Ripping Metallica

[neo]

All:

Does anyone here have a line on whether Lars is going to put some kind of copy protection on the new cd to prevent ripping? Granted, it won't work regardless, but I am just wondering what to expect. Thanks.

n

[bhauke]

I was wondering the same thing myself. Guess we'll have to wait until Thursday to find out.

Butch

[jabberwock]

I've got a copy and it rips fine. It is a promo though so it may be different for the finished product. edit: actually its just a sampler, with some tracks of ST Anger and some old stuff..... so ?????

Incidentally they played a festival last week here in the UK called the Download festival - haha.

[SouthsideIrish]

Everything I listen to is copy-protected and normally EAC rips them just fine, but occasionally I have to use CDex. CDex is the best at getting some of the nasty copyprotected disks.

BTW, but they end of the year there is supposed to be some form of Macrovision that will be added to most, if not all disks, coming from the major labels in the U.S., so I'm not sure if EAC or CDex will be able to handle these. Oh, and the copy protection uses in Japan is a data track that contains a CD player for use on you computer.

Bill McNair

[neo]

All:

OK, I figured out that they are using positive reinforcement (various additional material) instead of negative reinforcement (copy protection).

southside:

I have heard about Macrovision/US/end of 2003. Should be interesting. There is a paper here:

http://www.cs.princeton.edu/~jhalderm/papers/drm2002.pdf

that basically says that all copy protection to date depends on faulty implementations of the cd standards, so good standards-compliant drives and some decent error checking can overcome all of it. Lessons:

* Use Plextor drives
* Very few of the ripping packages for windoze work well
* Using Linux and cdparanoia is your best bet

It should be interesting to see if this changes with the new Macrosoft scheme, or not.

n

[davebach172]

@SouthsideIrish

I got a couple of CD's from a cheap UK online site and they have their own CD player that fires up when put in a PC. CDex cant rip them - do you know of a program that will?

I really want to get the latest massive attack and turin brakes on my pod! - Stupid situation really, when I buy a CD but can't use it, and the only way to get it the way I want it is to be dodgy and download it and not buy the album. :(

[IlIlIlIlIl]

just download it off Kazaa in MP3!!! I'm sure Lars won't mind :D

[SouthsideIrish]

Well, generally I rip everything with EAC now. Up until about two months ago I was using CDex, since it was the only program capable of ripping Japanese CD's. But it looks like EAC has updated their program to handle them as well. Occasionally I run into a cd that gives me problems so then I switch players and programs until I come up with a combination that will rip them. It's kind of strange but sometime EAC and my CD-RW works best, and sometimes its CDex and my DVD player.

Oh, and if all else fails, go with the Sharpie. And who uses Kazaa anyway? Kazaa is a big waste of time.

Bill McNair

[MeanE]

Well for CD's that I could just not rip (I forget the protection name) I was eventually able to find a way around them. If you are a PC user you can use a program called blindwrite . You just have to use it to create an image of the disk and then mount the image. You can then use CDex or whatever to rip the fake CD ;) Its really really fast..haha.

[shipname]

i've ripped all my cds with cdex, cdex is great, with a push of a click it'll get all the songs names for ya, no matter if the cd is ancient or new, cdex is great
*hugs cdex*

[bhauke]

For those of you who are interested: I didn't have any problems ripping St. Anger with iTunes. Whether it actually deserves a place on my iPod is another question altogether.

Butch

[VoodooDaddy]

For what its worth, and that aint much, Im really like Metallica. Have bought their last 5 or 6 cds. I did d/l St. Anger a cpl days ago just so that I could have it early as its been a while between new material. I had full intentions of buying it after the release.

But honestly this cd sucks. I dont know who or what they were thinking, but the whole cd sounds like crap. James' vocals are just up and down and every which way on the musical scale. Alot of the songs sound like 2 or 3 different songs were thrown in a blender, mixed up, and poured out. I wont be buying it, and I really doubt I'll ever listen to it again. The RIAA moans and groans about piracy, but look at it this way. Had I bought it, they have my money, I have a piece of crap cd that I cant take back. Who wins there??? They do of course.

IMO, Bob Rock ruined this cd. I think he tried to over produce it (if thats possible) and it came out sounding like poo. I know he has worked magic before with them on the black album and with countless other bands, but this came out all wrong. Its a shame cause it will be 3-4 years before the next Metallica cd roll around.

Not much of an example but it kinda fits here to a T. There was a group from the late 80's early 90's, Skidrow. Many of you Im sure have heard of them. Their first cd was you classic hair band rock. I liked it being a child of the 80s. Their 2nd cd was way heavier, but IMO even better. Had the same sound at least of the earlier cd. Their 3rd cd, Subhuman Race, produced by none other than Bob Rock, was a complete flop. Sounded so different from their first 2 cds it was like night and day.

So I think somehow Bob Rock influenced James and Lars to let him work his magic with this cd, and it turned out like crap.

Just my opinion, Ive read lots of ppl saying they like it.

[bhauke]

I've been a big Metallica fan since MOP, and have every one of their CDs. This is truly a disappointing day for me. I agree that St. Anger just sounds awful. And yes, I've heard a lot of other people say they like it. I don't know if it really was Bob Rock's fault, but it's going to be a long wait for the next Metallica CD, if there ever is another.

BTW, I agree: Slave To The Grind is an outstanding album. I don't think I've ever heard Subhuman Race, and it sounds like I don't want to.

Butch

[dean0]

my two bits: like some of there stuff, but heard the new track on the radio today, and thought it was all over the place, not as memorable as there other stuff, and just plain sucked.

now, how many of you wanna place bets if this CD tanks, that lars is going to blame internet file sharing for the bad sales?

[salmonjunkie]

After hearing snippets of St. Anger on KROQ, I'm not overly impressed with it. No guitar solos? WTF? The riffs are fine, and I don't think it's over produced (Load and Reload are over-produced, to me, but are both listenable). However, the drums sound horrible! It's not Lars' playing, he's fine. It just sounds weird. Too loud, too much echo, or something. It basically sounds like he's banging on hollow tin trash cans (as opposed to And Justice for all where it sounds like he's banging on hollow plastic trash cans). There are a few songs I like so far. St. Anger, Frantic, and Sweet Amber come to mind. But the drums... I'll either get used to them or it'll completely ruin the CD for me. I may still buy it though, because I'm a lemming.

Speaking about copy protected CDs, I recently bought a used copy of the Brown Sugar soundtrack. It's copy protected, and says so on the back of the case. I rip with Windows Media Player (ok, stop laughing, already!). I was able to rip the CD fine, except for the first track - which is a shame because it's one of the Mos Def songs. Ah well.

[anthraxx]

I bought the retail version of St. Anger today and it rips just fine (I used MC9). That doesn't solve the problem of the album being utter crap but that's a topic for a different forum...

[gpedder]

you are right, it is crap. Lucky I downloaded it before I parted with cash!
Lars snare drum has no snares it seems, so it sounds all poo.

[Impulse29]

Lars is kinda ###... i'm not sure if its the voice, or just because someone his size is playing the drums (my opinion)... I bought the new cd, but havent tried ripping it yet... I don't think there are copy protections, and if there are, they'll be easy to crack

[anthraxx]

Originally posted by gpedder
you are right, it is crap. Lucky I downloaded it before I parted with cash!
Lars snare drum has no snares it seems, so it sounds all poo.

Agreed. Although there is one very cool thing about this CD. It comes with a passcode for a web site with loads of MetallicA rare live MP3s! My fav so far is "Jason Sings Seek & Destroy". They're all encoded at 128 but they sound darn good.

Ironically the heading on the download site says "Download, Burn, Share!" Uhhmm weren't the boys against that way back in the Napster days?

[VoodooDaddy]

Originally posted by anthraxx
Agreed. Although there is one very cool thing about this CD. It comes with a passcode for a web site with loads of MetallicA rare live MP3s! My fav so far is "Jason Sings Seek & Destroy". They're all encoded at 128 but they sound darn good.

Ironically the heading on the download site says "Download, Burn, Share!" Uhhmm weren't the boys against that way back in the Napster days?

there was a news story about this at cnet the other day. This site is to download demos and rare tracks and they encourage sharing of these. Although you need the passcode to enter the site, and the passcode obviously is available only if you buy the new cd.

I was thinking maybe St. Anger was only demos, and when you bought it you get the passcode and can download the real cd from that site?? :D

[bhauke]

I just finished watching the DVD that comes with the St. Anger CD. For anyone who doesn't know, the DVD contains rehearsals of every song from the CD, in exactly the same order. The sound quality of the Dolby Digital 5.1 surround track on the DVD is quite good, and partially redeems St. Anger as a whole. I wish I had a way to get that on my iPod.

Butch

[bhauke]

Agreed. Although there is one very cool thing about this CD. It comes with a passcode for a web site with loads of MetallicA rare live MP3s! My fav so far is "Jason Sings Seek & Destroy". They're all encoded at 128 but they sound darn good.

Yep, that's a goodie. My favorite so far is "Harvester of Sorrow". That one is always such a crusher when played live. It just pounds the crap out of you!

Butch

[eustacescrubb]

I wish I had a way to get that on my iPod.

You can - you'll lose the Dolby, because the iPod won't play it, but if you do a Google search, or look on VersionTracker, there are plenty of shareware and freeware apps to pull audio files off DVDs and demux them to ac3 files, which can be converted to mp3 or wav from there. It takes some doing, but it can be done.

[bhauke]

You can - you'll lose the Dolby, because the iPod won't play it, but if you do a Google search, or look on VersionTracker, there are plenty of shareware and freeware apps to pull audio files off DVDs and demux them to ac3 files, which can be converted to mp3 or wav from there. It takes some doing, but it can be done.

John,

Do you recommend any specific program for this?

Thanks,
Butch

[cyberey66]

lol, I was just thinking when I saw this post. The album was on bittorrent/irc like a week before it's release.

But, bittorent is bad and so is stealing music. Anyways, I doubt there will ever be a way you can't rip an audio cd because of protection.

[stasyna]

I used Sony DVD-ROM drive and EAC w/ LAME.

Worked perfecto! :)

no problems.

rumours are, the cd-protection is only on EUROPE-bound cd'z


by the way:
This thread was about the copy-protection on the metallica cd, and not about your personal opinions of the band. Thank-you.