Ripping

Preliminary

There are two ways to rip (import) songs from a CD. It depends on whether you have installed the LAME MP3 Encoder. If you have, you'll want to use that, since it's much simpler. If not, you'll have to use iTunes. Here's a trick, if you're going to use LAME. Run iTunes anyway, and put in your CD. It may get meta info from the CDDB! If it does, it will make the Finder use that info, so kJams will see it too. That way, if freedb doesn't have the meta info, at least you've got the song names and album name (because it gets read from the Finder) but you'll still have to enter the artist name, genre, and year (0 is not a valid year).

Rip using the LAME encoder

1. make sure you've installed the LAME encoder
2. stick in your disc
3. enter all meta info
4. select the tracks you want
5. drag them to the Library

Rip using iTunes

1. Go to iTunes (not kJams)
2. Go to Preferences->General. Make sure "On CD Insert:" is set to "Show Songs". Also check "Connect to Internet when needed"
3. Go to Preference->Importing. Make sure "Import Using:" says "MP3 Encoder". I recommend "Higher Quality" also. Make sure "Create file names with track number" is is checked. Now click OK.
4. Put in your CD+G disc. It should attempt to get the song names from the CDDB. In any case, after your disc shows up, look at the "Song Name", "Artist" and "Album" info. If it's all generic, or does not exist, you must enter the info for each song. Consult help for iTunes if you're confused. Enter all song meta informaion BEFORE importing the songs into iTunes. Make sure the "Artist" info is set to the actual artist for each song, ie: don't use "karaoke" or other generic term for the artist info.
5. Import all songs into iTunes.
6. Eject the disc and re-insert it. (This will force it to show up in the Finder (and the file system) with the Album name and Song names you entered in step 4)
7. Go to kJams
8. In the "Sources" list, on the left, you should see your CD. Make sure it is selected. Now, in the "tracks" list, on the right, select the songs you want to import and choose File->Rip

The same thing said slightly differently: This is what I do when I have a stack of CD's I want to rip:

1. run iTunes
2. stick the discs in 1 at a time
3. fill out all meta info (using album names that have the 2 letter abbreviation eg: Sc for SoundChoice, Sf for SunFly, Lg for Legends etc, followed by the number assigned by the studio, eg: Sc2034), artist names (don't use "various", actually fill them out) and of course song names, then submit to CDDB)
4. eject and repeat step 2

when you've meta-info'd all your discs THEN do the ripping

1. stick in disc
2. rip audio in iTunes
3. wait for audio to finish ripping
4. rip graphics in kJams
5. wait for graphics to finish ripping
6. eject and repeat step 1