Within the context of audio

Sound

Sound is a mechanical wave that is an oscillation of pressure transmitted through a solid, liquid, or gas, composed of frequencies within the range of hearing and of a level sufficiently strong to be heard, or the sensation stimulated in organs of hearing by such vibrations.-Propagation of...

 -- and video game music

Computer and video game music

Video game music is any of the musical pieces or soundtracks and background musics found in video games. It can range from a primitive synthesizer tune to an orchestral piece, usually such that the older the game, the simpler the music...

 in particular—a game rip (also gamerip) is the result of taking the audio from a computer/video game

Computer and video games

A video game is an electronic game that involves human interaction with a user interface to generate visual feedback on a video device. The word video in video game traditionally referred to a raster display device, but following popularization of the term "video game", it now implies any type of...

 and storing it in a format that is more accessible for listening (often digital files

Digital audio

Digital audio is sound reproduction using pulse-code modulation and digital signals. Digital audio systems include analog-to-digital conversion , digital-to-analog conversion , digital storage, processing and transmission components...

 such as MP3

MP3

MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...

s). This is often performed to obtain music that is not available on a soundtrack. There are two major methods of obtaining, or "ripping", audio from a game: digital extraction, and recording.

Extracting from uncommon audio formats

Many times, a game's audio is stored in a proprietary or otherwise uncommon format. In order to extract the audio, manipulation of the game's audio files must occur. The amount of effort needed to perform the extraction and the particular steps needed to do so depend on the type of format (and in the case of music, whether it is digital or sequenced). While this type of rip avoids having to be converted to an analog signal, it is up to the emulation/extraction software used and ripper's skill to ensure that the end result is a perfect copy. As such, this type of rip is usually classified further to elaborate on how it was performed. A digital extraction often crosses over into the creation of game audio formats.

Extracting common audio format files

Some computer games have audio stored in files that are already
of common, listenable format (such as OGG

Vorbis

Vorbis is a free software / open source project headed by the Xiph.Org Foundation . The project produces an audio format specification and software implementation for lossy audio compression...

, MP3

MP3

MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...

, etc.). In this case, all the ripper has to do is copy the files to a desired location and possibly rename/tag them as necessary.

Some games include their resources in packed files. Programs exist that can search these files and extract graphics and audio files from them.

Red Book audio

Some games on CD-ROM

CD-ROM

A CD-ROM is a pre-pressed compact disc that contains data accessible to, but not writable by, a computer for data storage and music playback. The 1985 “Yellow Book” standard developed by Sony and Philips adapted the format to hold any form of binary data....

 format include Red Book audio

Red Book (audio CD standard)

Red Book is the standard for audio CDs . It is named after one of the Rainbow Books, a series of books that contain the technical specifications for all CD and CD-ROM formats.The first edition of the Red Book was released in 1980 by Philips and Sony; it was adopted by the Digital Audio Disc...

 (the widely-used CD audio standard), and thus these tracks can be digitally extracted. However, due to the ubiquity of Red Book as a listenable format, this type of extraction is generally not referred to as a "game rip". Instead it is just referred to as "Red Book Audio" or "Redbook".

Line-in

A common type of recording is the line-in recording, which feeds the audio signal from the game system to the recording device via an audio cable. For example, one may record from a game console onto a personal computer this way (assuming an audio card/chipset and recording software is available). The person recording must ensure that proper volume levels and other preparations, such as disabling all sound effect

Sound effect

For the album by The Jam, see Sound Affects.Sound effects or audio effects are artificially created or enhanced sounds, or sound processes used to emphasize artistic or other content of films, television shows, live performance, animation, video games, music, or other media...

s (if possible), are put into effect before recording. Then, after recording, that person will need to edit the recorded audio to have proper starting and ending points, as well as other things.

Digital recording

If the game outputs digital signals directly to the recording device, such as a computer game producing sound on a personal computer where the recording is also being done, the audio can be recorded without any analog conversion. Once this is done, the file must be edited and such, just as with a line-in recording. This is different from a digital extraction in that there is no manipulation of game's audio files involved. However, the line can be blurred in some instances, such as when recording from an emulator.