Grip Settings

I've recently switched to Grip after having problems with Sound Juicer. I encode to mp3 using lame and VBR settings. To use Grip, download "grip" and "lame" using synaptic. For the settings, I referenced the following pages: Grip Configurations (which list switches used below), Lame switches, a HOWTO from the ubuntu forums (be sure to read the whole thing for the full story), and Musicbrainz FreeDBGateway instructions. With this information, I set up Grip in the following way:
1. Go to the Grip config tab
2. Under the Rip settings, I only changed where the ripped filed were stored. Therefore, I changed the default to: ~/rip/%A/%d/%n.wav
3. Under the Encode settings, I first changed the Encoder to "lame." I then changed the Encoder command-line to: -V 1 --vbr-new %w %m
The first part (-V 1 --vbr-new) contains lame switches which are described in the lame page listed above. Note that the "1" can be changed to whatever you like between 0 and 9. The differences are descirbed here. The second part (%w %m) are grip switches and, according to the HOWTO listed above, should not be changed.
4. I next changed the "Encode file format" line to: ~/music/%A/%d/%t - %A - %d - %n.%x
The first part (~/music), like in the Rip settings, tells it where to store the encoded mp3's. Everything after describes the sub-directories within ~/music and the sonn to be encoded mp3 file name. A description of what these mean can be found by looking at the switches section of the Grip page listed above.
5. Then under the options sub-tab of Encoder settings, I unchecked all references to m3u's as I don't use them.
6. Next, under the ID3 tab, I checked the "Add ID3 tags" box.
7. Next, under the DiscDB tab, I made the default "freedb.freedb.org" my secondary server by simply copy and pasting it from the DBServer line in primary server tab to the same in the secondary server tab. I then changed the DBServer line in the primary server tab to "freedb.musicbrainz.org" All else stayed the same. This is so it checks the Musicbrainz database first. The DBServer line to use was found on the Musicbrainz site listed above.
8. Finally, in the Misc tab, I checked "Do not lowercase filenames" and "Do not change spaces to underscores" This was done for obvious reasons.