CD ripping

Listen can rip audio CDs on Linux. Put a disc in the drive and Listen makes a secure copy, tags it from MusicBrainz, adds cover art and files the album into your music folder, much like the auto-rip of MusicBee. This page covers the setup, every option under Settings → Advanced → CD ripping, and how to check a rip.

Note: CD ripping is available on Linux only. It uses the separately installed program whipper. On Windows the CD ripping section does not do anything.

What you get

A secure rip with whipper (Test & Copy, checked against AccurateRip).
Always FLAC at compression level 8.
Tags and track names from MusicBrainz, cover art embedded in every file and saved as cover.jpg.
ReplayGain tags for each track and for the album.
Files named Album Artist/Album/NN Title.flac. Multi-disc releases use D-NN Title.flac.
A notification when the album is done, and the disc is ejected.

Setup

Install the tools. On Fedora the Listen RPM already pulls them in. Elsewhere install whipper, flac and cdrdao with your package manager, for example:
```
sudo dnf install whipper flac cdrdao
```
Run the check without a disc, or better with one in the drive:
```
listen --check-cd
```
It lists the tools, the drive and its read offset, the disc’s table of contents and MusicBrainz match, the music folder and your Navidrome server, and ends with “ready to rip” or the number of problems it found. See Checking a rip.
Open Settings → Advanced → CD ripping and set the Music folder.

If you plug in a USB drive later, Listen picks it up. The section shows the drive, its device (for example /dev/sr0) and the read offset it will use. Without a drive it says “No CD drive connected”.

The settings

Setting	Default	What it does
Auto-rip inserted CDs	on	Starts ripping as soon as an audio CD goes into the drive, also while Listen sits in the tray. Turn it off to rip only with Rip CD.
Music folder	your system Music folder, such as `~/Music`	Where albums are filed. Type a path and press Save, or use Choose… to pick a folder. It can be a network share, for example the folder your Navidrome server scans (`/mnt/nas/Music`). Listen never deletes or overwrites anything in it.
Eject when done	on	Ejects the disc after the rip.
Notification sound	on	Plays a sound with the “Album ripped” notification. The sound needs `pw-play` (PipeWire); without it you get the notification only.
ReplayGain tags	on	Measures track and album loudness while tagging, so players can even out volume.
Scan Navidrome afterwards	on	Asks the active Navidrome server to scan for the new album. This needs an admin login. Without one, the server’s own file watcher finds the album within a minute or two.
Version picker	30 s (5 to 120 s, in steps of 5)	How long Listen waits when several MusicBrainz releases match the disc (for example regional editions) before it takes the best match.
Drive read offset	automatic	The read offset of your drive in samples. See below.
Rip now		The Rip CD button rips the disc in the drive, also one you ripped before. It appears when a drive is connected.

Destination that is not available

If the music folder is a network share that is not mounted, the rip waits and tries again every 30 seconds. The panel says “Waiting for the music folder”. You can pick another folder with Choose folder… or press Retry. Listen first copies the finished album into a hidden .listen-incoming folder inside the destination and then renames it into place in one step, so a half-copied album never shows up in your library.

Read offset

Every CD drive reads audio shifted by a small number of samples. AccurateRip needs the right value to confirm that your copy matches other people’s. Listen takes the offset from, in this order:

The number you saved in Drive read offset.
whipper’s own configuration (~/.config/whipper/whipper.conf, written by whipper offset find).
The AccurateRip drive list built into Listen, matched by the drive’s model name.

The line under the setting shows which one is used, for example read offset +48 (AccurateRip).

If the drive is not in the list, the line says the offset is unknown and a rip stops with a message asking you to set it. Either type the offset into the field and press Save, or press Verify offset. Verify offset runs whipper’s offset search, which takes a few minutes and needs a well-known, commercially pressed CD in the drive. When it succeeds the result is stored in whipper’s configuration. The offset is a whole number between -3000 and 3000, with or without a plus sign. Clear the field and press Save to go back to automatic.

What happens when you insert a disc

Step	What Listen does
Detect	Notices the disc through UDisks2. This also works while Listen is only in the tray.
Rip	Runs a whipper secure rip with the drive’s read offset.
Identify	Looks up the MusicBrainz disc ID; if that fails, uses CD-Text; if that fails, names the album “Unknown Album (…)”.
Several matches	Shows a picker with the matching releases. You can change the choice until tagging starts; after the timeout the best match is taken.
Cover	Cover Art Archive first (the release, then the release group), then iTunes. The image is scaled to 1200 px, embedded and saved as `cover.jpg`.
Publish	Copies the album into `.listen-incoming` and renames it into place.
Navidrome	Asks for a scan if the option is on and you are signed in as an admin.

The panel shows progress (“Ripping track 3 of 12”, “Tagging”, “Copying to the music folder…”) and ends with the folder and the AccurateRip result. While a rip runs you can press Cancel. Cancelling, or pulling the disc, leaves nothing in the music folder.

If some tracks could not be read perfectly, the panel asks “Publish the rest anyway?” with Publish anyway and Discard.

Rips to fix

If MusicBrainz does not know the disc, Listen still rips and files it as “Unknown Album (…)”, using CD-Text if the disc has it. Such discs are listed under Rips to fix (not on MusicBrainz) in the CD ripping section, newest first, with the album folder and a link: “Add the disc: …”. Open the link, add the release to MusicBrainz, then press Rip CD again to rip the disc with proper tags. The list shows the last 10.

Checking a rip

Run listen --check-cd with a disc inserted. It shows the track list, the disc ID, the MusicBrainz matches (best first, marked with an arrow), the cover it found and the exact folder and file name the album would get. It does not rip anything.
After a rip, open the album folder. You should see NN Title.flac files, cover.jpg and <Album>.log (whipper’s log). No .listen-incoming folder should remain. metaflac --list on a file shows the tags, MusicBrainz IDs, cover and ReplayGain values.
Logs: Listen’s own listen.log and one rip-<date>-<disc id>.log per rip are in the logs folder, ~/.local/share/listen/logs/. See Backup, logs and diagnostics.

For problems with the tools, drive or share, see Troubleshooting.

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