EAC ripping & encoding tutorial

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Grand Master

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After seeing many people ask about ripping and encoding audio CDs here, I have decided to make a little tutorial for people who want to make the best possible rips as well as encoding quality. EAC (Exact Audio Copy) is used to extract the audio as well as direct the encoding and tagging of the extracted wav files. EAC uses the best in audio extraction and error correction to ensure the highest possible end result. This guide will cover both MP3 and OGG audio compression options. MP3 is the most popular standard with very good transparent quality possible. OGG Vorbis is also used which is a newer compression which delivers better compression then MP3 as well as growing support.

I. Downloading needed files.

ASPI - allows your CD-ROM to rip audio

EAC ? used in ripping, encoding, tagging

EAC profiles ? easy setup pre-configuration of EAC

LAME MP3 ? the MP3 codec

Ogg Vorbis ? the OGG codec

II. Installation

First install the ASPI files. After installing you must REBOOT for these files to take effect. Second is to install EAC, it will ask you to search for LAME.exe and ask question about audio ripping, skip these as the profiles will take care of this. Next is to install the EAC profiles which should be extracted to the C:\Program Files\Exact Audio Copy\Profiles\ directory. Second is to download and extract the lame.exe and oggenc.exe into the C:\Program Files\Exact Audio Copy\ directory.

Now lets get EAC setup to we can start ripping and encoding audio. Let?s first set the default output directory to which you want your encoded files to go. To do this go to File, EAC options, and then the Directory tab and direct EAC where you want your files to go. Next let?s check out your CD-ROM/RW/DVD drive specs to see what ripping methods it supports. Go to File, Drive Options, and then Detect Read Features. You will want to have an Audio CD in the drive now that has a few light scratches so EAC can detect your drives features. Its best to use secure mode but if its too slow for you and you don? care so much about quality and possible clicks, check burst mode.

eac3.gif

Lastly you need to put in an email address of any kind from the File, freedb settings. It?s also good to update the freedb server listings here too. Now you can select the profile of the format you want encode and click load. Click on the CD icon to get the artists and song title info, make any changes to the genres or enter the date. Next, simply click the MP3 icon on the left to rip and encode to your specifications.

eac1.gif

This is a work in progress here, just really want people to start using decent audio compression as well as good quality ripps.

Edited by username
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https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/77696-eac-ripping-encoding-tutorial/
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Animaniac

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When using high bitrates (-q5 to -q10) use Oggenc GT3 by gharf over at sjeng.org. Results almost rival Musepack. It fixes "preecho" and allows for better bit allocation.

Your URL for LAME also seems to be broken. Latest stable binary can be found here at Rarewares. When ripping with LAME it's better to set it up as an external encoder rather than using the EAC DLL which produces unpredictable results.

Secondly, C2 correction should be disabled even if your drive is capable of it.

Edited by Animaniac
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Animaniac

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  ToastGodSupreme said:
That was a bit brief. You didn't cover the one thing that I had a huge problem with when I first started using EAC:

Getting it to use a CONSTANT bitrate instead of a variable one.

This is what I finally came up with in my compression options:

Why would anyone use CBR?

Grand Master

Redestium

Posted
Posted
  Animaniac said:
I believe tags itself, if you tell it that you're using Ogg Vorbis in the external encoder pane.

Yeah, just tried it again, and it did tag the files--first time might have been a fluke. I am digging ogg though. :yes: :cool: Just wish there was greater hardware support, and a WMP plug in would be nice.

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Animaniac

Posted
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  Mav Phoenix said:
Yeah, just tried it again, and it did tag the files--first time might have been a fluke. I am digging ogg though. :yes: :cool: Just wish there was greater hardware support, and a WMP plug in would be nice.

WMP plug-in via DirectShow filter is availible here: http://tobias.everwicked.com

^_^

Grand Master

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Posted (edited)
  Animaniac said:
When using high bitrates (-q5 to -q10) use Oggenc GT3 by gharf over at sjeng.org.? Results almost rival Musepack.? It fixes "preecho" and allows for better bit allocation.

if you notice the profiles i have to download, there is a Ogg GT3 one, thats what i use personally, didn't mention it in the thread because i don't want to get too complicated here

  Mav Phoenix said:
When you rip to ogg, how can you have EAC tag your files?

If you use the profile, it will tag it automatically, make sure the "add id3 tag" is disbled as well for ogg vorbis

should look like this

eac4.gif

you will want the commant line to be this

%s -q 6 -t "%t" -a "%a" -l "%g" -c "comment=EAC: v1 ogg @ q6" -G "%m" -d %y -N %n

and you can change the comment tag to you liking

  zivan56 said:
Or you can just use CDex which has all of those Codecs built in.

but EAC has is more secure ripping for quality, but CDex does the job nice too

Edited by username
Grand Master

Redestium

Posted
Posted (edited)

Is there any good user manuals for encoding with ogg? I recognize some of the parameters that you listed but It'd be nice if there was something that I could look at as a reference and as a means to learn more about this format.

edit:

Is there anything that I could use in order to join ogg files? I have some classical stuff that I just ripped but the one piece is broken up into movements by track on the CD and I'd like them all to be in one ogg file, if you know what I mean. Or is there a way to rip a grouping of tracks into a single file?

Edited by Mav Phoenix
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Grand Master

Jason the Eighty Eighth

Posted
Posted

may i just suggest an awesome plugin for Winamp which allows ripping CDAs to MP3s? no need for a software, if you're using Winamp, simply download, install, download the CD-reading applet/patch/plugin and you're set.

Chun Yu Shei-'s MP3 Ripper for Winamp (don't ask about the name)

  Quote
Rip CDs to MP3 directly with Winamp! Why use a different program to rip CDs when you can rip them with Winamp? No ACM codec required either! Be sure to grab the CD Reader plugin from http://www.url.ru/~copah/ if you want to rip CDs (and read the help file too). The help file is HTML help, which most versions of Windows should be able to read. If you can't read it, go to www.microsoft.com and get the HTML Help viewer. You can use VBR and ABR encoding and select how to name the output. New in this version: Can add ID3 tags to output. Added option to display speed statistics after encoding each file (don't use it when you want to encode a CD, since a dialog box pops up after each track).
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