ok, can anyone point me to a SIMPLE guide on how to use Nero AAC with EAC. I just bought Nero 7 and would love to use it's new encoder, with my favorite ripper EAC! Any help would be great, and I've been browsing these forums for a while, but I'm still really a newb.

Never used the two myself, but if you've used EAC before and used command line encoders before, you can just go here:

http://www.saunalahti.fi/~cse/files/

and download naac.zip. it's basically a command line encoder which will use your existing Nero filters. You just set EAC up to use that instead of lame or whatever. As long as Nero is installed, it should work without have to move the Nero filters.

You can run naac.exe at a command line to get the options.

Maybe someone else has a more detailed guide.

I am using the exact same setup you are tying to use. I assume that you already have Nero and EAC installed...

1) In the EAC direactory on your hard drive, make a sub-directory called "Codecs" this is where we'll put the files that we're gonna need to rip Nero AAC.
2) Download the "Nero Frontends" from RareWares. The exact link is here http://www.rarewares.org/files/aac/nero_fends.rar
3) Exctact the contents of the nero_fends.rar into your newly created "Codecs" directory.
4) Grab the Nero .dll files necessary for ripping Nero AAC. You need Aac.dll and aacenc32.dll, they should be located in C:\Program Files\Common Files\Ahead\AudioPlugins\ directory. Copy and paste them into your "Codecs" directory under EAC. Also if you want to be able to use this EAC setup independently from Nero 7 (you won't have to have Nero installed on your system) you can also copy the NeroIPP.dll to your Codecs directory. That file should be loated in C:\Program Files\Common Files\Ahead\Lib\ directory.
5) Configure EAC to to use an external ripping method.
Select "User Defined Encoder"
Set extension to .m4a
Browse to where your aacenc32.exe file is... If you followed me it should be C:\Program Files\Exact Audio Copy\Codecs\aacenc32.exe
in "Additional Command Line Options" enter the following for a great rip:Check "Delete WAV after compression"
Uncheck "Add ID3 tag" (and other options)

Good luck and enjoy EAC as a front end to Nero AAC encoding. It is vastly superior to iTunes AAC because of the gapless encoding and excellent sound quality IMHO. (the old saying: you get what you pay for)

Sorry, one more thing. If you're anal-retentive about your music tags like I am, then you can use tg.exe (Case's build) to properly edit the "Encoded with" field of the AAC file tags. It's actually the tag called "tool" that displays what you used to encode the file. You can downlod the tg command line utility from http://www.rarewares.org/aac.html

Make sure you place tg.exe in a path that is already in the system PATH. For example C:\WINDOWS or C:\WINDOWS\System32 directory. The command to convert the tag to the field I like is... Make sure that you are in the current working directory of your ripped .m4a files before you execute this command.

I like that tag much better then the ridiculously long explination that is stored there by default. This is purely cosmetic, and completely unnecessary step to take, but I just thought I would share for those who care about such things.

Randall311, thanks for posting this. I have recently decided to switch to the mpeg-4 AAC format using the new Nero AAC encoder as I am very pleased with the results. I was able to get this work to just fine. My only question is how do I change the bitreate setting?

I used the following command that you provided:
-profile LC -quality high -vbr normal -artist "%a" -album "%g" -track "%n" -title "%t" -genre "%m" -year "%y" %s %d

This produces a file with a slightly larger bitrate than I want. I have the following setting in the Nero ripper: Preset: VBR/Stereo - Streaming, 100-120 kbps [LC AAC]

Using the Nero CD ripper, I get a bitrate of around 161 kbps VBR. If I use EAC and the Nero front end then I get a bitrate of around 179 kbps VBR. The differences are minimal but I cannot ABX between the 161kbps VBR mpeg-4 AAC and the source. Additionally, the 179kbps VBR AAC file is only 1.4MB smaller than the mp3 ripped with Lame 3.97b1 at -V 2 --vbr-new. The 161kbps VBR AAC is 2MB smaller than the mp3. So, how would I go about changing the command in EAC?

Again, thanks for your input at EAC is a much better ripper than Nero's or iTunes.

Hey kornchild2002, thanks for the feedback on EAC, I love it as a frontend to nero AAC.
Getting to your question, I was unaware that there were differences in the bitrate with my command and the Nero CD ripper. This is interresting to me, as I thought that I was getting maximum efficency out of Nero with my EAC method. I can think of 2 things that possibly cause this. One is that there is a lowpass cut-off of frequency being set on the Nero CD ripper, which would result in a smaller fidelity range and also smaller bitrate. If the music still sounds transparent at the smaller bitrate, then this is obviously what we're looking for. The second option is that Nero CD ripper is using a different VBR range for their encoding presets then the aacenc32.exe font end does.

There are other command line arguements that you can experiment with to try and match this target bitrate with aacenc32.exe. I would recommend setting some kind of low-pass filter, but you would have to ask some of the other experts on these settings. I am sure there are audiophiles on these boards that know exactly the right settings to use. I am sorry that I can't be of more help to you. If I find anything else out I will post back. In the meantime here are some of the command line options you can use in aacenc32.exe


These are all of your options when encoding. If you knew all of the options that Nero CD ripper has on then we could probably make a good deduction on what is different. I think that the key lies in a lowpass and highpass filter being set. I don't know what values to use though. Anybody out there know the answer to kornchild's delimma?

D'oh!! Upon reading your question again, I see that the obvious solution is to use streaming as your default bitrate. So you would want your command line to be...



Streaming is your choice instead of normal, sorry about the confusion. Good luck and happy encoding!

OK. I figured it out after experimenting with it. I am just used to the Lame commands which seem to be easier (ie -V 2, -V 0, etc.). I am still on the fence if I should switch to the mpeg-4 AAC format. I have a lot of devices that supports it (iPod, PDA, PSP) but my car CD deck only supports mp3 CD's and regular audio CD's.

Still have some thinking to do. Again, thanks for the steps and the front end as I find it a lot easier to use than other iTunes and Nero front ends.

No problem man. Just get a new CD deck for your car that supports AAC! j/k I know the device support for aac isn't nearly as exaustive as mp3, so that is the only thing that made it a tough decision for me.