Hi,

I want to start ripping in my CD collection using EAC and Lame - but I wanted to know if I have to create a folder for each Artist and then subsequentialy (sp?) the album title (that is how I want to save the files). Can I do this through EAC or LAME? Also just a quick question - roughly how many albums can I save on a 120gb hard drive with alt standard preset?

Thanks in advance for your help.

If you figure that the alt standard preset creates files averaging 192kbps: the disk space requirement is 24KB/s (192kbps / 8 bits per byte). 120GB = 120000000KB (120 * 1000 * 1000, not 120 * 1024 * 1024 because hard drive manufacturers play games). So, you can store roughly 5000000 seconds worth of music or 1389 hours. With the average album lasting 45-50 minutes, you are looking at about 1500 albums storable on that hard drive. Frankly, I'd consider a lossless codec like Monkey's Audio if you can set aside that much space for compressed audio.

It also depends greatly on the type of music you'll be encoding.

- For rock you can probably expect around 200-215 or so.
- For heavily compressed pop, extremely noisy electronic music, hardcore, metal (deathmetal/blackmetal/etc), you can expect more around 230-240
- For more minimalistic electronic music, classical, some jazz, and other stuff like that, you can expect bitrates closer to 170-180kbps

Basically, the more compressed and/or noisy it is, the higher the bitrate will usually be.

Yep, if you're serious about your music and have that much space (you probably will have ~100-110 GB usuable) do yourself a favor and start compressing with Monkey's or Flac, or some other lossless CODEC. Then come back here and read up on compression - you'll be glad you did.

You can organize your music on your hard drive any way you like, just like any other data files. Give it some thought before you begin, it will save you lots of time. Then come back here and read up on tags. You get the idea. Every hour you spend here will pay you back manyfold.

Welcome to the forum!

EAC will save your files any way you want it to, on the Filename tab of EAC's options (F9) you can select the method of your choice.

A convenient & simple method is %D - %C%N - %T.

This will create a folder named CD Artist - CD Title, inside this folder your tracks will be saved as Track Number - Track title, you can also add the year and genre if you want to, it's all fairly self explanatory the best way is to do some tests ripping just one track, and you'll find a method that suits every need.