Hi experts!

I´ve just started using EAC and Lame and I notice a big difference when it comes to sound quality compared with other grabbers I´ve used.

Chris Myden´s guide was excellent when setting the corréct options.
The problem is that I´d like to keep his settings as default so that i don´t have to change and go through the settings each time I use the programme.

I´d be thankful for an answer.

regards
NIlle

Quite simple
Create a profile, bottom of the EAC windows.
Name the new profile & back it up somewhere.

That easily solved my problem.

Thanks
Peter

Nille, just so ya know, EAC should save your settings automatically when you exit the program, and the next time you start EAC it should be what you used last.

Unless of course you use a different drive, EAC will 'remember' your settings for each drive.

chris

I read the article, but can someone make a clear, bulleted list of the best settings?

Thanks!

Jim

Hi Jim

"Best" is a pretty subjective term, it really depends on what you want to accomplish.

The only settings that really affect the quality of the audio extraction in EAC are under 'Drive Options' (extraction tab).

The most important thing is being accurate when telling EAC what your drive can (and cannot do).

Most drives don't support C2 error correction, so I'd turn that off, otherwise EAC might not catch errors correctly.

And obviously, use a secure mode if you want error correction.

Other than that, the rest of the options are up to you. I

really don't think I could make a list any clearer than the simplified tutorial at my site, which basically walks you through each step (put a checkmark here, put a checkmark there, type this, type that)

The ChrisMyden.com Guide To Creating Amazing MP3s
http://www.ChrisMyden.com/MUSIC/

chris

Thanks Chris--I didn't see that section of your site. I just saw the one article.

Also, is there anyway to know if my drive caches, how it handles extracting, etc. if I know the drive? Or is it better to do the different tests?

Finally, what version are you using? Am I best off with the absolute newest, or the last release before that?

One more question...sorry!

Unless I'm wrong, you suggest to take normalize off...everyone I know recommends normalizing. Did I read wrong, or are you saying to not normalize?

You can use mp3gain to change volume. And it can be undone. So its not recommended to normalize!

I know about MP3 gain, but why is it recommended to not normalize?? I don't understand...

Also, I ripped an MP3 using all of Chris's recommendations and the MP3 was about 26 MB...that's wayyyyy to big....did I do something wrong?

why would you want to normalize if you can use mp3gain? You can undo the volume changes without any loss in quality, when u normalize you can't do this!

So with normalizing you're saying you lose audio quality? Also, how you can not undo it...technincally, you can use MP3 gain to undo it, can't you?

normalizing doesn't change the gain values in the header! So i doubt you can undo normalization with mp3gain!

jmw1137:

When normalizing, you scale the audio signal itself (=the wave file, in this case) up or down so the maximum volume level is, say, 90%.

Suppose you normalized a file peaking at 99% to 90% - it would have to be scaled down by 9%. All samples having a level of 9% or lower would be lost. By normalizing the file back to 99%, you couldn't reconstruct those samples, either.

When normalizing a compressed audio signal, there is another factor that influences the quality: The psymodel "intends" the encoded signal only for the exact original volume. Any further modifications to the signal can, for example, pronounce artifacts or bring frequencies to the foreground that should actually be masked. (This problem applies to post-processing of compressed file in general, maybe not so much to normalizing, though - I don't know for sure. Anyway, it is a factor to consider.)


Somebody over at r3mix.net forums once gave a very nice and simple explanation of how MP3Gain works. You can look at the "structure" of an MP3 file like this (very simplified):

multiplier * (frame content)

The "frame content" is the audio signal itself, the volume of which the multiplier specifies. All MP3Gain does is to change the mutliplier value. It doesn't touch the signal itself, so any modifications made to the volume this way can be undone without any loss in quality.


BTW, the main reason why all these people tell you to normalize is that they think you can make files sound equally loud by doing so. That's not true.

Suppose you had a file A and a file B that you wanted to make equally loud. A shall be a song with the volume ranging around 60% most of the time, but peaking at 95%. B shall be a horrible modern compressed recording, ranging in the 90-100% area most of the time (peaking at 100%, of course).

As a novice who believes what most of those people say, you normalize both files to 98%.

A would be scaled up by 3% - a change hardly audible. B would be scaled down by 2% - also hardly audible.

The files would not even nearly have the "same volume", if B were played after A, you'd still grab your volume control immediately

MP3Gain modifies the volume of a group of files to make them sound equally loud (and it works! ).


Hope this helps,

Dominic

Edit: I just searched the r3mix forum for that explanation - according to the user who wrote it (VitaMan), is was deleted when the forum software crashed or something. (...)

Hi Jim,

Yes, 26MB is large for an MP3, unless of course you were encoding a song that's 25+ minutes long.

Did you double check your compression settings? EAC -> Compression Options -> External compression.

Also, make sure you selected COPY -> Compressed (and not COPY -> Uncompressed) when extracting the track.

If you continue to have problems, I can walk you through it live in my chat room.

http://www.ChrisMyden.com/CHAT/

chris