EAC & FLAC : a short * Guide

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EAC & FLAC : a short * Guide

2003-11-04 19:04:18

The former described method in this first post via:

EAC -> copy uncompressed -> foobar2000 for:
encoding waves to flac -> Tagging -> Replaygaining

is now replaced by the direct usage of EAC for Encoding to flac & tagging in 1 step:

Credits go to Case's guide "configuring eac" here:

http://www.saunalahti.fi/~cse/EAC/index.html

written by user, 2003-11-07
© by user, 2003-11-01

If you use parts of this text, or copy it,
refer/give credits to the author 'user', the *,
set link to the original website ( * ).

How to

make FLAC as * album according to * standard for archiving
your music_albums, original CDs:

Table of content:

1. Introduction

2.1 EAC Action for Encoding & Tagging in 1 step
2.1.1 Setting up EAC once

2.2 Foobar2000 for Replaygaining the FLAC_album

3. Finalizing your * album

1. Introduction

The goal of * is, of course, to save space on your HD, but to keep/maintain
the full_perfect_archive_quality of your album.
The best perfect_quality/size ratio you get by using the min. *_mpc_settings (, ie.
'--quality 7 --ms 15 --xlevel' as example.)
MPC_* at this quality level is not to distinguish from the original CD or the waves
by listening, even if you apply Digital Sound Processing (DSP) like Logic7 or DPL2
for sound via 4-6 speakers, or transcode later on the MPC_* to another format (like mp3)
for compatibility/portability reasons.
This means, regarding the usage of music = listening, MPC_* is without any loss,
so called "Lossless", or 'transparent'.

But maybe you want to archive a very rare album even theoretically Lossless.
So you need to use a lossless_encoder like FLAC or WavePack.
WavPack offers an hybrid mode, which gives you song files
at same time very well encoded lossy and lossless.
Read more at www.wavpack.com , if you have interest in details.
So, if you want to give the album in a small variant to your sister, family,
or another example, you want to have the rare album archived theoretically_losslessly
at home, but you want to have it on your laptop on a small HD, too,
together with other albums, you could copy only the WavePack_lossy (*.wv) songfiles
to your Laptop HD, to save space, there.

So, to make a long story short,

WavePack Hybrid offers you an easy_to_use bridge between 'still_quite_big'
even_theoretically_lossless music_files for archiving,
and at same time smaller (265 kbit/s) lossy music_files with still_good_sound.

FLAC as alternative Lossless codec, offers you some other advantages, like
* files, songs not totally corrupted, if a single error appears inside a file (maybe due
to aging of backup_medium like DVD+-R, CD-R.
* 'Hardware' support
So, FLAC is your choice, if Archiving is the main purpose for you going lossless with big files,
Wavpack Hybrid offers you something additional.

2. How to

2.1

EAC Action:

Test & Copy compressed.

2.1.1

Configuring EAC once before the action:

* In general: same as described for * & mpc.

* (of course with correct * drive settings for your specific drive,
see other part of guide)

* Take care to use a good naming scheme (same as usual for your * albums):

Check in your EAC options:
Filename tab
'Naming scheme' should include this:

%D (%Y) %C\%N - %T

'Use various artist naming scheme' should include this:

VA (%Y) %C\%N - %A - %T

These naming schemes contain all useful & necessary info for your albums and songs.
And they don't cause too long file names, sometimes a reason for trouble.
Of course you could use other naming schemes, as naming is liberal in the * standard,
see remarks to this in the * Musts page.

* Setting EAC compression options for FLAC :
(needs to be done only once, save it as *_FLAC profile in EAC):

Select compression options from EAC menu.

Open 'External Compression' tab.

1. Check 'Use external program for compression' (same for *_MPC)
2. Change 'Parameter passing scheme' to 'User Defined Encoder' (same for *_mpc)
*3. Set file extension to .flac (different to *_mpc)
*4. Click 'Browse' and locate 'flac.exe' (different to *_mpc)
*5. Change 'Additional command line options' to
-T "artist=%a" -T "title=%t" -T "album=%g" -T "date=%y" -T "tracknumber=%n" -T "genre=%m" -T "comment=* lossless flac by your_nickname" %s (different to *_mpc)
6. Check 'Delete WAV after compression' (same for *_MPC)
7. Uncheck 'Add ID3 tag' (same for *_MPC)

*8. Save this profile as '*_FLAC' profile in EAC: Press 'New' and type in *_FLAC.

The steps 1. - 7. you can see with pictures at case's page:
http://www.saunalahti.fi/~cse/EAC/index.html

2.2 Foobar2000 for Replaygaining the FLAC_album

Directly after step 2.1.,

* Start foobar2000.
* Foobar2000 -> Playlist tab -> Clear
Your playlist is now empty.

* Playlist tab: Add directory (containing the flac files)

If flac files aren't added, you need to configure foobar preferences settings:
* Foobar2000 tab -> Preferences -> Core
In the field of : 'Restrict incoming files to:'
add: *.flac (separated from other file extensions by ';'
an example line:
*.mpc;*.mp3;*.ogg;*.wav;*.ape;mp2;mp+;*.wv;*.flac
Close foobar2000 preferences,
and start again with this step 2.2 Replaygaining.
This configuration in foobar2000 preferences, you need to carry out only once, of course.

* mark all (*.flac) songs in the album playlist,
* mouse_right-click -> replaygain -> Scan selection as album

* wait some time, until replaygain is finished.

3. Finalizing your * album:

* As usual

(see other parts of guide,
how to create MD5 file.

Before Finalizing = creation of md5-file,
don't forget to include the EAC log file(s).)

written by user, 2003-11-07
© by user, 2003-11-01

Thanks for advice & comments to Volcano, the experts & community at www.hydrogenaudio.org & everybody else, who contributed.

If you use parts of this text, or copy it,
refer to the author 'user', the *,
set link to the original website ( * ).

MOD: * no links or names to ripping group guides please.

EAC & FLAC : a short * Guide

Reply #1 – 2003-11-04 19:57:40

Just one question, why tag a FLAC file with ape2 tags?

FLAC has a native tagging scheme that is just as flexible!

Just curious, and sorry if i missunderstood anything.

Kristian

EAC & FLAC : a short * Guide

Reply #2 – 2003-11-04 20:47:52

What kind of broken software even writes APEv2 to FLAC (without manually overriding some kind of unsafe settings) ? It's simple abuse of the standard. Probably nothing reads them either.

EAC & FLAC : a short * Guide

Reply #3 – 2003-11-04 21:07:55

Could someone please reformat that post? Those huge blank spaces are a pain. >_<

EAC & FLAC : a short * Guide

Reply #4 – 2003-11-04 21:32:35

Quote

Could someone please reformat that post? Those huge blank spaces are a pain. >_<

...and while you're at it, please remove my name from that BS. Thank you.

user, do you have any idea of what you're writing there?

1) Why not encode directly from within EAC? It makes no sense to go the troublesome path of ripping to WAV, encoding to FLAC, and tagging with fb2k if EAC and flac.exe can do it all for you. The command line required for this is not really hard to figure out.

2) FLAC uses its own tagging system (derived from Ogg Vorbis comments), adding APEv2 tags to FLAC files is utterly useless (since no application will read them) and also against the specifications.

3) Yet, contrary to what you believe, your method does not add APEv2 tags to the FLAC files. Selecting APEv2 tagging in the CLI encoder component has no effect because you are encoding from Wave files without tags - you do the tagging via foobar's masstagger, which adds native FLAC tags.

Anyway, I don't think anybody would have ended up with corrupt FLAC files had your method really added APEv2 tags to the files - most people reading your post will probably stop doing so after the first few paragraphs because they are turned off by its incredibly bad readability.

[Edit 2]

Heh, I overread this:

Quote

it is probably preferred,
to encode directly by EAC, via external compression encoder, via wapet, flac to ape2 tagged flacs,
then replaygaining by foobar2000 (described here in this guide) or any other good application.

A good guide for encoding by EAC, wapet/flac, you find at case's page in "configuring eac, musepack, mpc".

Have you actually ever read that guide? Nowhere does it recommend to tag FLAC files with APEv2 tags, it recommends using flac.exe with its own tagging parameters as intended.

EAC & FLAC : a short * Guide

Reply #5 – 2003-11-04 22:01:54

sorry, just used ape2 tagging as synonym for tags as such.
According to mpc, mp3, everybody talks about the advantages of ape2-tags, of course compared to ID3v1/2 or ape-tags.
well, indeed, I copied the form of the guide from the new EAC/Wavepack Hybrid Guide, so you should excuse the formerly 1 or 2 times here appeared wording "ape2", please.

As everybody can see, this is the guide's first draw, no work was done for layout or similar, just to have a way, which works

btw. by your comments you can see, that it is not so easy to do/configure everything right/perfect, respectively describe it perfectly.

Indeed, maybe our tech language here, not only here (where it is very appropriate), but maybe the techie idiom used in other guides (most guides are written by quite experienced guys), prevents the superiour newer codecs like mpc, flac from becoming more popular, mpc compared to the precursors mp3 or the still more popular monkeys ape (compared to flac), or within MP3, compare popularity of the better lame.exe with Fraunhofer etc..

btw., foobar2000 is the only program i trust so far, to do intuitively the correct things, even if users or even noobs configure something wrong....

I think, I am underestimated again, by the text in italics you should have recognized, that the flac guide will be rewritten completely.
In fact, today i carried out my first flac rip, so bare with me

EAC & FLAC : a short * Guide

Reply #6 – 2003-11-04 22:12:22

Yeah, this guide is no good. I was hoping for an EAC commandline so that I could rip to FLAC in one step.

FLAC has been around a long time and is one of the most popular lossless codecs - why oh why does EAC not have a preset for FLAC?

EAC & FLAC : a short * Guide

Reply #7 – 2003-11-04 22:14:52

lazynoob, if you can google, you find at case's page fast and quickly the better commandline, guide with pics, directly written for EAC !

Just read the emphasized text in italics at beginning of this guide.

Edit:
Especially for noobs , I added the direct link to case's page at the top & here:
http://www.saunalahti.fi/~cse/EAC/index.html

EAC & FLAC : a short * Guide

Reply #8 – 2003-11-04 22:21:27

Quote

I was hoping for an EAC commandline so that I could rip to FLAC in one step.

The following works for me (with Parameter passing scheme set to "User Defined Encoder" and file extension set to .flac):

--best --verify -T "artist=%a" -T "title=%t" -T "album=%g" -T "date=%y" -T "tracknumber=%n" -T "Ripped By=Exact Audio Copy 0.95 prebeta 3" -T "Encoded By=Command-line FLAC encoder/decoder version 1.1.0" %s -o %d

EAC & FLAC : a short * Guide

Reply #9 – 2003-11-04 22:27:25

lol,

only minor changes, now the guide is correct, time to calm down for some guys around here

Thanks for the positive criticismn which improved quickly this guide to correctness even in details.

EAC & FLAC : a short * Guide

Reply #10 – 2003-11-04 23:02:15

I think a big problem is people thinking that tagging from filename is an acceptable, permanent solution. Filenames are a SMALL subset of what a real tag, such as APE or Vorbis comment, can actually hold. File names have length restrictions, especially important when you try to encode the year, track, title, album and phase of the moon into one filename, they have many disallowed characters and unless you are using some complicated escaping scheme, any charectes that you are using to seperate fields, if present in the data itself, will totally bork the whole system. If you don't believe me, try this method with an album called "The Band - Greatest Hits".

Tagging from filename is a LAST RESORT! If you are ripping the CD yourself, then get the data into the tag through a better method.

EAC & FLAC : a short * Guide

EAC & FLAC : a short * Guide

Reply #17 – 2003-11-06 10:39:36

According to the comparison table on the FLAC website, the average compression ratio of FLAC --best is 0.5437 and in default mode it is 0.5459.

So by these figures a --best file is on average 0.4% smaller than a default file. So there's really not a lot in it.

EAC & FLAC : a short * Guide

Reply #18 – 2003-11-06 10:48:42

Maybe 0,4% is probably not worth the longer encoding time. It would be 2,8 MB space saved for 700 MB waves as example.

EAC & FLAC : a short * Guide

Reply #19 – 2003-11-07 19:51:08

The former method in that guide has been replaced by the simpler EAC/flac.exe method, ie. EAC's 1-step encoding to flac & tagging.
Then foobar2000 (still) for replaygaining.

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