Flacattack 1.03
UPDATE March 01, 2005

Dowload

I made a couple of small changes to check for errors.

Flacattack 1.02
UPDATE February 16, 2005

Dowload

I added a new function to find the log file before it is moved. Now if there are multiple log files in the temporary EAC ripping directory, the correct one will be chosen.

I rearranged some code so that the directory chosen in EAC (when prompted to save your files) and the final flac destination directory can be the same directory. However, I don't recommend this still. There is a bug that I can't figure out that occurs when the EAC file naming scheme and the flac filename scheme are the same. When they are the same, the flac files end up getting deleted somehow.

Flacattack 1.01
UPDATE February 15, 2005

Fixed the problem that caused Flacattack to close immediately when started. Also, replaced the bare-bones ini file with one that has default values (like before). The problem was happening because a function that fixes incorrect folder slashes was being run on values from the ini that referred to directories that did not exist. A combination of a small fix to the function and the new ini should fix the problem.

Flacattack 1.0
UPDATE February 14, 2005

The GUI is now updated to match all the new features.

Added some error checking code to make sure all necessary executables are found before running Flacattack.

Other minor stuff.

Check it out!

Flacattack 0.95
UPDATE February 03, 2005

The CUESHEET metadata block is removed after encoding to loss files. There is also a small update to the GUI.

GUI finished
UDPATE February 02, 2005

The GUI is finished. This is the preferred way to setup your flacattack.ini file settings.

Flacattack 0.93
UPDATE February 01, 2005

Just a few bug fixes. See the download page for details.

Flacattack 0.91
UPDATE January 31, 2005

I just fixed a bug that affected special characters in cue sheet causing them to be deleted.

Also, in EAC options => Filename tab, Naming Scheme should be %N - %A - %T or anything that DOES NOT have a directory structure, otherwise
Flacattack will complain that it cannot find the cue sheet and will exit.

Flacattack 0.9
UPDATE January 31, 2005

Lots of fixes and some new features such as AAC support. Please try it out and let me know of any bugs. Thanks to those who have done so in the past.

Also, the gui should only be used with version 0.7 and earlier. It won't work how you want it to otherwise. I'll be updating it soon.

Version 0.9

1. Output an error when a valid cue sheet is not found.
2. Added AAC support. Can encode to .mp4.
3. Added aacgain support for aac files.
4. Flac replaygain is now applied after encoding to lossy files.
5. Fixed issue with CDs that have a data track at the end.
6. Fixed problem with getting track information from cue sheet when encoding to individual files.
7. Added ability to have a comment tag.
8. Cleaned up the code a little.
9. Rearranged parts of the flacattack.ini file and added necessary sections.
10. You can now decide the log filename and path.
11. Added ability to save log in lossy file folders.
12. Fixed bug where flac individual files weren't renamed to specified naming scheme. (They were all named tracknumber - artist - title.flac)
13. Allowed PERFORMER and TITLE in cue file to have illegal filename characters (I'm not sure why I was replacing them!)
14. You can decide the cue filename format.
15. Cue sheet will now reference correct files.

Flacattack 0.8
UPDATE January 21, 2005

Don't forget that you'll need to .NET Framework with this new version because it has been rewritten using C#. Please test it and let me know of any bugs/problems/issues/requests.

Version 0.8

1. I rewrote everything using C#.
2. You can now use paths that have spaces. (Please test this though.)
3. I fixed the flac encoder option issue (only being able to use one option). This should apply to other encoders as well.
4. I added a Flacattack command line argument (%o). This was to make it possible to use the EAC compression queue. There is still one problem when using log files. Flacattack won't know which log to transfer or embed (there will be several depending on how many albums you have ripped). It will just take the first one it finds.
5. If you don't choose to move the log file, it will be deleted.
6. Renamed executable to "facli.exe".

GUI for flacattack.ini file
UPDATE January 16, 2005

You can now download a GUI application (written in C#) that will allow you to configure the flacattack.ini file. There is some more info about it and basic configuration on the home page (www.uninformative.com/flacattack).

I'm 75% done with the C# rewrite of Flacattack itself. There most likely will not be any new features in this first release, but I hope to have fixed a few bugs (filenames with spaces and maybe some others).

Flacattack 0.7
UPDATE October 29, 2004

1. I added replay-gain for individual flac files.
2. I fixed a bug where the orginal folder made by EAC was not removed and the log file was not moved when ripping
to individual flac files.
3. The log file is deleted if you choose not to move it. If you DON'T close the EAC ripping window before the last
file is finished encoding, the log file will NOT be deleted and you will have to do so manually. (If you don't
want the log file, change your setting in EAC. This is just for if you forgot. )
4. I added support for replay-gain of lossy files.
5. I added support for ripping to individual lossy files when ripping to individual flac files (like MAREO).

Flacattack 0.6

1. I extended the naming of the lossy files to match that of the flac files. They can use variables now, too.
2. I allowed specifying an absolute path for the lossy files rather than one relative to the flac output folder.
3. I made a few changes to the flacattack.ini file. I got rid of the [PATH_INFO] section and moved it to [FLAC_INFO].

if you are planing on doing many updates, you should use only one threat

Great! I'll d/l and check out the new version tonight!

Agreed, so we can subscribe to that thread e-mail notification, of course...

Kwanbis, do you really think flacATTACK can be a real THREAT for us??

Cheers! Sergio

Ok. Ill do that from now on.

Hi, I've been messing around with flacattack for some time trying to get it to work. Right now, it only works for me if I set the file extension to "." (instead of ".flac" as it says in the guide) then save the Wave form as exactly %Artist - %Album (well, exactly as what those variables equal). Anyway, now it seems to be encoding, but it looks like it ignored my -8 option and went for -0 on the FLAC.

Using flacattack .6, latest versions of all the other software, image mode. I can E-mail you my INI file if you want.

EDIT: I was wrong. The FLAC flags actually amount to -8, I just was looking for -8 but it's just its equivalent, which I found out by reading flac --help. Sorry!

But still, it's strange that I can only get it to work if I change from .flac to . nothing in EAC compression options, and that I have to call it that specific thing (or maybe this is not strange, but it wasn't in your instructions as far as I could tell).

Is FLACattack easier to setup and use than UberFLAC (is anyone familiar with this utiility?)

It's a perl based script that sounds like it pretty much does what FLACattack does as well.

Best way to find out is to try. The answer(s) you receive will be pretty subjective anyhow.

IMHO FLACattack is pretty damn easy to setup. The INI file is well documented, so you just remove bits you don't want and amend bits where you're told to.

Is there any way to transfer the replay gain information from the flac files to the lossy files? I know that OggDrop will transfer this info when converting flac to ogg (I don't know about other lossless formats). Can this feature be added?

Thanks!

Go ahead and send me your ini file and I'll look and see if I notice anything strange.

I'm not sure, but I'll look into it.

I am well underway in ripping my whole CD collection but my "various artists" / "soundtrack" CD's have been aside until Flacattack will support these. I was wondering what the problem with this is. I looked at the cuesheets generated and they have a Performer field for each track. Am I wrong to think these could be used to state the artist for each track? Does EAC not write this into the cuesheet or?

Also would you put "Various Artists" into the Artist OGG tag or what?

Just some questions; thought I might start a discussion on the only missing part of Flacattack.

This should not be too difficult to implement. The fact of the matter is that I just haven't even looked into this yet. You are correct in assuming that the artist names from the cue sheet could be used to name (and tag) any files that are encoded to lossy (mpc, mp3, ogg).



I would put the artist name in the ogg artist tag. (Are you referring to when you rip lossy to ogg files?)

No just referring to my beautiful single file backups. I don't mean to rush the development...it doesn't have to be since your updates are coming out faster then user requests. Good job

Okay I'll send you this soon. I noticed that by not specifying .flac, when you decompress the FLAC image to wave, you have to rename the wave to have no extension for the cue sheet to recognize it. Not sure what's going on, I'm pretty sure it's my fault and not flacattack's though.

Also, any possibility of writing id3v2 tags to the lossy files? You already use tag.exe which I think can do this. Because right now if I am encoding to FLAC + mp3, and I set the genre to something that's not one of the id3v1 choices, the program just fails to encode any mp3s.

To add id3v2 tags to your mp3s, just make your OPTIONS under [MP3_INFO]:

OPTIONS = "--alt-preset standard --add-id3v2"

Ok, I'm using --preset extreme but thanks, I didn't realize you could do that (stupid me)

New version 0.7. See first post.

I've tried out FLACattack on a couple CD's, and there's a few issues that I'm not sure how to work around. First off, I've got foobar writing playcount data to the file, but it increments the play count for every file. IE: I play thru an entire 10 song album, and every song claims to have been played 10 time.

Also, when I try to update file info, or use freeDB to name the files, it doesn't stick. If I then move the file, the changes are reset, so they must not be applied to file, just foobar's database.

If anyone knows how to fix these issues [which are probably interrelated anyways] I'd love to know. The seeking is much more responsive for a straight FLAC file than it is for FLAC wrapped in a matroska container. I just wish jcoalson would add some real support for internal cuesheets. I've heard his argument for the current implementation, but I just don't agree with it, as it's very much castrated.

BO(V)BZ

Can I keep my old .ini file?

Not if you were using metaflac to apply replay-gain to your files. Otherwise, you should be fine.

Somebody else reported this same problem. The changes aren't sticking. I'm not sure why. I'm not sure what I can do in Flacattack to change this though. Any ideas?

Isn't that really a problem of Foobar not dealing with the CUESHEET tag properly?
I sense more and more people turning to the single file backup method proposed and done by Flacattack. If that is true it should be enough to push a better Foobar support for the CUESHEET tag.
However I may be wrong in thinking that is the issue...when you FreeDB your songs it doesn't go into the CUEESHEET tag and parse the file with updated tags does it?

The problem with your playcount is that the playcount feature is counting how many times a FILE was played not a song....just a guess though.

I tried my old .ini and something went wrong. The path scheme is the one from the older version....I updated it with no hassle. Just thought I'd note that it should be updated.

Seems to me this is a minor foobar bug. As jokull suggests, foobar appears to be playing the file 10 times (presumably it stops playback at the end of a track and then restarts for the next), and as it is only one file that is getting updated 10 times.
I can only assume that, if foobar finds a cuesheet tag, it strictly adheres to the data contained, and overrides anything else.

@ BO(V)BZ
What tags are you trying to set? When you say they don't stick have you tried viewing them from metaflac? Is it possible that foobar is just displaying the alternative cuesheet value, and that that your new value is still saved as a tag, viewable by other programs that don't have the same cuesheet support (like metaflac or a specific tag app... like Tag)?

The link in the first post (BTW, check the wording: "dowload") still points to 0.6

I also suggest that this thread topic would be changed by a moderator to "Flacattack new versions announce" or something like that, removing the reference to the 0.6 version


Cheers

Sergio

Oops, sorry about that. It's fixed now. I agree about changing the thread topic.

Synthetic:

The playcount bug is simple enough: the plugin writes data just to the main file's tag black, not to the cuesheet, for each individual track. I'm not too sure how to use metaflac, haven't played with it, but I'll see what I can find out

If you're not familiar with command line applications the you could also use a GUI application to check.

I just think we need to check the VORBIS tags in some program other than foobar, as foobar seems to be overiding with the cuesheet info.

Either that, or remove the cuesheet entirely from the file (either/both the embedded tag or/and the external accompanying cuesheet), and reload into foobar.

I got some little problems, maybe you can help me

1. Although i've typed in that the filename scheme should be "%tracknumber. %title" al files are named after "%tracknumber - %artist - %title"

2. In the cue the endings aren't changed into .flac

3. .log and .cue aren't moved

Here's the FLAC_INFO-part of my flacattack.ini




All other features excepting MATCH_EAC and MOVE are turned off

Flacattack supports MP3, MPC, and OGG. Could it possibly support AAC in the future? I would love this for my iPod.

Two problems.

1. I can't get flacattack to work with single file mode. I have things setup properly, I think. I create my cue sheet, I accept the default placement (is that right? yes? no?), then go mp3. Then I just have wav files That's not exactly true, I have the directories, but no compressed flacs in them, no movement of the log file, etc.

Oh, and I'm using the default string as from the flacattack webpage.

Here's my ini file. At least the parts that have a y in them. Can you see anything I'm just missing because I've been up too long?



2. If you are using replaygain in single file mode are you applying track gain or album gain?

I'm trying to multiple files. Mainly so I can have album gain in the multiple flacs and also because just using multiple flacs with standard tags seems like it will be supported better.

I see the attraction of the single image files - it's just more...Hrm... Elegant? I just like the compliance idea for when I pick up a squeezebox or if foobar isn't around in year X, etc.

Also, is the the right thread for such discussions? If not, I will edit and create a new thread. Thanks.

I'll look into #1.

I've never had a problem with #2. Can anybody recreate that?

#3 - Did you set the option to move log and cue?

1. Try putting flac in a directory that has NO spaces. This a known issue that I have been unable to resolve as of yet.

2. I believe it just applies track gain. Do all songs have the same values?

You're okay using this thread.

Sorry I haven't been around much lately. I'm finishing up school and haven't had much free time to work on Flacattack.

I will be working on a gui that will help with setting up the ini file (actually that part is done) and I am rewriting the code in C# so that I don't have to depend on priadoblender. I'll try get out any requests made to this point in the next version, but I can't make any promises of when that will be.

Also, I'm moving and won't be able to have my webserver set up for a while. Does anybody know of a free service that:

1. Supports PHP and MySQL?
2. Will let me use my domain name?

I've done a Google search but couldn't find much.

Finals must be fun. I sure don't miss that.

Pretty ambitious upgrades. Do you think the upgrade will allow spaces in the directories? I'd love that...

Google provides: http://www.oinko.net/freephp/ - as for using your domain name, if any of these guys don't let you, just transfer your DNS to zoneedit, then use forwarding and masking.

Here are two that had free in the name if you don't want to go through the list.
http://www.50free.com/
http://www.thefreeserver.com/

I doubt they'll be reliable, but it's better than nothing.

I don't have experience with any of them.

It's my last semester, so I'm excited.



That was one of my major hopes in doing the upgrade as well.



Great idea. I'm already using zoneedit but I hadn't thought of forwarding and masking. Thanks for the link. I'll check it out.



I think I may have checked out www.thefreeserver before but I don't recall now.

That shouldn't happen as decent seek tables should result in a seek time that is not noticable. What are your methods for putting in matroska and what version of the plugin are you using?

The download link doesn't seem to be working. Can someone send me a copy?

Sorry about the download link. I'll get that fixed asap. The file is there, I don't know why it is not working. Probably a quirk of *free hosting*.

For the moment, if there is anybody that wants a copy, just send me a personal message with your email and I'll send it to you. Does anyone have some webspace they'd like to donate to host the web site?

The link is now "fixed". I've redirected it to some free space I have at geocities for the time being.

Great program, i'm really liking it.
Can more than one copy be open at a time? I have 2 cd drives so i'd like to rip from both at once, it doesn't seem to work, I got a couple stack overflow errors from it, I think. Maybe I should install a second copy of EAC and flacattack?
What should the options under EAC Options>Tools>On Extraction Start External Compressors Queued in Background/Threads and Do Not Open External Compressor Window be set to?
Thanks again for a great tool.

Also how about an overwrite option? I've had a couple cds i've had to re-rip a couple times

If the author of FLACattack would turn to us for help, we could certainly fix that together. Seeking in MKA is normally much faster than in any other container we know of, for several good reasons .....

Christian
matroska project admin
http://www.matroska.org

I'm not certain I completely understand the issue, but I'm willing to work with you to resolve it if we can.

I've never tried to have more than one copy open at a time, but I believe to be able to do so, you'd have to be running to copies of EAC at the same time.

I have "On extraction, start external ..." checked with a value of 1 for external compressor thread and "Do not open external ..." is not checked.



It should automatically overwrite the files. Or are you saying you would like the option to not overwrite?

I apologize if these issues have been raised, but I didn't see them anywhere.

1) flacattack doesn't seem to properly send multiple command line options to some apps. For example, if I put the following in my .ini file:
...
[FLAC_INFO]
EXE = "C:\FLAC\flac.exe"
OPTIONS = "-8 -V"
...

FLAC will give me errors when it starts up and won't encode the flac file (It gives "invalid option" errors and exits)

I have to do the following:
...
[FLAC_INFO]
EXE = "C:\FLAC\flac.exe"
OPTIONS = "-8V"
...

This makes it impossible to send the command line options beginning with "--" because they can't be added as part of the same flag.

Also, when I try to send multiple command line options to mp3gain, it doesn't appear to read them. I had the following in my .ini file:

...
[MP3GAIN_INFO]
USE = y
EXE = "C:\PROGRA~1\MP3Gain\mp3gain.exe"
OPTIONS = "/a /k"
...

but when mp3gain runs, it always asks about whether I want to clip certain files. It is my understanding that the /k option should reduce the gain so it will not clip. So it seems it isn't receiving the /k option from flacattack when it runs. Also, I don't think it's possible to send multiple options to mp3gain under the same flag, the way it is with FLAC (i.e., you can't do "/ak" or something similar).

This is strange because lame seems to receive multiple command line arguments from flacattack without any problem... although I haven't really looked into whether it really is seeing all the arguments I'm trying to send it.

2) (less important): flacattack still prints version 0.6 when it starts up, although I downloaded version 0.7 from http://ponchorage.glwb.info/flacattack/download.php
and I believe the link pointing to the newest version at the beginning of this thread is broken.

1) Thank you for the info. Somebody else pointed out the problem about not being able to use the "V" for flac, but it seems like the problem might be with options in general as you've pointed out. I will definitely try and fix this in the next version.

2) Yeah, I just noticed that about a week ago. I will fix the link.

Check out first post for info on downloading the GUI for configuring the flacattack.ini file and for info about current development.

ooops, download link doesn't work