Track Thief is a small program for converting audio tracks on a CD to AIFF files on a hard disk.
I wrote it because I couldn't find any programs that use the reliable buffering feature of Apple's CD driver to avoid overlapping reads. When the destination disk is fast enough (and unfragmented enough) to keep up, this can make a big difference in speed. On my 7600/132, Track Thief is more than twice as fast as the QuickTime audio track importer.
System requirements:
MacOS 7.0 or later.
At least one CD drive.
About 1.5 MB free RAM.
Track Thief is freeware, distribute anywhere.
Send any bug reports, comments, flames, or job offers to:
d88-bli@nada.kth.se
Brief explanations of the elements of the main window follow, in top-to-bottom order.
• The Device ID popup lets you switch between multiple attached CD drives. For SCSI devices, it shows the bus ID and the target ID. For IDE devices, it probably shows something random. It's useful even if you have only one CD drive, since a quick click on it will refresh the track list (in case you've switched CDs while Track Thief was in the background).
• The Speed popup lets you switch between standard CD speed and maximum speed. The maximum speed shown is what the CD driver reports; this may not match either the actual speed or the salesman's claims.
• When the Reliable buffering checkbox is checked, Track Thief assumes that the CD driver supports this feature. I don't know which, if any, third-party CD drivers support it.
• The track list shows the number, the length, and (if available) the name of each audio track. Double-clicking here copies the selected track(s) to your hard disk.
• The message area shows various messages.
• The Strip leading silence and Strip trailing silence checkboxes control whether Track Thief will strip binary silence from the beginning/end of each output file.
• The Separate files checkbox controls whether multiple tracks are saved as one file or as separate files.
• When the Numeric file names checkbox is checked, Track Thief ignores any track names and uses two-digit track numbers for output file names.
• Clicking the Eject button ejects any CD in the current drive. It will also eject an empty tray if the CD driver supports it.
• Clicking the Play button plays the (first) selected track only. No attempt is made to ensure that the signal goes anywhere useful.
• Clicking the Steal… button copies the selected track(s) to your hard disk.
• Clicking the Quit button does the expected thing.
The File menu has Eject, Play, and Steal… commands that do the same things as the buttons.
