"The Ripper" Installation and Setup Page

The Ripper is essentially a driverless plug-and-play piece of hardware. However, given the complexity and flexibility of computer operating systems and software, even a simple installation may require dialog box choices. These instructions cover basic installation in Windows XP and Mac OS-X. Enhancements are given for both Audicity and Foobar2000. These were chosen as examples because they were free, high performance, easy to use, professionally supported, and relatively bug-free.

Analog

The first step is to connect a turntable with a moving magnet (high output) cartridge to the inputs of The Ripper. Plug in some headphones for monitoring, or connect the line level outputs to your audio system. Plug in the power cord. The leftmost LED should light up. There is no power switch as The Ripper draws less than 2 watts at idle. The phono section is always on when plugged in. The USB interface is powered separately through the USB port.

• Connect turntable.
• Set select switch to analog.
• Play an LP. Use gain control on front to set volume.

Windows XP

Now we test out basic digital playback and USB operation. Plug in the USB cable between The Ripper and your music computer.

• Plug in USB.
• The right LED should turn on after a few seconds.
• XP should give a popup informing you new hardware has been found.
• XP gives another popup indicating that the new hardware is recognized and installed.
• Go to the Control Panel.
• Click on Sounds, Speech, and Audio Devices -> Sounds and Audio Devices.
• "USB Audio CODEC" should be selected. If not, click on Audio, and select for both playback and recording.
• Click on Volume and set to maximum.

Try and play a WAV or MP3 music file already on your computer. If you don't have one, click on this song. By default, Windows Media Player should load and play the song. It should be playing through The Ripper. If not, check to insure volume slider is at 100% and not muted.

• Close all programs.
• Insert an audio CD into the CD drive.

The CD should start playing automatically through The Ripper. Remove it. Now let's try recording something.

• Click on Start -> All Programs -> Accessories -> Entertainment -> Sound Recorder.
• Set select switch on The Ripper to analog.
• Start playing an LP.
• Hit the red record button on Sound Recorder. Record ten seconds of music. Hit stop.
• Set select switch to digital.
• Playback the recorded song.

The gain control on the front of The Ripper sets the recording level. You can go back and try it again for better results. By clicking on File -> Properties -> Convert Now you can save the file to MP3 format. But don't bother. The point is we have confirmed all of the functions of The Ripper are operating properly.

Go to the Audicity website and download the Windows version. You also might want their MP3 format converter plug-in.

• Install it.
• Run it.
• Click on Edit -> Preferences.
• Set "USB "Audio CODEC" for both Playback and Recording. Set 2 channel (stereo), and click on Software Playthrough.
• Click on Quality. Set defaults to 44100, 16-bit. Click on Ok.
• Make sure the output volume is set to 1.0 (maximum).
• Set select switch to digital.
• Start playing an LP. Hit the record button. The gain control on The Ripper is used to set recording level.
• Stop. Start the LP again and hit record while still in the lead-in groove. Hit stop when the LP side is finished.

You just recorded your first LP at high quality.

• Click on File -> Export as WAV.

Now that we've recorded our songs. Let's focus on high performance playback. This is done by using ASIO (audio stream, input / output), a transfer protocol that bypass the Windows kmixer. It was developed for low latency and bit-accurate audio quality. We start by installing a more flexible media player, Foobar. Go to the Foobar2000 website and download the installer.

• Install it.
• Run it.
• Click on File -> Preferences -> Playback. Set volume to max, Replaygain processing to none.
• Click on Output. Select "USB Audio CODEC" as Output Device. Save All. Close.

This is normal Foobar. Now lets soup it up a little with ASIO. To do that, we need the ASIO4ALL wrapper. Close Foobar. Go to the ASIO4ALL web site and download the program.

• Install it.
• Run it.
• Click on "USB Audio CODEC" and hit the Select button.
• Click on Advanced. Deselect the 44.1k <> 48k resampling. Exit.

Ok, now go back to the Foobar2000 website and click on Optional Components. Click on the ASIO Support link to download the ASIO driver. Save to your hard drive. This is a ZIP file. You might need to download and install an unzipper. I recommend WinZip.

• Extract the "foo_out_asio.dll" to disk. Move it to the components directory of Foobar (C:\Program Files\foobar2000\components).
• Run Foobar again.
• Click on File -> Preferences -> Playback -> Output. Select ASIO Virtual Devices. Click on Add New.
• The new dialog box should show both channels of USB Audio CODEC.
• Click on CODEC 1, a popupmenu then gives you choices for mapping. Select left.
• Click on CODEC 2, select right. Click Ok. Save All.
• Go back to Output. Select ASIO : ASIO4ALL as the Output Device. Save All. Close.

Foobar is now setup for optimal playback via The Ripper. Have fun! Check out Foobar's other enhancements such as codecs and skins.

Mac OS-X

Mac setup is similar but with fewer headaches. iTunes works fine for playback. GarageBand might be good for recording, but we'll use Audacity as out example. To install The Ripper,

• Plug in USB.
• It will automatically be recognized by the operating system.
• Go to System Preferences -> Sounds. Select "USB Audio CODEC" for both Output and Input.
• Set volume to maximum. Exit.
• Run iTunes and play a song. It should feed directly to The Ripper.

That's it for system setup. For recording an LP, go to the Audicity website and download the Mac version.

• Install Audacity.
• Click on Audacity -> Preferences. Set Playback and Recoding options to "USB Audio CODEC".
• Make sure volume sliders are set to maximum.
• Set select switch to digital.
• Start playing a LP.
• Hit the red record buttons. You should hear the music through The Ripper. Gain control sets recording level.
• Hit stop. Then Play. It should playback what you just recorded in stereo.
• Save file as WAV.

You can now playback the music file from iTunes. No optimization or ASIO type tricks are needed on a Mac. There is also a Sound Recorder program that seems to be stock, but ignore it. Like the Windows version, it's for storing voice notes, note music. I tried GarageBand. It works fine, and sounds pretty darn good.

• Click on GarageBand -> Preferences -> Audio/MIDI.
• Change both Audio Output and Audio Inpute to "USB Audio CODEC".
• Start a new track, external instrument.

Macs are so easy to work on!