Has this been covered somewhere else on this forum or elsewhere where a newbie can see a simple explanation of how to achieve ripping their CDs to both a Lossless file for archiving and a Lossy file for portable use? I currently use EAC to rip to LAME MP3.

I'm a guy who is not an audio technician, but does value his music, so I do need some help. I would like to rip my CD collection to a good lossless file (I don't know, FLAC, APE?) for archiving and a lossy (most likely LAME -v2, but possibly a VBR AAC) for portable use on my iPod. A gain normalization would be ideal as well, but I'm not sure how I would like to set that up either, since I've never done that other than let iTunes automate it.

I looked at MAREO (really because it's the only thing I found when I was looking), but it seems confusing for me to set up. Can someone please point me to which one of these programs would best suit my needs, and if you recommend one, where would I go to get all the "how to" information on getting it set up for my use...all settings as well.

So, I guess what I'm saying is...help please. Thank you very much in advance for anyone who helps me.

I replied to your other post.

Edit: May as well keep further post on this thread now though.

Thank you very much. I will go the route of either WACK or REACT. Do you recommend one over the other? If one has more support or documentation for getting set up and going, I would prefer to work with that one. Especially if both are comparable.

Thank you for the tips on who to ask as well.

Synthetic Soul (and all the rest of the great ones on here), I'm open to other ways to achieve what I'm trying to accomplish, which is basically to take my 300+ CD collection and make digital lossless back-ups, as well as portable lossy files.

My question to you is if you were going to do this, how would you choose to do it? I've seen your replies throughout this forum and you are obviously a much more experienced person at this than I am. What programs would you use? What lossless would you use at what settings? What lossy would you use at what settings? Would you use a Wave Gain or MP3 Gain type of program to normalize your audio collection? If so, which one and at what settings? Would you have all the files in one parent directory, or would you have them in many sub-directories (like iTunes does). Is there an upside and downside to this?

Basically, what's the ideal way to go about this? Or, if that cannot be answered, what is your subjective opinion or preference? I'm assuming this is something you have already done for yourself.

Some people have said it's better to just rip everything to lossless and then when I'm all done, do a batch compression copy of all of the files instead. I'm not sure how I would go about this, but is this a better option?

Thank you again for your help. As much feedback as you can give me would be greatly appreciated. I'm willing to listen if you're willing to teach. I hope I do not come across as a looser, because I really am trying my hardest to understand these concepts and I have spend MANY hours on this forum (just ask my girlfriend who thinks I'm crazy and doesn't understand why I don't just use iTunes for everything) trying to learn more about digital audio compression. However, I am still quite new to it all. Hopefully one day I will be able to assist all of you in answering these questions. I do promise to give my knowledge back whenever and wherever possible.

BTW, I checked out the WACK website and there was little information there provided to explain how to accomplish what I'm trying to do. At least, not enough for where I'm at with my knowledge. I do not have the ability to write .INI files yet, so I would need some .INI files from other people to copy and paste. I'll keep looking around in the mean time.

For ripping CD's to MP3 or Vorbis it's DbPowerAmp Music Converter for me. Open-source, free, and fast!

Does DbPowerAmp Music Converter do what I want to accomplish? Does it rip CD to multiple formats or is it an EAC replacement? How does it differ from EAC?

There is no ideal way. Everyone has their own needs. There are many of these threads about and they probably all end with a unique conclusion.

For the record I am currently using REACT to rip to a WavPack image (one file for the whole CD) with embedded and external cuesheet and embedded log. I currently transcode from that lossless image to -V5 --vbr-new LAME MP3 using foobar2000 - although I could set up REACT to do this for me using the excellent ACDIR to split an image into tracks using the cuesheet and pipe the data to LAME. I store my lossless and lossy files in a "<artist>\<album>" folder structure. Lossless files are simply called "CDImage" as that is what EAC used to call them (it now calls them "<artist> - <album>.ext" by default - I use REACT to change it back to "CDImage.ext"). My lossy files are named "<track> - <title>.mp3" and I use LAME's default tagging system of ID3v1 and ID3v2 only where required. NB: -V5 is quite low quailty for around here - but I listen mainly in the car, so I don't need perfect quality. I don't think my hearing is very good either.

There may be some sense to this - but it is useful to have a set up that you can continue to use once you have archived your existing collection. CD Backup is for life, not just for Christmas.

If you have EAC set up so that every time you get a new CD you just pop it in, hit F10, and viola there is a lossless archive and lossy files ready for your iPod you can use it always. Using EAC to go straight to lossless and lossy won't take any longer than using EAC to go to lossless and then finally transcoding all your lossless files to lossy. It just means each CD takes longer to rip, but then there is no second step.

Not at all, we all need to start somewhere. Compared to many on this forum I am a novice also - don't let my high post count fool you - most of my posts are just "huh?". If my wife divorces me I'm sure HA will be one of the reasons quoted.

I think the best way is for you to explain exactly what you want to achieve, and then we (you, me and anyone else who wants to participate) can go from there. There's no point in me or someone else saying "You obviously must do this, this and this" as this is about how you want things, not us.

A few things to think about:

• Do you want your lossless archive as an image with cuesheet, or separate track files? I have assumed image file, but I thought it best to check.
• Do you want MP3 or M4A for your iPod?
• Is your iPod where you will mostly listen to your lossy files?
• I don't know anything about AAC, M4A or iPods as I don't have one - so an iPod user's opinion will be invaluable here. I am mainly thinking about the iPod's supposed dislike of VBR MP3 and the decision whether to scale the volume of the lossy files or not (I believe iPod has a built in volume attenuator or something).
• How are you storing your lossless files - DVD, hard drive?
• What naming conventions suit you?

Great answer, Synthetic Soul.

I personnally use EAC to rip into Flac and use Fb2k to convert into lame Mp3 for usage with IPOD.

Thanks TomGroove.

I'm sure your input as an iPod user would be invaluable, once we know what ocluke needs.

I pay some attention to Apple-/iPod-related threads, but not much. Even then, hearing about features and issues comes nowhere near actually experiencing them.

Users' way: (see some details at http://www.High-Quality.ch.vu )



EAC
settings:
secure mode, optimized to drive by eacs detection tests,
so probably accurate stream,
if drive cashes audio, then check the green maker,
no c2,
Test & Copy extraction to single tracks,
my personal opinion and experience favours clearly single tracks over 1 image-file solutions, but that's just me.

Additional command line options :

mareowvq8.ini "%o" "%s" "%d" "%a" "%g" "%t" "%n" "%y" "%m"



EAC does ripping/Tagging/encoding for me in 1 step via mareo.exe to 3 different formats, purposes:

to 1. Lossless (archival & Home listening)

(currently I prefer wavpack -x -m
but flac -8 -V is also a very good alternative.
see full commandline examples at http://www.High-Quality.ch.vu , or see mareo.ini file examples below)

to 2. MPC (laptop / home listening (streaming from laptop/HiFi PC to other PCs via (wireless) lan, amps) / high quality/low space solutions / archive backup with low space & low efforts, costs)
MPC settings : --quality 8 --ms 15 --xlevel , v1.14b or v1.15v



To 3. MP3 / Lame (portable , 1 GB usb stick, previews of the music with friends, who don't have a clue about Lossless/mpc etc etc., main thing is always the hardware player, ie. mp3 plays at everybodies portable and players.)
settings: -V5 --vbr-new

so I have a 1 step task with EAC configured for mareo,
and get 3 encodings in 3 different formats with 3 different goals.

All 3 versions of same album are burned to 3 different DVDs, so there is some security, if something should fail.

The Lossless versions result to bitrates between 600/700 - 1000 kbit/s,
MPC --quality 8 --ms 15 --xlevel results to ca. 250 - 280 kbit/s
MP3 Lame -V5 --vbr-new results to 110 - 150, averaged ca. 130 kbit/s,


my mareo.ini file:

edit pathes/directory names to your needs:



; ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
; WavPack v4
; ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
; ** NORMAL high -h or -x mode Lossless FILE & ape2 tags via wapet.exe, wavpack.exe in 'search-path'**
EXT = wv
PATH = D:\music\#in-work\L\@artist@ (@year@) @album@ -L
ENCODER = C:\Programme G\Musepack\wapet.exe
PARAMETERS = "@dest@" -t "Artist=@artist@" -t "Album=@album@" -t "Title=@title@" -t "Track=@track@" -t "Year=@year@" -t "Genre=@genre@" -t "Comment=High Quality as Exact Audio Copy EAC secure extraction, no c2, Test & Copy matching = same checksums crcs, Lossless WavPack -x -m, also as MPC 1.15v q8 ms15 xl; see www.high-quality.ch.vu for informations" wavpack.exe -x -m "@source@" "@dest@"




; ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
; Musepack with APEv2 TAGS (requires wapet.exe, musepack.exe in 'search-path')
; ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
EXT = mpc
PATH = D:\music\#in-work\q8\@artist@ (@year@) @album@ -q8
ENCODER = C:\Programme G\Musepack\wapet.exe
PARAMETERS = "@dest@" -t "Artist=@artist@" -t "Album=@album@" -t "Title=@title@" -t "Track=@track@" -t "Year=@year@" -t "Genre=@genre@" -t "Comment=High Quality 1.15v q8 ms15 xl as Exact Audio Copy EAC secure extraction, no c2, Test & Copy matching = same checksums crcs, also as Lossless WavPack -x -m; see www.high-quality.ch.vu for informations" mppenc.exe --quality 8 --ms 15 --xlevel "@source@" "@dest@"



; ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
; MP3 LAME 130k -V 5 --vbr-new
; ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
EXT = mp3
PATH = C:\music\#in-work\mp3-128\@artist@ (@year@) @album@ -mp3-V5
ENCODER = C:\Programme G\Musepack\lame.exe
PARAMETERS = -V 5 --vbr-new --ta "@artist@" --tl "@album@" --tt "@title@" --tn "@track@" --ty @year@ --tg "@genre@" --tc "LAME3.97beta1 -V 5 --vbr-new, Exact Audio Copy EAC secure extraction, no c2, Test & Copy matching = same checksums crcs, also as Lossless or MPC q8 ms15 xl" "@source@" "@dest@"



; ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
; MP3 LAME 128k abr
; ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
;EXT = mp3
;PATH = c:\music\#in-work\mp3-128\@artist@ (@year@) @album@ -mp3-128
;ENCODER = C:\Programme G\Musepack\lame.exe
;PARAMETERS = --alt-preset 133 --ta "@artist@" --tl "@album@" --tt "@title@" --tn "@track@" --ty @year@ --tg "@genre@" --tc "LAME3.91 128k abr, Exact Audio Copy EAC secure extraction, no c2, Test & Copy matching = same checksums crcs, also as High Quality Lossless or MPC q8 ms15 xl" "@source@" "@dest@"






I think, with the help of mareo homepage and this mareo.ini file, you will get a quickstart.
The difficulty is not to configure eac with mareo, but to create a good mareo.ini file, which you have here as example.

I would discard ape for Lossless, and select either flac -8 -V or wavpack -x -m
for the portable ipod, I would use mp3 lame -V 5 --vbr-new, good quality, and you maintain possibility to swap some mp3-tunes with your friends, who have a better player than ipod



addon:

here is an example for flac in mareo.ini file:


; ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
EXT = flac
PATH = c:\my-music\in-work\@artist@ (@year@) @album@ -flac
ENCODER = F:\Programs\MusePack\flac.exe
PARAMETERS = -8 "@source@" -o "@dest@" -V -T artist="@artist@" -T album="@album@" -T title="@title@" -T tracknumber="@track@" -T date=@year@ -T genre="@genre@" -T comment="High Quality as Exact Audio Copy EAC secure extraction, no c2, Test & Copy matching = same checksums crcs, Lossless Flac -8; see www.high-quality.ch.vu"



After you got all the album encodings by eac/mareo,
replaygain the Lossless & MPC (& mp3) with foobar2000,
add all directories a once to foobar, mark all files,
apply: replaygain as multiple albums

Use Mp3gain for the mp3`s, then you get volume adjustments which are fixed, but are played by all (old) mp3 players, who don`t read ape-tags, or use foobar2000 also.

FYI tycho has just released a new version of REACT. The default INI comes with an example of creating a WavPack image and LAME track files in one run. Here's the relevant section of the INI:


It may look hideous, but bear in mind it is just 14 lines - only half of which need worrying about.

This is why it is worth persevering with - once it is set up then you don't need to worry about it any more.

Edit: Also, something I meant to mention earlier. REACT will set EAC up so it's all ready to work with your INI - so that's some time saved. All you need to worry about is the INI and you're off and running.

Somehow, each new level of understanding only seems to bring about more questions to mind. Is Nirvana merely the ultimate expression of knowing every question there ever could be asked? I digress...

To answer the question "What do I want to do?" I thought I already had answered. Let me try a little harder.

It's pretty fair to say I now realize the chief goal here is to get everything down to a 1-click process, like Synthetic Soul mentioned. What I want achieved in that process is 2 files (one lossy, one lossless), in seperate directories (I think, unless someone can point out a good reason to have them in the same directory).

Let's talk about the lossless question first. It seems that I want to pick either WavePack or FLAC. I'm not sure which one yet, as I don't feel I really am informed enough to say which is better for my needs. All the lossless file will be for in the time being is for archiving. However, as more hardware out there seems to support lossless formats, and it's only getting larger every day, I could see how sometime in the near future also using these files to play music from an external hard drive for home use. If I have them all, and they are as easy to play as the lossy files from my computer through my home stereo system, then why not.

The single image file or individual track debate is difficult for me to figure out. Why should I pick one over the other? Why does Synthetic Soul rip to a single image and User favors single tracks over 1-image? Cue sheets are somthing I haven't really been able to conceptualize yet. For what I want, does it matter which one I choose. Is it easy to change my mind down the road?

As far as FLAC or WavePack, it seems to me to be 6 or half dozen right now to me. Unless someone presents a clear case why I should choose one over the over. The hybrid file idea doesn't seem like it will affect me, because the resulting lossy file doesn't appear to be an extension that can be played on any portable hardware at the moment. At least, not my iPod anyway.

For my lossy needs: I could be pursuaded to M4A if it was presented to me as clearly superior to LAME MP3. This forum seems to speak highly of the VBR LAME encoding. I have ripped a small portion of my collection to LAME -V 2 --vbr-new with LAME doing the ID3 tagging. From what I read, I didn't think -V 5 --vbr-new was a transparent lossy setting, but it appears 2 people in this post use that setting, so maybe I should reconsider to save space. Any thoughts here as well?

I've read all throughout here issues with the iPod reading -VBR LAME MP3 files, but my 60 gig video iPod seems to play the files I have uploaded to it just fine. Could it be that Apple fixed this for the new 5G iPods? If not, maybe I should do a VBR AAC. If I did that, would I use some external compression .exe file with EAC?

I'm fine with using REACT or MAREO to achieve my goals. It seems both will work, I guess. As long as I can learn whichever one I am going to use well enough to get by, and it's a software that will most likely continue development in the future.

Lastly, the whole normalization issue. Is it fairly standard to do this with the resulting files? From my limited understanding, it seems that this can be done at the same time as everything else, and best takes place after ripping the CD to the temporary .WAV file, but before compressing to the lossless and lossy files. Which program do I use for this? What is the difference between doing this, and using iTunes to normalize all of the songs? Currently I have both my iPod and iTunes set up (yes, I use iTunes, because it's the only way I know how to update my iPod at the moment, and I haven't even attempted to learn about Foobar2000 because I told myself I must first figure out the whole rip and compression stuff first) with Sound Check enabled. I'm not really sure how iTunes does this, but it adjusts the sound somehow. If it does a poor job, somebody please let me know.

For now, this should be enough questions. If you have specific .INI settings for what I'm trying to do, I would love it if you posted them here as well.

DbPowerAmp

It will convert between any formats and into any format from CD. They have free plug-ins that support the following:

CDA
wav
ogg
mp3
mp4
mpc
wma
ALAC (apple Lossless)
ofr (Monkey's Audio)
flac (FLAC)
ofr (Optim'Frog)
shn (Shorten)
tta (The True Audio)
wvc (Wavepack)
aa (Audible)
spx (Speex)
mp3Pro
AC3
AAC (Nero's codec)

SHEESH, there are more but this is crazy, just check the Codec List.

This proggy does everything when it comes to audio conversion - EVERYTHING!

I'd love to do the same thing as the original poster ocluke but I'm quite certain about my needs...

1. I'd love to use REACT or Wack because of their flexibility...
2. I'd love to have all my rips in a C:\Music\ directory.
3. Then I'd love to have there a directory for lossless albums compressed in WavePack
... but I'm not sure what settings to use especially the -h and -x switches...?
4. Then I'd love to have directories of that structure: Artist - Year - Album\0Tracknumber - Track Title.ext in the C:\Music\
... and also in the "lossless directory" be it C:\Music\WavePack\
5. In the C:\Music\ I'd love to have MP3's in the directories that were made by Lame 3.97 with command line:
... "-V 2 --vbr-new -Y" BTW: Is it safe to use this command line?
6. ...and the last thing could be to have all my new MP3's processed with MP3Gain and set to the highest non-clipping value except for raising the original volume...

All tracks ripped separate way and appropriate CUE Sheet and LOG located in the right album directory.

Then I'd love to burn it to a DVD where the MP3 directories shoud be in root directory and the lossless files shoud be in \WavePack\ directory and could be protected by something like PAR2 or so... (Any comments on this? )I'll look at it soon... I love you!

I would like to do a very similar thing as this poster, except I would like my collection archived to an external hard drive, rather than DVDs, but I'm sure that's as simple as naming the directory differently.

The questions I posted are still something I would like to learn or have answered. Thanks!

[quote]
What I want achieved in that 1 step process is 2 files (one lossy, one lossless), in seperate directories (I think, unless someone can point out a good reason to have them in the same directory).
[/quote]




Use my mareo.ini file, you will recognize, how I configured it for separate directories.
Of course, the lossy version should be in separate folder than Loslsess etc.


[QUOTE] It seems that I want to pick either WavePack or FLAC. I'm not sure which one yet, as I don't feel I really am informed enough to say which is better for my needs. All the lossless file will be for in the time being is for archiving. However, as more hardware out there seems to support lossless formats, and it's only getting larger every day, I could see how sometime in the near future also using these files to play music from an external hard drive for home use. If I have them all, and they are as easy to play as the lossy files from my computer through my home stereo system, then why not.[/QUOTE]

As said above, both formats are very very well.
Sometimes I use flac -8 -V, sometimes wavpack -x -m, currently, since faster pc, wavpack -x -m.
But even with old P3-800 eg., I would use wavpack -x -m.
The differences:
flac has for now more hardware player support, rockbox eg.
But wavpack is as easy to implement to hardware players, iirc, it has been done already ?
But if you consider a small silent pc with good soundcard as hardware player, you can build your own for your home. or even in a bigger car.
Advantage of wavpack -x -m : some % better compression on HD or DVD, but difference is small.
But that is the general advantage of all Loslses, if you should get in any time a hardware player which plays only certain Loslsess format, you can transcode without any losses !



[QUOTE]The single image file or individual track debate is difficult for me to figure out. Why should I pick one over the other? Why does Synthetic Soul rip to a single image and User favors single tracks over 1-image? [/QUOTE]

ok, cannot answer for Synthetic Soul, but from general discussions, I know, that people who favor single file solution do this for tidyness.
Though, my music collection is also very tidy, I have 1 directory per album, Synth. Soul has 1 file per album, imo not much of a difference.
I have listed all my music in MAC 2.93, mpeg audio colelction.
I think, this program works more convenient with directories and 1 tarck = 1 file, not 1 album = 1 file.
because this program allows search by directory names, also by file names. This program reads every tag of each track/file, so you have during brwosing the collection, all the infos about your albums. This is interesting, if you have sevreal simila versions of an album, and you want to play a certain track. By single tarcks, you see easily, which tracks version syou have in which album, eg. by MAC 2.93, I imagine, that will be more difficlt with album inage. Moreover, you can play the tarcks/fles directly out of that program. I don't think, that this great porgram works as well with album-single-file-images.
Foobar2000 would be the player of choice, if you go with single images.
But foobar2000 is also the best choice, if you play single tracks, like me, because foobar2000 offers nearly everything you need for digital audio.


[QUOTE]Cue sheets are somthing I haven't really been able to conceptualize yet. For what I want, does it matter which one I choose. Is it easy to change my mind down the road?[/QUOTE]

If you create album image file, you need cue sheet, as extra file or embedded, to access the singkle tarcks eg. by foobar2000.
If you have single tracks, a cue sheet is not really a must have, but sometimes a nice extra. if you plan to burn a CD from your archived album, you get by cue sheet a little bit more perfection (regarding gaps) during burning the copy.
cue sheet is easy to create, see http://www.High-Quality.ch.vu


[QUOTE]As far as FLAC or WavePack, it seems to me to be 6 or half dozen right now to me. Unless someone presents a clear case why I should choose one over the over. The hybrid file idea doesn't seem like it will affect me, because the resulting lossy file doesn't appear to be an extension that can be played on any portable hardware at the moment. At least, not my iPod anyway.[/QUOTE]

as said several times now, flac -8 and wavpack -x -m are quite equally, flip a coin
maybe brwose for hardware support, or decide by better compression.
If you should eg. create wavpack Loslsess with hybrid files, even this is smart, if you have laptop eg.
You could store the combined Lossless as archive and playing at home,
and copy the lossy-hybrid files to laptop eg, to have a portable with your music.
Though, I have chosen to use simply wavpack Loslsess as archive and lossy MPC for the laptop portable solution. Reason: mpc is at those medium 2xy bitrates transparent, where wavpack lossy would result sometimes a noisefloor, wavpack lossy need a bit more bitrate to be transparent.





[QUOTE]For my lossy needs: I could be pursuaded to M4A if it was presented to me as clearly superior to LAME MP3. This forum seems to speak highly of the VBR LAME encoding. I have ripped a small portion of my collection to LAME -V 2 --vbr-new with LAME doing the ID3 tagging. From what I read, I didn't think -V 5 --vbr-new was a transparent lossy setting, but it appears 2 people in this post use that setting, so maybe I should reconsider to save space. Any thoughts here as well?[/QUOTE]

lame -V5 is not transparent to everybody, not to me also at my home system.
But in my car and during jogging, running etc, ie.: portable usage in not optimised listening environment, lame -V5 is transparent, or close to...
You get several goals with mp3-lame V5: uncounted hardware player possibilites, small size, good sound (for the size and the usage)
I suggest you, to try ABXing several Vx levels of lame 3.97b1 yourself.
Then you get an impression, hoiw good lame is, and what V level you need to get transparency for yourself. -V6 , maybe -V7 is already transparent for a lot of people on portables or in cars.
-V2 - -V0 are clearly targeted to be transparent on home Hifi, soemhow overkill on portables for cars or running etc.




[QUOTE]I'm fine with using REACT or MAREO to achieve my goals. It seems both will work, I guess. As long as I can learn whichever one I am going to use well enough to get by, and it's a software that will most likely continue development in the future.[/QUOTE]

I started some time with mareo, when this 1 step solution to several formats was newly introduced. As it works quite ok (problems with very long Directory & tracknames), I am too lazy now to invest time to find out about other solutions, as those will probably suffer from same probs, as the filename issue is due to windows/DOS.
You have now the advantage to simply apply my given mareo.ini file.
The post above by me, gives you a lot practical things.


[QUOTE]Lastly, the whole normalization issue. Is it fairly standard to do this with the resulting files? From my limited understanding, it seems that this can be done at the same time as everything else, and best takes place after ripping the CD to the temporary .WAV file, but before compressing to the lossless and lossy files. [/QUOTE]
No, it is better, to replaygain (not normalizing !) the resulting files/albums. The Lossy and Loslsess formats wil get each (slightly) different gains, to be more perfect, it is better to replaygain at last step with each format itself.

[QUOTE]
Which program do I use for this? [/QUOTE]
Foobar2000 --> replaygain as multiple albums (if you mass-replaygain several albums, or album versions of different formats)
I repeat me, written above...


[QUOTE]What is the difference between doing this, and using iTunes to normalize all of the songs? Currently I have both my iPod and iTunes set up (yes, I use iTunes, because it's the only way I know how to update my iPod at the moment, and I haven't even attempted to learn about Foobar2000 because I told myself I must first figure out the whole rip and compression stuff first) with Sound Check enabled. I'm not really sure how iTunes does this, but it adjusts the sound somehow. If it does a poor job, somebody please let me know.[/QUOTE]

I don`t need an apple for my music, I eat apples everyday... , so am not an ipod/itunes expert. You have to see ipod/itunes as smart marketing strategy to sell quite expensive lossy (and not even at best quality) albums legally via internet.
Imo, you are better off to buy music as CD, singles or complete albums, and make a lame-mp3 for your portable yourself. Then you have even the control about the space/quality issue of lossy music.
Eg. ebay comes handy for this... imo, you get more quality by these ways than via itunes shop.

[QUOTE]
For now, this should be enough questions. If you have specific .INI settings for what I'm trying to do, I would love it if you posted them here as well.
[/QUOTE]

see my mareo.ini file above.


I can only recommend you, to start comparing now yourself,
you can use eac/mareo for encoding 1 track to mp3 lame in various -V x settings..., to Loslses wavapck and flac in various settings etc etc.
1 step 10 formats !
Compare yourself, install foobar2000, as that gives you an ABX comparator, replaygain and a lot else.

the good thing is that you have MAREO, WACK, or REACT devs here to help ... MAREO just recently got a new release (2.2.0) that fixed many things, and it is easy to setup.

Your argument doesn't really make sense here. FLAC (currently) has better hardware support - for hardware/external players. However, if you play lossless from an external hard drive through your PC, FLAC and WavPack are equally well-supported - or certainly supported enough for it not to be an issue. I.e.: there is no difference to playing them from an internal hard drive through Winamp/foobar/etc..

I rip to an image because I find it neater, but also because I believe that it has benefits over ripping to tracks where gaps and hidden tracks are concerned. If you rip to tracks and want to be able to recreate an (near-as-damnit) exact CD from the archive you have to be a little more careful with your methods than with an image.

My lossless backup is purely that - a backup of the CD. I believe that an image is the most obvious choice in this situation.

However, if you believe that you may use your lossless backup to play in everyday use then archiving to tracks may be more sensible. It would also bring MAREO back into the equation.

It is "easy" for you to change your mind, as the backup is lossless. It would be easier going to tracks from an image rather than the other way around, but not much. It's worth thinking about the decision now though.

I don't see the benefit of FLAC over WavPack, but many people use FLAC. IMHO more and more users are choosing WavPack though. In reality it really doesn't matter much which you choose - both are good formats.

I have no interest in persuading you to M4A.

You could use NAAC or iTunesEncode. Rarewares has a few to choose from.

The difference is that scaling your MP3 is permanent. The benefit is that it will be scaled everywhere you use it. The downside is that it is no longer the same volume as the CD.

I don't currently scale my MP3s, but I don't know why I don't. I just haven't got around to it really. When I burn a MP3 CD for the car I use MP3Gain on those files I am about to burn to apply album gain.

If Sound Check works with MP3 I would just stick with that, unless an iPod user can tell me otherwise.

I'm not sure about doing this automatically, although I was involved in a thread a few months back where jht (?) created a script for doing that.

I guess this could be done, but you'd have to rip to image and then use ACDIR not just to create the lossy track files but also to create the lossless track files. No biggie I guess. The log would be for an image rip though.

I don't know how you'd get the cuesheet if you didn't rip as an image.

My REACT INI calls PAR2 as part of the process. However this obviously means that I am creating PAR2 parity data for each separate album, whereas I think more people prefer to create PAR2 data for the disc image/ISO. I've never had to use it yet to see whether my method is any use.

... and that will no doubt one of the other reasons.

Thank you so much Synthetic Soul and User. The attention you gave to those questions means a lot to me and will help me make my decision right away as to the approach I want.

The only area I still seem to be unclear about is the disk image/track debate. User pointed out some great reasons to have the lossless archive ripped as seperate tracks, but Synthetic Soul mentioned that there could be an issue with restoring the album back to the exact same way it was represented (in terms of gaps) on the CD. Any further thoughts on this by anyone? Has someone actually tried both ways of doing this, and had the opportunity to burn a replacement CD from the lossless files and image to see which (if any) did a better job? I'm assuming a concert or classical CD would be the best test for this.

Edit: And thank you too, Kwanbis.

Ask yourself if recreating the CD exactly is important to you. For me it isn't, for others it is. There are many CDs in my collection that have many songs I don't like. I've found myself constantly skipping past them when they come up. I don't want to archive things that I repeatedly skip. Even on CDs where I love every song, with most of them I wouldn't notice if intertrack gaps were slightly different, so I don't bother with images on those either; I always rip to tracks.

Just know that if it is important to you, your learning curve gets a little steeper (re images & cue sheets).

How does the learning curve increase? Is this not an automated process, just like ripping to individual tracks?

I just meant that I notice a good number of threads dealing with cue sheets: embedding them, getting them to work with rippper x and player y. It just seems like a lot of people must have problems with getting them just right, and fortunately for me, I never have to read these threads

Not true. EAC creates the cuesheet so there's little that you can do wrong! This is actually a benefit of cuesheets over tracks.

The threads about embedding cuesheets are a secondary consideration really. There are various discussions about FLAC's cuesheet meta block which strips artist/album/title info - but you can still use a Vorbis comment in this instance. Also, if you embed the cuesheet and want to play the album and be able to skip tracks then foobar is it really. But that's hardly a hardship when it's the best damn player around.

As I said before, if you just (or mainly) want an archive, image with cuesheet is easier.

To expand my reasoning slightly, there are two main points:

1. Some CDs (very few) have a hidden track before track 1. If you rip to tracks you will lose this, and immediately the CD is no longer a proper backup. This thread has more info. A key point I guess is that your drive needs to be able to rip these hidden tracks - if it can't I guess this issue is moot.
2. Gaps. If you want to be able to recreate the CD (near enough) exact you need to include the gaps in your track files, and there are various ways of doing it. This wiki page is probably a good start.

If you use EAC to rip to image with cuesheet, and if your drive can rip TRACK 01 INDEX 00 tracks, then creating a perfect backup is as easy as clicking a button. I don't believe this to be the case for tracks files (see 1 and 2 above).

As singaiya said, I guess it depends whether an exact backup is priority, or whether you just want to ensure that you don't lose the tracks that you like. Also, as I said, whether you will be regularly playing the albums/tracks.

The method I use is far from the most time-efficient way to accomplish the ends you desire, but for me it has the overriding virtue of being dead-bang rock reliable.

I use EAC to rip CD to a WAV image with cue sheet. With these two files, I encode a FLAC with embedded cue sheet using FLAC Frontend. Then I go back to EAC and in conjunction with LAME, I re-rip the CD into separate MP3 tracks for portable use.

I like to think that my ears are sophisticated, so I simply set LAME to 320 kbps/CBR. I listen to classical music in which codec-generated artifacts that may exist - due to extreme dynamic and tonal range - are most likely to rear their ugliness. So I take no chances; I know 320kbps/CBR is scoffed at by many as being way overkill and an unconscionable waste of HD space, but this choice insures compatibility with any player I might be using (some don't like VBR MP3s very much) and achieves as high a level of transparency as is currently possible with a lossy codec, at least as far as I have been able to determine.

Moreover, I use high-end Etymotic Research buds with my iPod. Bitrate overkill like mine is probably not justifiable with stock Apple buds, but over the Etymotics, which are mercilessly accurate - truly high-fidelity phones - the sound quality is most pleasing from my MP3s with any musical material in any ambient environment. In other words, it works for me.

Sure. With careful and exhaustive experimentation and ABX testing of this setup with MP3s at different bitrates, I MIGHT be able to find a more space-efficient lower bitrate/VBR configuration that achieves audibly equal transparency with all music material, but hard drive space is cheap and getting nothing but cheaper. When I run short on space, I just drive out to CompUSA and pick up another drive; a terabyte can now be had for under $500. How many entire CDs - FLAC images, 320 kbps/CBR MP3s and all - could I store per terabyte? Quick head-math tells me, not less than 1,500, maybe as many as 2,000. By the time I fill that up, will terabytes be sold as USB keyfobs in blisterpacks at Walmart?

Final thoughts...

I keep the FLAC image and delete the WAV but keep the cue sheet. If ever for some reason I want to re-encode into some other format, I don't have to re-rip the CD. The FLAC with the embedded cue sheet enables me to re-create the original WAV image, even burn a new copy of the CD if I wish, accurate practically bit for bit.

Another reason to keep the FLAC is that streaming music is becoming high-end audio with products like Olive Inc.'s "Musica" and "Symphony" music servers, and these products support FLAC, as do established high-end hard drive-based car-audio systems like "Phatbox."

Why FLAC? Simple. It's good and its FREE! APE, as good as it also is, including what its proponents say are some advantages over FLAC, will never gain as wide a base of support IMHO, because while it is free for end users - you and I - it is NOT free to music distributors and hardware vendors. THEY have to pay a licensing fee. But FLAC is public domain, which means free for me, free for you, free for anyone who wants to use it on either end of the distribution chain. And "free" is, as they say, a pretty damned good price.

Great thread, folks!

I just finished ripping my CD collection last week. Been using REACT and EAC and WavPack and LAME to separate files. I had seen references to CUE sheets here at HA but didn't even give them any thought at the time. Thanks to this thread, I've now filled in more gaps [pun intended!] in my knowledge of using CUE sheets, etc. My main goal for lossless is to be able to retain the quality of the original audio track, to be able to create other formats in the future, etc., rather than recreating the original CD.

As a side note, I remember the first time I started fb2k and thought, gosh, how dreadful. But now that I've done some mass-tagging, used replaygain, etc., etc., it's a godsend. But then I saw some of the ways that people have extended the fb2k UI! WHOA! It's inconceivable!!! Where's a good place to start learning about modifying the fb2k user interface, what UI mods are already out there and available to the public, etc.? (I realize there's an fb2k forum here too, but since this is a good introductory thread, it seems a good thing to ask this here not only for my benefit, but for the benefit of others who have knowledge gaps to fill.)

- Bill

From my first post in this thread:
Anyone has an advice? So how is it? Is that possible? ???

This seems to be the only situation where image rips will be less exact than track rips, since you mentioned the Wiki where these gaps can be included in the track files.
I'm not sure how many CDs have hidden tracks before track 1 starts. I'm trying to think right now if I have ever seen an album (in my own extensive collection) that has this feature.


Are not track rips and image rips equally easy to pull of with the press of one button. The whole reason this post started was because I was looking to set up an instance where I could have a CD ripped and encoded to both a lossless back-up file and a lossy portable file. You mentioned yourself that this could be achieved with REACT.



I'm an album guy, so I want everything. However, I do like to shuffle between album tracks when I'm at home listening. It would be ideal if I could do this with my lossless files in Foobar. Can I do this when ripping to a single image?

Lastly, how difficult is it to break up the image to individual lossless track files if I ever change my mind and want track files instead of image files?

If this is the single reason why an image file has an advantage over ripping to multiple tracks (with respect to the ability to exactly recreate the original CD), why don't they have EAC change the gap handling so all tracks have the gaps at the end of each track, except the first song, which will include it at the beginning and the end. This would clear up everything and then all gaps would be accounted for. Am I missing something?

YES!

ZERO!

Cheers!

Sergio

No, it's the other way around. If ripping to tracks you can't possibly rip the TRACK 01 INDEX 00 track (without moving to ripping in ranges or something).

I'm not sure if you'd know if you had any CDs with this hidden track. Unless you know to look, or try ripping with EAC in image mode, you wouldn't notice.

No. If you rip to tracks you will also have to create the accompanying cuesheet to be able to maintain gaps, which is a secondary process - i.e.: not part of the normal track ripping.

And it can.

If you use foobar you can use an image with cuesheet just like separate tracks files. With this in mind you can also easily transcode from an image to tracks in foobar. You can also use a command line app called ACDIR to convert from FLAC, APE, WavPack or WAVE image to tracks using the cuesheet.

I'm an idiot. That is what I meant.




I did not know that. I thought the cue sheet could be creating with REACT or whatever other program I used as part of the "one touch" automated process, which was my chief goal.


Ok, sounds good. It appears ripping to an image has no drawbacks, unless I want to use players other than Foobar to play the lossy backups. I'm not familiar with Foobar, however, I will most likely be switching to it since it appears the vast majority of people on this forum laud its superiority to other audio players. Where is the best guide out there for setting up the latest Foobar (I believe it's 0.9 Beta 10, but am not sure if that's a version I should be using yet)? I've been told there are pre-built versions out there with all the stuff in it the way I will need it.

It appears (correct me if I'm wrong) I want to have my REACT+EAC+WAVEPACK+LAME setup exactly how Synthetic Soul has his set up, except I would want LAME -V2 instead of -V5.

What is my first step? I've downloaded the programs I need, but have not set any of them up (except EAC has been setup for LAME, which is how I have been ripping and encoding) Please let me know if there is a simple "how to, step by step" tutorial out there with .INI files as well.

THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH.

I feel I should add here that the additional cuesheet, if my understanding is correct, is only required to recreate the gaps perfectly when burning back to CD. And with this I mean that the cuesheet is the only way of maintaining any INDEX 00 entries. If you ripped to tracks with proper gap settings I believe you would get the exact audio data on burning - just not exact indexes.

As I have always used images I don't fully understand the issues. I was expecting a track maniac to make this point.

That said, I still believe that image+cuesheet is the most secure method for backing up a CD. I don't see any problems with using images in foobar. If you are to use -V2 then I really doubt that you will feel the need to revert to your lossless files anyway, IMHO.

I don't currently rip to tracks at the same time - I use foobar. I completed phase 1 ("the catchup") of my archive a year ago - so automation is not so much of a concern for me at the moment.

First step would be to take a look at the section of the REACT INI that I quoted previously. That will create a WavPack image and LAME files. We should be able to start with that section and just make necessary changes. I'm going out for the day now, but I may be more help later/tomorrow.

I just use -hm. The extra processing time taken by using -x just doesn't seem worth the few MB saving to me. I can only suggest encoding a few WAVE images with a few command lines and making up your own mind though really.

I have no idea about -Y. I'm the sort who would just stick with the presets with no f***ing about. -V2 --vbr-new would no doubt be transparent to me. Again, only your ears can confirm this one.

I already commented on this one. Here is the thread I mentioned. It looks like you would just use:

MP3GAIN.EXE -a -k "<file1>.mp3" "<file2>.mp3" "<file3>.mp3" ...

It looks to me that GLOB.EXE, included with REACT, would help you do this - something like:

GLOB.EXE -c MP3GAIN.EXE -a -k *.mp3

I also commented on this one, RE: PAR2. I don't see any problems with this, but it isn't going to be part of the automated process (as you have to wait until you have enough files to fill a DVD). As it is a manual process you are not limited in any way really.

you can rip to single separate tracks AND have the cue sheet, though it is a little bit "being super exact".
Burning the Cd again as exact as possible:

possibility a):
nero, set gaps to 0 seconds for all tracjks besides the 1st, which needs 2 s by default. You don't need the cue sheets for a), nero will not even accept the eac cue sheets.
For this 2s reason, any Cds with content before track 1, would be non-compliant to red-book-standard ?
at least very very weird or rare or strange.

possibilty b, maybe a bit more exact than a):
burn by eac or Burrn, with the optional cue sheet, you need for these programs, created by eac as described at http://www.high-quality.ch.vu .

As i said, one of my main reasons for separate tracks is the archiving and searching functions of MAC 2.93.

Could one of the cd-image gurus tell, if by MAC or other music archive program access to separate tarcks is possible if ripped to image ?




Wavpack -x -m or -h -m, flac -8 ?

-h has advnatge of encoding speed & slightly better compression,
but clear disadvantage of decoding speed, which is only 50% compared to flac decoding & wv -x decoding !

As decoding wavpack is important in future, like possible hardware players, or slow/silent PCs
, or quick transcoding to a lossy format,
I prefer clearly wavpack -x -m (or flac -8 -V) over wavpack -h -m.




par2

Haven't had the need to apply par2 for restoring damaged data yet, thank God,
but by statistical & probability reasons, it is obvious, that par2 data makes much much more sense to create for the whole DVD/CD with all the combined data of all directories/sub-directories.
Imagine, that eg. a certain area of a DVD is damaged, that means, that a part of an album is damaged, if you have only par2 data on album basis, you have low probabiloity to restore the album.
But if you made par2 for all DVd-data, the probability increases a lot, as you can add data from other directories/albms, which isn't damaged.
And in case, you stored the album-par2-data inside the album directory, with some probability this par2 data is also damaged like the other damaged-album-parts...

WOW - although this thread hasn't seen some action recently I'd vote for it as sticky... Maybe the discussion approach found here is even better then a strict beginner "do this do that" kind of guide.

IT HELPED ME A LOT!

Regards, freak

I feel like i have to reanimate this topic.
I helped me a lot, too, but i still got some questions.

I decided to use Mareo or React to do the following things:
-rip with EAC (secure mode or T&C, not sure yet)
-create a WavPack image with embedded log and cuesheet
-ReplayGain the WavPack file
-create single LAME -V3 files for each track, scaled with RG album values (89dB)

Now to my questions:

-is it possible to store scaling information in tags to revert this process with mp3gain later on? Possibly not losslessly, because mp3gain has this 1.5dB limitation, whereas scaling is floating point, right?

-what happens to "TRACK 01 INDEX 00" hidden tracks when splitting to LAME files?

-why should I store an external .cue with the .wv? Because fb2k tends to kill "INDEX 00"-information in .cue? Is it reasonably more secure than embedded cue files?

-what problems do occur with vbr files on which ipod? Until now I read everywhere about the baseless fears of vbr files being less compatible and that there was no reason still to rip cbr files.

-is there a way to kill null samples before encoding to LAME? (they should, of course, remain in the image) This would be important with albums, that have hidden tracks after a long silence. I don't like the idea of doing this manually.

foobar2000 won't "kill" the information, it just ignores it apparently.

And VBR MP3s only skip on 3Gs and Nanos, I believe. iPod Video won't skip.

foobar seemed to kill "INDEX 00"-marks at least in two cases:
-converting .wv with embedded cuesheet to .wav with external cuesheet
-ReplayGaining .wav with external cuesheet

(see topic 45007, though nobody really confirmed this, that could only be fb2k's fault)



What about other mp3 players? (especially the cheapo-ones)
Maybe this is the wrong forum to ask for cheap audio equipment

I'm pretty sure you can do this with REACT. As you say though, you may not be able to reset the volume exactly. I've never tried myself, but it is possible you could actually use MP3GAIN after encoding to make the change, and let it store the APEv2 undo tags.

With ACDIR you can opt to prepend it to the first track. The most sensible move is to deal with it manually though, no doubt by creating a temporary cuesheet to convert it to TRACK 01 INDEX 01, and using foobar or ACDIR to transcode.

Why not? Do you need that 3KB? There is no need to though.

OK - this thread comes with SO MUCH valuable information - I'll post my question here first and hope to keep the thread alive as well as adding some worthy thoughts which my arise after one masterd the "ripping to multiple file formats" process.

Starting point:
With EAC / MAREO I have created mp3s + mp3gain and single WavPack files for each track + APEv2 Tags, and in a second step (as with mareo it can not be automated) created a noncompliant *.cue (which points at .wav's obviously).
The .wv's are purely for backup purposes with no wavgain applied to them and stored onto DVDs.

I do this because
A) I like to use accuraterip in EAC (only possible for single file creation)
B) my understanding is that by creating a single image, no "test & copy" is performed
C) MAREO only fully supports separate track files, ACDIR + .cue does not work here (see B also)
C) MAREO is fairly simple to use - now - wheras REACT + ACDIR - I don't get it; and it already took me so MUCH time to understand MAREO

Note: I never have used foobar (using itunes and am quite happy with it) - however, afaik it does not support "noncompliant" .cue's anyway!?

NOW:
How to go about if I want to transcode from those separate track wv's with a noncompliant .cue into .mp3 (or maybe later nero .aac)? Of course I want to keep tags and preferably the folder structure too (i.e. automatically - it surely can be done by hand, file by file )

All I can do right now is to use speek's wavpack frontend (unpacking wv to wav) and then burrrn (supports noncompliant .cue's) to burn a pretty close to the original cd copy.

Please help!

I HATE "NONCOMPLIANT" - WHAT'S NONCOMPLIANT ANYWAY - I USE IT, OTHERS USE IT, IT'S RECOMMENDED A LOT - SO WHAT'S NONCOMPLIANT?

Mediamonkey can rip to flac, then you can utilize either the virtual cd function or auto-conversion features to convert to lossy for portable/every day use.

MM doesn't really have much support for cue sheets or ripping cd's by whole disc, nor does it have the 'secure' rip features as other rippers do, but it does a good job otherwise, and does a great job at helping you manage your audio library.

You could continue to use eac (or whatever your preferred app is) to rip then add the files to MM and use the above noted features.

* i am a track-by-track listener, so i rip as separate files.
* i use flac for lossless because it has the widest support -- apple products notwithstanding, of course. it's almost a matter of principle -- they introduced alac well after flac had been established as the de facto standard for lossless audio, and as far as i can tell, that was done strictly in the interest of vendor lock-in. no thank you. i can transcode losslessly later if i find that this was a bad decision.
* i then drop those flac files into foobar (0.8 series) and do a batch conversion to LAME mp3; foobar and dbpoweramp are the only two products i've yet encountered that allow flac to lame conversion while preserving the tags, and the latter acts strangely on my system. then i shut down foobar and never look at it again, instead using winamp and itunes for playback.