar while it is running. It will also display smilies based on the progress of the program. An example:

(== PROGRESS == [ - -   +    e -- V  ! --->  | 013422 01 ] == :-) 0 ==)

Within the progress bar, you will see a > character scroll across. That is the actual progress of the rip. Within the area the > scrolls, you will see the following (taken from the actual CDParanoia F.A.Q.):

"-"  A hyphen indicates that two blocks overlapped properly, but they were skewed (frame jitter). This case is completely corrected by Paranoia and is not a cause for concern.
"+"  A plus indicates not only frame jitter, but an unreported, uncorrected loss of streaming in the middle of an atomic read operation. That is, the drive lost its place while reading data, and restarted in some random incorrect location without alerting the kernel. This case is also corrected by Paranoia.
"e"  An 'e' indicates that a transport level SCSI or ATAPI error was caught and corrected. Paranoia will completely repair such an error without audible defects.
"X"  An "X" indicates a scratch was caught and corrected. CDParanoia wil interpolate over any missing/corrupt samples.
"*"  An asterisk indicates a scratch and jitter both occurred in this general area of the read. CDParanoia wil interpolate over any missing/corrupt samples.
"!"  A ! indicates that a read error got through the stage one of error correction and was caught by stage two. Many '!' are a cause for concern; it means that the drive is making continuous silent errors that look identical on each re-read, a condition that can't always be detected. Although the presence of a '!' means the error was corrected, it also means that similar errors are probably passing by unnoticed. Upcoming releases of CDParanoia will address this issue.
"V"  A V indicates a skip that could not be repaired or a sector totally obliterated on the medium (hard read error). A 'V' marker generally results in some audible defect in the sample. What does this all boil down to for you? Spaces, "-" "!" or "+" are more or less ok, but anything else, and your CD is probably toast.

Locking up. If, while the Terminal is active, and CDParanoia is ripping, it appears to stall, just let it do its thing for a minute or two. It might be trying hard to fix an error on your disc. If, after a few minutes, you find yourself just sitting there, just hit "control key" + "c" to cancel the rip on Terminal (or, use the "Hard Stop CDParanoia" button in the "Emergency Items" tab of "Pillage"). This will cause Pillage to stop. If you are comfortable with Terminal CDParanoia ripping, you can try other methods to rip the disc.

Done ripping. When CDParanoia (in Terminal) is done ripping, it will then start the magic. The CD ripped tracks will import into iTunes (into your pre-set iTunes Music folder location). When done importing, the tracks will go to the pre-made Pillage Smart Playlist, where the re-naming and re-tagging will occur. When done, the CD will eject, and you will be ready to rip another CD!

 

Pillage. The Notes.

For many weeks, I have tried this on many different Macs, using both built in CD/DVD drives, as well as external drives. I have tried to catch any bugs, but there could always be something I missed. So far, the only real notes I have are this:

• Always run the checklist and set the temp aiff folder path BEFORE ripping!
• Sometimes, there is just a CD that will not rip. As of April 11th, 2008, I have ripped well over 3,000 CDs using my little application. Only four (4) CDs have truly tanked. When that happens, a "control" + "c" cancel within Terminal is necessary (or, use the "Hard Stop CDParanoia" button in the "Emergency Items" tab of "Pillage").
• I have tried to allow for all speeds of computers. Some slower (older) computers might have issues where the script might run too fast. With that said, one of the computers in the testing process was a G4/867, and everything went smoothly.
• This one might seem off, but here goes. When ripping...try not to touch anything. Yes, I know, this seems a bit unusual, but "Pillage" does a fair amount of typing for you within the "Terminal" program. As such, if you type at the same time, the commands will more than likely get messed up. When Terminal first comes up, until CDParanoia (within Terminal) actually starts running, just don't type anything. After CDParanoia starts up, you will be fine.
• I strongly suggest the that temporary directory/folder you select for ripping the Terminal CDParanoia files is NOT the same as your iTunes Music folder. As I use "do shell script" commands to delete the temp files, there could be a risk of accidential deletion of the files you want to keep!
• I have not tested Pillage on systems that have the ability to have two or more CDs mounted at the same time. As such, I would recommend only having one CD mounted at a time. DO NOT run Pillage with more than one CD mounted.

Legal stuffs. This program comes "as-is". There is no warrantly expressed or implied. I am not associated with xiph.org, or the CDParanoia library (which is a trademark of xiph.org). I am not associated with Apple Computer (whose Terminal, OS X operating system and iTunes applications are also trademarked). This is merely a program that controls "CDParanoia" within the OS X Terminal, and the OS X version of iTunes. The CDParanoia binary is not included within Pillage.

 

Pillage. The Download.

Before running pillage, you must install Stefan Schüßler's CDParanoia Installer for OS X

Version History:
• Version 1.02 (May 13th, 2008): Additional English specific calls were removed. Also, calling the "CDParanoia" application uses a full path (/usr/local/bin/cdparanoia), instead of just typing "cdparanoia" at the prompt, to work more universally with alternate Terminal settings.
• Version 1.01 (May 7th, 2008): First paying customer Lenina pointing out the fact that the world does not exclusively use the English language (d'oh!). Application System Event menu calls converted to language nonspecific calls. Addressed an issue with the AXSortDirection of the playlist window in the latest version of iTunes (v7.6.2). And, I must say, I was tempted to make this v1.02, just so I didn't have a comparison to my day job.
• Version 1.00 (initial release - May 1st, 2008)

 

Pillage. Buy via Paypal.

The original CDParanoia is freeware. iTunes and Terminal come for free on your Mac. So - why should you pay for Pillage? Simple. I have put a lot of work into creating this application, and wouldn't mind a few dollars for my work. Seriously - I gave CDParanoia a GUI on OS X. That isn't worth $10 to you. :)

The software is being supplied as a fully functional application, instead of a feature-limited format. As such, you can get right to ripping. After you get used to the program, and notice how well your CD rips sound, I would ask that you send me a $10 thank you via Paypal. You could use it free forever, but then that isn't good Karma. Think about it. After all the hard work on this, I could have just kept the program to myself, but - no - I did not. I am sharing it with the internet. $10 ain't that bad. C'mon. While you are at it, send thank you emails to xiph.org, Tobias Sargeant and Stefan Schüßler for the hard work they put into the CDParanoia project. Also, a special thanks to Doug for looking over some of my code. I discovered a new way of doing something. Yay me! :)