In this tutorial we will show you how to rip music from an audio CD so you can have it on your computer and listen to it at any time. As you will see, the process is very simple. Everyone can do it if these steps are followed.

The first thing you have to do is to insert the audio CD in your drive. When the "AutoPlay" menu appears, select "Rip music from CD using Windows Media Player".

Media Player will open a new window and a dialogue box, asking if you want to add protection to your ripped music or not.
Choose what you prefer and then check the small box next to the "I understand [...]" text and click OK.

Before enabling the copy protection of your ripped music please remember that this will limit the way you share and play your music. You won't be able to play the same tune on another PC except your own and also you won't be able to make unlimited copies of your music, even if it is for your own personal use.

If you want to know more about copy protection and digital rights management check out this guide.

Windows Media Player will automatically start to rip all the files from the CD. If you want to stop the ripping process, uncheck the small box next to the "Album", from the top of the Windows Media Player window. Now you can select only the tracks you want to rip or you can set things like the format in which the tracks will be saved or the bit rate. By default, the format is set to Windows Media Audio and the bit rate to 128 Kbps. If you want the best quality output choose the WAV (lossless) or Windows Media Audio Lossless. If you do that you will get top sound quality but all the files will occupy quite a lot of space on your hard disk.

If you are not a very pretentious user, the MP3 and Windows Media Audio formats are good options, as they offer a good balance between space and sound quality. Also, a bit rate of 192 or 256 Kbps is just fine.

To set the Format and Bit Rate, click the "Rip" button, go to "Format" and select the desired format and then go to "Bit Rate" and select the bit rate you want.

By default, the music is saved in the users "Music" folder which is found in "C:\Users\[Username]\Music". If you want to change the default folder (Music) and the naming of your tracks, click the "Rip" button and select "More Options". Click on "Change" to change the default folder and browse to a new folder where your ripped music will be saved.

To change file naming convention used by Windows Media Player, click the "File Name" and select the details you want to include in the file names of your tracks.

When you are done, click on the "Start Rip" button from the lower left corner. If the button is disabled that means you did not select the tracks you want to be ripped. All you have to do is to check back the "Album" box or to individually select each track you want to rip.

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