Not sure if this has been asked here before but i havn't seen it so any help would be much appreciated.
i wanna rip a few tracks from CDs i have, not burnt CDs but actual artist CDs, and i wanna know what format would be the best to rip to so that i can use them in the mix using Serato and also for remixing?

windows = eac + lame
mac? ummm itunes i guess? someone else probably has better advice here, but you can set you encoding rate to 320kbps in itunes so you get decent enough quality to play live imho.

WAV or 320 mp3 for sure.

Pretty much the general rule for anything that your going to play at high volumes to other people.

320 CBR (Constant Bit Rate)
if not, .wav or .flac
flac is dope because it is essentially a container that compresses the information inside. It can be converted to 320 or .wav without much or any degradation. Not sure if it plays in Serato though. Works fine for Ableton though.

You can use lame on iTunes... I forget the exact procedure to do it, but I found it googling... def better than the encoder they use for sure.

Nice, thanx for the info all

FLAC doesnt work in Serato (or at least, ive never got it to work, every other file type does though)

what i tend to do is pop the CD into my laptop (apple ibook g4, old school) and open up the cd folder from the desktop, then i just drag and drop the files across.

this is a) wuicker than ripping in itunes, b) better quality as its an AIFF and uncompressed

only downside is each track will be about 50mb.... so one whole album would be 500-800mb.

but, storage is cheap, and i prefer to do that than compress the files. only time i use 320 mp3s are when ppl send me them, i download them off bandcamp (why does bandcamp not do wav or aiff?!) or if im buying them on any day other than payday (payday = wav, other 29 days of the month = 320s)

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one thing ive taken to doing, and it may be a tad cheeky, and i dont know if anyone would take offense to this way of doing things, BUT - ive often found it cheaper to buy an album on cd from ebay or amazon and rip the tracks than to buy the mp3s/wavs. ive also bought compilations and ripped form there - for example, a 2CD old school hiphop compilation can be like £4, and every one of the tracks is £1.50 to downlaod....