CD-Tag

If you wish to play your music on a compact device, which fits in your pocket, instead of a large and clumsy CD player, then you would need a specialized application to rip your CD tracks and store them in a popular audio format. Unfortunately, most CD players store the output files with sketchy names, like "Track 01", making it impossible to find a specific song. This is where CD-Tag comes in. Besides its ripping and converting capabilities, the software provides you with the means of tagging your audio files. It supports a wide range of audio formats and its functions are easy to understand, even for novice users.

A 30-day free trial is available for CD-Tag. You will not encounter any restricted functions or nag screens during this period. The application's setup package is only 2 and a half MB and it can be installed in a few seconds.

The user interface is divided into three sections, where you can rip audio CDs, convert audio files and tag them. If an audio CD is loaded, the application will detect it automatically and it will display its contents in a list, on the Rip tab. You can specify artist and album names, year and genre, in separate input fields, above the tracks list. When you are done, you may click an option, located on the program's toolbar, specify an output folder and format and the application will start ripping right away. The output files can be stored in Lossy formats, like MP3, WMA, AAC, OGG or MPC or Lossless formats, such as FLAC, TTA, OFR and others.

The second section of the interface is where you can encode and decode audio files. All you have to do is load one or more audio files and use the available options, on the toolbar, to encode or decode your files. If you decode your audio files, the software will store them in WAV format, in the same folder as the originals. In turn, WAV files can be encoded in one of the aforementioned audio formats.

You can edit the tag information for one or more files in the last section of the interface, where you can navigate through your local folders. Once you locate one or more files, you can select them, click a button and type the relevant information, in different input fields, on the same window. It is also possible to split CUE sheets and to create and verify SFV and MD5 files. Furthermore, CD-Tag can retrieve tag information from FreeDB.