If you run TAG on a UNICODE/NT-based OS, using the -t switch, or --artist, --album, etc. will treat the value as UNICODE and converted it to UTF-8.

If you are on Win 95/98, you can use the -u switch instead of -t, e.g.: TAG -u "artist=Sigur Rós" to specify UTF-8.

The -f switch, which reads the value from a text file, will always convert the file contents to UTF-8.

I hope this clears things up.

@ponchorage
While I'm posting anyway: could you possibly update the link on your download page to point to http://www.neilpopham.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/tag.html please? I've had to change ISPs and I doubt the Wanadoo site will be around much longer - I certainly won't be able to update it.

Thanks, and keep up the good work. Flacattack certainly has come on in leaps and bounds.

Thanks for the explanation Synth. I'll update that link.

The GUI is now finished. I think this is the best way to setup your flacattack.ini file. See the first post for the link. Try it out and let me know of any bugs.

I'm using Flacattack 0.93 and I am experiencing a few problems.
1. The CUESHEET is being imbedded in FLAC image file even though I have turned off embedding in flacattack.ini file.
2. The AAC file is not being created.

My EAC compression settings are: "C:\FLAC_Attack\flacattack.ini" %s "%a" "%t" "%g" "%y" "%n" "%m" %o

My .ini is:
[FLAC_INFO]
EXE=C:\Program Files\FLAC\flac.exe
OPTIONS=-6
PATH=D:\My Music\New Downloads\%artist - %album [%date]
FILENAME=%artist - %album [%date]
COMMENT=Encoded using EAC and Flacattack
FILETYPE=image

[AAC_INFO]
USE=y
EXE=C:\Progra~1\Foobar~1\faac.exe
OPTIONS=-w -q 150
PATH=D:\My Music\New Downloads\aac\%artist - %album
FILENAME=%tracknumber - %title
COMMENT=Encoded using EAC and Flacattack

[METAFLAC_INFO]
USE=y
EXE=C:\Program Files\FLAC\metaflac.exe
OPTIONS=--add-replay-gain

[AACGAIN_INFO]
USE=y
EXE=C:\Program Files\Foobar2000\aacgain.exe
OPTIONS=/a

[LOG_INFO]
FLAC_LOG_USE=n
FLAC_LOG_PATH=D:\My Music\New Downloads\%artist - %album [%date]
FLAC_LOG_FILENAME=%artist - %album [%date]
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
AAC_LOG_USE=n
AAC_LOG_PATH=C:\music\aac\%artist - %album
AAC_LOG_FILENAME=%artist - %album

;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
;;;;; TAG SETTINGS ;;;;;
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
[TAG_INFO]
EMBED_CUE=n
EMBED_LOG=n
DELETE_CUE=n
DELETE_LOG=n
EXE=C:\Program Files\FLAC\Tag.exe

[CUE_INFO]
FILENAME=%artist - %album

I think this might be why the aacs aren't being encoded:

EXE=C:\Progra~1\Foobar~1\faac.exe

Try a non-dos path.

A basic cue sheet will always be embedded. It is needed to decode the flac to the individual files so that the lossy files can be encoded from that output. I think I might be able to remove it after that though. I'll look into it.

I've tried the full path, full path in quotes, all with the same result. I also tried using LAME. Same problem exists. It creates the flac file, but no mp3 file.
Also, I answered "no" to metaflac replaygain, updated the ini file, but it still adds replaygain to the file. I'm not sure what is going on here, but I did not experience this problem last night with the previous version.

One last thing. The embedded cuesheet is changing my track titles from the actual name to "Track 01", "Track 02", etc in foobar2000.

Thank for your quick reply it is most appreciated. :-)

Edit: I have everything working now. It seems that the issue was in "EAC Options" >"Directories". That directory setting needed to be the same as the PATH setting in the .ini file. The cuesheet issue still remains, but everything else has been resolved. Thanks for a terrific program! :-)

Glad to hear you got it working. That is normal for the cue sheet to do that. If you look at the cue sheet tag from inside foobar, you'll see that it says "Track 1", "Track 2", etc. If you were to choose to embed the cue sheet in the flacattack.ini file, the real track titles would show up.



What do you have in EAC options => Filename tab => naming scheme? You can't have anything there with a directory structure (ie %D - %C\%N - %A - %T). It can only be a filename (ie %N - %A - %T). The directory setting shouldn't need to be the same, but, hey if it works.

Why aren't you using the cue sheet to play the file in foobar? (especially if you don't want the cue embedded) It really shouldn't matter what is embedded in the flac image if you just use the cue sheet.

Have you tried using the GUI to set up your flacattack.ini file?

EDIT: I just did a practice run ripping to a flac image and aac files and didn't have any problems. I don't think this is a problem with Flacattack. Has anybody else had any similar problems?

Hi Ponchorage,

The directory setting seemed to only affect the secondary file formats i.e. AAC, MP3, etc. It had no effect on on creating the FLAC image file.
I am using "%N - %T" as the EAC filename structure.

As for the CUESHEET handling. Cueheets are are being embedded no matter what my setting is in the .ini file. I've ripped with "Embedded Cuesheet" "n" & "y" and the cuesheet is in the FLAC file every time.
These embedded cuesheets never have "TITLE" in the track area of the cuesheet. When I look at the original cuesheet created by EAC that "TITLE" info is there.

Also, I never get an embedded LOG either, whether the .ini setting is set to "y" or "n". Maybe settings are all pointing to CUESHEET handling?

Thanks again for your help.

About the cuesheet. That's exactly what I said in an earilier post:



To be able to get inidividual lossy files from the flac image, it is necessary to embed a basic cue sheet (the one that you see in the cuesheet tag). The flac image is then decoded based on the track indexes specified in that embedded cusheet and the decoded temporary wave file is encoded to the lossy format(s). I may be able to remove the cue after doing this processing but I have yet to look into it. I once asked Josh if it could be possible to just do this referencing an external cuesheet, but he did not seem to think it was necessary (as you can just used an embedded cue).

I'll look into why the log is not being embedded. Thanks for the help.

EDIT:
To embed the log you have to make sure that two settings are set:

[TAG_INFO]
EMBED_LOG=y

AND

[LOG_INFO]
FLAC_LOG_USE=y

I'll update the gui so that you can't set EMBED_LOG if you don't have FLAC_LOG_USE checked.

I understand the CUESHEET situation, but why ask in the .ini whether to embed or not if it embeds automatically. I like my song titles embedded as well, so is there a way of doing that with flacattack?

As for the LOG, I do have the "TAG_INFO" as you stated above, but still do not have a Log sheet embedded.

No matter what, the flac command : --cuesheet="filename.cue", is used to embed the basic cue I've been talking about.

In addition, if you choose to embed the cue by using EMBED_CUE, then Tag.exe is run on the flac image with: tag.exe -f "CUESHEET=filename.cue" image.flac.

This second command causes the track titles to appear as the track title instead of just Track 1, Track 2, etc.

As for the log issue, I'm not sure what's going on. Everything is working fine for me on three different machines. Do you have Tag installed? It needs to be the one made by Synthetic Soul. You can dowload it on the Flacattack download page if you haven't already.

Could somebody else please test this and see if you are having any problems?

Edit:
You do have EAC set to create the log, right? Also, is there a log file in the same directory as your flac image file after encoding?

Yes, I do have the correct TAG.exe version. Yes, when the process is completed I am left with a flac file, a cuesheet file and Log file in the destination directory. When I get home this evening, I will test it some more to see if I can get everything working as it should. I will post my results, good or bad tomorrow. Again, your assistance has been very much appreciated.

Actually that's NOT what happens.
As I understand, a basic non-tagged cuesheet is always embedded so that FLACattack can split it into different tracks. This is okay aside from the fact that FLACattack doesn't override that CUESHEET with a tagged one! It used to do that but now the best I can get is one cuesheet with no tags, and a seperate .cue file with tags. Is this not the problem drbeachboy is also having?

That is what has been happening for me. I'm not having any problems with it. I'm not sure what is going on. However, I just made an update to the code so that if you DON'T have EMBED_CUE set, the CUESHEET metadata block will be deleted from the flac image after it has been used to encode the lossy files. Maybe by doing this no matter what though (whether or not you choose to embed the cue), it will resolve this conflict.

So, if you chose to embed the cue:

1. encode flac file with embedded CUESHEET metadata block
2. decode to wave for lossy files using the CUESHEET metadata block
3. delete the CUESHEET metadata block
4. use tag to tag the flac image with the external cue sheet storing it in a CUESHEET tag (not metadata block)

Jokull:
I'll post a copy of Flacattack with this change for you to try if you want.

What you stated is exactly what is happening to me.

Thanks for clearing out the metadata block, as I'd rather have the CUESHEET in the file as a tag, and therefore still have the TITLE track info in the cuesheet. Seems the metadata block overrides the Tag info.

I never had this problem to begin with, but this should avoid it all together.

Version 0.95 is now available.

Thank you very much. I will check it out as soon as I return home from work.

Still no good with embedded cuesheet in 0.95. I guess you're still embedding cuesheets that aren't tagged. Could there be a typo in your code that refers to the temporary cuesheet created by EAC and not the one fed through TAG? Can some more people please test and see if they have this problem also.

Thanks again for rapid updates ponchorage.

EDIT:

This cannot be configured in the GUI (or am I missing something?).

I'm not sure what you mean by "embedding cuesheets that aren't tagged".

I mean that in <0.9 version of FLACattack the embedded cuesheets had track information and such. Now the only way to achieve this is by saving a complimentary cuesheet by "DELETE_CUE=n". What I would like (the way it used to be) is to embedd the cuesheet with track information as opposed to the one that doesn't have it and comes straight from EAC.

EDIT: > -> < : )

Here is the code:

Okay, I understand. This is really puzzling me. I am not having any problems with this. My embedded cue sheets have all the track info. This might sound like a dumb question, but are you sure you're referencing the correct version of flacattack.exe from inside EAC?

I suppose I might be doing something awfully wrong so I'll hold back on any complaints until someone confirms the problem. In the meantime I'll try to figure out what's bothering my pretty little copy of FLACattack. Hopefully the problem will resolve with a little time.

I just checked my FLAC file with an embedded CUE and played back with Foobar2000 v.0.8.3 and the track information is stored correctly. Looking at the file options I see the CUESHEET tag with the correct track titles there.

Since I don't seem to have that problem, let me report another . Got to keep you on your toes. I took a quick glance at the code and didn't see a problem, but I didn't look close or run through the debugger.

The .LOG file is being deleted even when I have the following settings below. I had EMBED_LOG=y at first and thought maybe the embed process deleted the source file, but I'm not sure what's going on.

BTW, great work on the code, I would recommend refactoring a few things (some reused code blocks that could easily be moved into their own methods). It looks like you directly ported over your old PHP script code. But good work!!!

I probably won't have time tonight to debug through your code looking for why the LOG file is deleted, but if you don't get to it right away, I'll have time over the weekend to run through it.

Thanks for trying that out GodHead. You're right, I just tried to port everything over from the PHP and then I've been making adjustments as I go. I've already created a few new functions for code reuse, as you suggested. Thanks for taking a look at the code. I'm fairly new to C#.

I'll look into the problem with the log file and see what's going on.


Jokull:
You are right. I forgot to add the ability to name the cue file to the GUI. I'll get that fixed. Can you check your path to Tag.exe and make sure it is correct. Same goes for metaflac.exe. When the path to those is not set correctly, you will see on the screen a message that says, "Could not find the executable". It will just flash right after the flac file has finished encoding. (Not very helpful since you can't see it, I realized. I'll probably add a ReadLine() so that the user has to hit a key to continue.) Thanks for helping me out with this.

GodHead:

Did you see the following when your rip finished? Can you look in the directory where you told EAC to rip to and see if the log file is there?

Yes I see that warning and I see the .LOG file created in the directory where I had EAC rip to (artist.log). But once I press <enter> the log file is no where to be found. That is unless I had it embed the LOG, then I do see if in the FLAC, but the external file was deleted.

Hi Ponchorage,

Version 0.95 fixed all my problems. The cuesheet tag is perfect, as well as the Log file being embedded. You are indeed an Ace in coming up with a very quick fix. Thank you once again.

No problem. I'm not sure what I did but I'm glad everything is working for you now. Thanks for testing the new versions and helping to get the problems worked out.

Hi Ponchorage,

Is there a way within the Flacattack AAC settings gui to have the filenames changed from "mp4" to "m4a"? I Use AAC with my iPod and that is the only AAC file extension that is recognized by the iPod.

I would love a port of FLACattack for CDparanoia on the GNU/Linux platform! I'll be switching soon and FLACattack is the one utility that I will miss the most ;(

There is not a way right now, but I can make it so that you can choose the extension.

Maybe there is someone here at the forums that would be up for the challenge? I haven't done a whole lot of Linux programming, so I'm not sure I'd capable of it yet. Actually, you might be able to take the old php version and use that on Linux.

That would be most appreciated. Thanks!

Actually, you might be able to get it to compile under *nix using MONO. MONO is the open source community in porting .NET to *nix. Sicne FA is a command line application, I would suspect it's be pretty easy to get running under MONO.

Version 1.0 now out. See first post.

Hi Jeremy,

I received this error with flacattack 1.0:

Window box:
flacattack.exe - Common Language Runtime Debugging Services
Application has generated an exception that could not be handled
Process id=0xd34(3460), Thread id=0xd88(3464).

Any idea what may have caused this error?

Can you give me some more details? Where were you in the process when you received this error?

I'm getting the same error message, and its as soon as EAC calls on Flacattack. So apparently Flacattack is not able to start at all. I've quadruple checked my ini but don't seem to see any discrepancies.

I can quote my ini if you'd like.

But on a positive note, the new GUI looks nice.

...In addition, I was wondering if any parameters are required in the "Additional Options" field for Flac. I'm only using the compression level slider, assuming that gets the job done. Could this have an affect on the error?

No additional parameters are required. This is just for if people have other command line options besides verify and the compression level that they would like to add.

Please do post or send me your ini configuration.

The same place as above. The error happened as soon as EAC finshed the rip and called flacattack. I'm not sure about the other user, but I upgraded the .NET Framework software from the Windows Software Update site. Could that be the culprit?

Posting to say I get the same error.

[FLAC_INFO]
EXE=E:\Music\flac\bin\flac.exe
PATH=E:\Music
FILENAME=%tracknumber - %title
COMPRESSION_LEVEL=8
VERIFY=n
ARTIST_TAG=y
ALBUM_TAG=y
TITLE_TAG=y
DATE_TAG=y
GENRE_TAG=y
TRACKNUMBER_TAG=y
COMMENT_TAG=n
COMMENT=
OTHER_OPTIONS=
FILETYPE=individual
[METAFLAC_INFO]
USE=n
EXE=
OPTIONS=
[LOG_INFO]
FLAC_LOG_USE=n
FLAC_LOG_PATH=
FLAC_LOG_FILENAME=
MP3_LOG_USE=n
MP3_LOG_PATH=
MP3_LOG_FILENAME=
MPC_LOG_USE=n
MPC_LOG_PATH=
MPC_LOG_FILENAME=
OGG_LOG_USE=n
OGG_LOG_PATH=
OGG_LOG_FILENAME=
AAC_LOG_USE=n
AAC_LOG_PATH=
AAC_LOG_FILENAME=
[MP3_INFO]
USE=n
EXE=
PATH=
FILENAME=
COMPRESSION_LEVEL=
ARTIST_TAG=y
ALBUM_TAG=y
TITLE_TAG=y
DATE_TAG=y
GENRE_TAG=y
TRACKNUMBER_TAG=y
COMMENT_TAG=n
COMMENT=
OTHER_OPTIONS=
[MP3GAIN_INFO]
USE=n
EXE=
OPTIONS=
[MPC_INFO]
USE=n
EXE=
PATH=
FILENAME=
COMPRESSION_LEVEL=
ARTIST_TAG=y
ALBUM_TAG=y
TITLE_TAG=y
DATE_TAG=y
GENRE_TAG=y
TRACKNUMBER_TAG=y
COMMENT_TAG=n
COMMENT=
OTHER_OPTIONS=
[REPLAYGAIN_INFO]
USE=n
EXE=
OPTIONS=
[OGG_INFO]
USE=n
EXE=
PATH=
FILENAME=
COMPRESSION_LEVEL=
ARTIST_TAG=y
ALBUM_TAG=y
TITLE_TAG=y
DATE_TAG=y
GENRE_TAG=y
TRACKNUMBER_TAG=y
COMMENT_TAG=n
COMMENT=
OTHER_OPTIONS=
[VORBISGAIN_INFO]
USE=n
EXE=
OPTIONS=
[AAC_INFO]
USE=n
EXE=
PATH=
FILENAME=
EXTENSION=
COMPRESSION_LEVEL=
ARTIST_TAG=y
ALBUM_TAG=y
TITLE_TAG=y
DATE_TAG=y
GENRE_TAG=y
TRACKNUMBER_TAG=y
COMMENT_TAG=n
COMMENT=
OTHER_OPTIONS=
[AACGAIN_INFO]
USE=n
EXE=
OPTIONS=
[REPLACEMENT_INFO]
MATCH_EAC=y
ASTERISK=
PIPE=
FORWARD_SLASH=
COLON=
QUESTION_MARK=
LESS_THAN=
GREATER_THAN=
[TAG_INFO]
DELETE_LOG=n
DELETE_CUE=n
EMBED_CUE=n
EMBED_LOG=n
EXE=
[CUE_INFO]
FILENAME=%artist - %album

I've figured out what's causing the problem. It was a mistake to include the stripped down flacattack.ini file instead of the old one, with my presets. It is causing some problems. I'm working on a fix right now and will post it asap. Thanks for letting me know.

i got same error after cd is ripped too, thanks for aknowledging error and looking into it.

dobz

Problem fixed (I believe). Version 1.01. See the first post.

Hi Jeremy,

Is there a problem with your site? I haven't been able to access it this evening.

It was down for awhile today, but it should be back up now.

thanks a ton, everything is working like a dream now! Time to rip all those cds to flac.