Can we get development for Audiograbber started up again?

[Nate]

Hello all,

Ive been using Audiograbber for 10 years now, as it is (still) the best product out there that fits my needs. Generally, it allows me to do everything I want without being overly complicated. For instance, it allows me to

• Normalize my tracks (via making a wav file, then making an mp3 rip from that)

• Splice one track into two, via partial rips (useful for albums that add a secret track to the end of the last track after a long pause)

• Configure the naming format of the file

• Get media information off of the internet, then make manual changes if need be

• Do all of this very easily, in one step

These arent really demanding needs, but I cant seem to find anything (in Windows or Ubuntu Linux) that does all this. For example, Audacity does way more sound engineering than I would ever need, and yet it doesnt rip from a CD. This is why Ive used Audiograbber for so long.

Having said all that, Ive been very saddened and frustrated that there has been no development on Audiograbber since 2004. I can understand Jackie Franck being tired of the project, but could we try to get a couple people to develop this further? There are obviously people out there who also still use this, as shown by all the activity on this forum (and winning a web award) 6 years after the last release.

I am thrilled to see that Stefan Vetter has taken over the website and the media portion, but are there others who can help him on the development side? I would be very happy with just making it compatible with the latest versions of Windows and giving some support (via this forum), without adding any features. And I would be very happy to pay for an upgrade. Do any of you (the public) also feel this way? If there are more of us who would be happy to pay, wouldnt that fund a developer or two to make some changes to the code, to keep this software from dying?

[Stefan]

I hope development would go on again. Jackie Franck would not start again with it, for sure.
So what we need is either developers that want to do it for free, or enough donators to pay a developer.

If there is anyone, please post in this topic.

Cheers,
Stefan

[phil8192]

I feel as you do, Nate. Although Im in the process of migrating from Windows to Linux (Ubuntu), I havent found anything else that even comes close to the simple functionality and reliability of Audiograbber, either in the Windows or Linux worlds, so I still keep an old machine running with Windows 98SE. There are a few improvements that I would like to see in Audiograbber, particularly more flexibility in generating ID fields in MP3 files. It would also be good if the program could handle CD drive problems more gracefully, i.e., timing out, sending a reset signal to the drive and posting an error message to the screen, instead of just hanging and requiring a forced reboot. A Linux port would be most welcome. However, without the source code, development would be largely from scratch, with the attendant period of bug fixes, just to get the program to the same level as the 1.83 release for Windows.

[[[global:guest]]]

Absolutely agree - while Audiograbber is definitely the program of choice, there is a real danger operating system development will eventually render it unusable.

And while it is an excellent program, there is definitely room for additional features and tweaks, such as defining a track number offset to enable multiple-CD albums to be ripped with properly numbered tracks, without the need for further tag processing in Audacity

[[[global:guest]]]

Comments from the original thread

allanr on 2010-11-19:
I agree with Nate 100%. Ive used Audiograbber off and on since Nov 1999 - when it cost $25. Id be prepared to pay again for a supported version. It does all that I want and in a very logical fashion (on my XP machine). Fingers crossed it will work on W7 64bit when I try that.