Ripping Drama CD

Hi all,

So this might be an incredibly noob question :emoji_sweat: but.. how do I actually rip/share drama cd that I bought from pokedora (which can only be listen on phone)?

Thanks!

Hello @Chesca,
Which phone operating system do you have? There might be ways to look at the app's file storage on Android phones for the Pokedora app's storage and try to search for files in there, but you will have to search for how to access app file storage on Android.
A workaround if you can't find the files is if you look for a phone recording program that can record audio from the phone, and then try to record the drama cd while it plays, then trim/edit the audio. (The most desperate version is to use a separate recording device to record the audio playing from the phone, but the quality will likely be terrible.)
Hopefully one of those ideas will work.

Hi Cheremonda,

I've got a OnePlus 10 pro, uses Android Vr. 12.

I've tried looking for Pokedora's app storage and they do not have files that I can work with or transfer out. It would be nice if you can tell me how to look for the app's file storage properly in case I've done it wrongly.

I was trying to avoid blasting the recording on my phone to use another phone's recording programme because (1) the sound quality tends to be awful and (2) my husband is going to look at me very, very weirdly. :emoji_sweat: Whilst he knows I happily collect and buy yaoi products, he has not actually heard any sex scenes of my drama CDs yet.

Hello @Chesca,

I have a OnePlus as well! What I've found is that the phone hides the apps' file storage, which can be in the /Android/data folder or it could be in app-specific folders hidden from regular file navigation (access to those folders requires rooting the phone, which you usually don't need to do).

If you have a computer running some version of Linux, you can access the /Android/data folder's files when you connect your phone.
I have Linux Mint on my laptop, but you can also install a version of Linux onto a USB drive as a way to temporarily boot. Windows 10 and 11 also have a "Linux Subsystem for Windows" app that you can install a version of Linux on, but I have not tried it.
Using Linux is probably the best option for trying to access the non-root files in Android storage. (As far as I know.)

Windows 10's file explorer doesn't show all of the folders from the Android phone when connecting, but I think older versions of Android used to display their files without issue, so it is probably due to a change in the newer Android OS versions that makes /Android/data contents hidden on Windows computers. There may be ways around it by using Android developer tools, but I don't know the specifics.

If Pokedora encrypts their files, stores it in a format you can't easily play, or streams audio without storing the files long term, you may have to try different options.

yt-dlp (found on GitHub) is a command-line program that may work if you find the audio drama's streaming URL. If you can use Pokedora on a computer to stream the audio drama, you would use the streaming URL with yt-dlp on the command line to try to download the audio. There's a lot of steps in this, and since I do not have a Pokedora account or app, I can't tell if this option is viable or not.

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I do think it's possible to record phone audio without it being obvious, though.

You can try finding a video or sound recording app for Android, turn the sound on your phone to its lowest setting (but not mute), then start a recording on your phone with the app and play the audio drama.

If you're able to change recording settings on the app to record the system audio instead of the microphone, you won't need a second phone or recording device. Sometimes those apps may have settings so you can record system audio at full volume regardless of phone speaker volume.

You can then edit the audio on your computer if the volume and length need to be adjusted (or if you recorded a video and need to extract the audio from it).

Hi @Cheremonda,

Thanks for the explanation! That is really helpful.

I happened to mention this issue to my husband and he look into it for me. He pretty much said the same thing you did. He downloaded an app to record the system audio, so I managed to actually record the cds!

Thank you so much for your help! :emoji_blush: Much appreciated.

Bottomline, I'm a techie dinosaur. :emoji_sweat:

There are legal software programs available that allow you to rip audio files from CDs. These programs generally require a CD drive on your computer, so if the drama CDs are only accessible on your phone, this method may not be applicable. However, if you have a physical copy of the CD, you can explore software options like Exact Audio Copy or dBpoweramp to rip the audio files to your computer.

haunt the house

Oh thanks, this is the same problem I'm having. I was thinking about asking when I came across your article and I did it successfully. If you have free time, can you play pico park together? We will have more opportunities to interact with each other

Which app did you used?