Hydrogenaudio Forums > Max - cdparanoia + lame / ogg / flac for MacOS X

Fuchal

Dec 12 2005, 09:23

I found this new software for OS X - it's called Max and it's available at http://sbooth.org/Max/ for free.

It's something that I've been looking for for a long time and so I figured maybe some of you might have been wanting something like it for OS X too!

It's basically a nice front end to cdparanoia + lame/ogg/flac/aac and seems to be updated and getting better every week.

Official description:

QUOTE

Max (Macintosh Audio for OS X) is a Mac OS X application for creating high-quality audio files in various formats from compact discs.

Max features an error-correcting audio extraction process using cdparanoia to ensure the data from your CD is faithfully extracted.

Once the audio is extracted, Max can generate audio in over 20 compressed and uncompressed formats including MP3, Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, AAC, Apple Lossless, AIFF, and WAVE.

Max leverages open source components and the resources of Mac OS X to provide extremely high-quality output. For example, MP3 encoding is accomplished with LAME, Ogg Vorbis encoding with libVorbis, FLAC encoding with libFLAC, and AAC and Apple Lossless encoding with Core Audio. Many PCM conversions are also possible using Core Audio and libsndfile.

Max is integrated with FreeDB to permit automatic retrieval of compact disc information. For MP3, FLAC, and Ogg Vorbis files Max will write this metadata to the output.

Max allows full control over where output files are placed and what they are named.

For advanced users, Max allows control over how many threads are used for encoding, what type of error correction is used for audio extraction, and what parameters are used for each of the various encoders.

Max is free software released under the GNU General Public License (GPL).

ChesneyChrist

Dec 23 2005, 11:27

Has anyone tried this app?

I've checked it out myself and if it produces better quality rips than my current setup (iTunes Lame) I'd be happy to carry on using it.

I have read that cdparanoia doesn't work with drives that cache audio. I have a powerbook with a Matshita UJ-816, I don't know if this drive does cache, anyone know if it does?. If cdparanoia doesn't work with my drive, are there any other benefits of producing my rips with this app, or would I be just as well sticking to ripping my current setup?

spies

Dec 23 2005, 11:52

QUOTE(ChesneyChrist @ Dec 23 2005, 10:27 AM)

I have read that cdparanoia doesn't work with drives that cache audio.

Maybe the developer of Max would be interested in implementing the techniques used in Pyripper.
That way it would not matter much if your drive cached audio, Steven

sbooth

Dec 23 2005, 13:04

QUOTE(ChesneyChrist @ Dec 23 2005, 10:27 AM)

I have read that cdparanoia doesn't work with drives that cache audio. I have a powerbook with a Matshita UJ-816, I don't know if this drive does cache, anyone know if it does?. If cdparanoia doesn't work with my drive, are there any other benefits of producing my rips with this app, or would I be just as well sticking to ripping my current setup?

I can't speak to drive specifics, but Max uses the raw disk nodes that bypass the buffer cache, so cdparanoia should work as advertised.

ChesneyChrist

Dec 23 2005, 14:00

That'll do me. Nice work.

MagicRat

Dec 23 2005, 18:21

QUOTE(sbooth @ Dec 23 2005, 02:04 PM)

I can't speak to drive specifics, but Max uses the raw disk nodes that bypass the buffer cache, so cdparanoia should work as advertised.

Can anybody explain this in terms I can understand?

Thanks

spath

Dec 24 2005, 02:29

QUOTE(sbooth @ Dec 23 2005, 11:04 AM)

I can't speak to drive specifics, but Max uses the raw disk nodes that bypass the buffer cache, so cdparanoia should work as advertised.

This doesn't help, the caching problem occurs inside the drive.

sbooth

Dec 24 2005, 03:00

QUOTE(spath @ Dec 24 2005, 01:29 AM)

QUOTE(sbooth @ Dec 23 2005, 11:04 AM)

I can't speak to drive specifics, but Max uses the raw disk nodes that bypass the buffer cache, so cdparanoia should work as advertised.

This doesn't help, the caching problem occurs inside the drive.

Ahh, I see your point. I'm not sure if one can disable the hardware cache with OS X. I will have to do some investigation...

Mirage2k

Dec 25 2005, 15:33

Can I use this to convert Apple Lossless files directly to FLAC? I downloaded it but there isn't any documentation AFAIK.

ffooky

Dec 25 2005, 18:34

QUOTE(Mirage2k @ Dec 25 2005, 10:33 PM)

Can I use this to convert Apple Lossless files directly to FLAC? I downloaded it but there isn't any documentation AFAIK.

The latest release of Toast (7.0.2) can perform this conversion.

jas1612

Dec 25 2005, 21:24

QUOTE(Fuchal @ Dec 12 2005, 11:23 AM)

I found this new software for OS X - it's called Max and it's available at http://sbooth.org/Max/ for free.

It's something that I've been looking for for a long time and so I figured maybe some of you might have been wanting something like it for OS X too!

It's basically a nice front end to cdparanoia + lame/ogg/flac/aac and seems to be updated and getting better every week.

Official description:

QUOTE

Max (Macintosh Audio for OS X) is a Mac OS X application for creating high-quality audio files in various formats from compact discs.

Max features an error-correcting audio extraction process using cdparanoia to ensure the data from your CD is faithfully extracted.

Once the audio is extracted, Max can generate audio in over 20 compressed and uncompressed formats including MP3, Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, AAC, Apple Lossless, AIFF, and WAVE.

Max leverages open source components and the resources of Mac OS X to provide extremely high-quality output. For example, MP3 encoding is accomplished with LAME, Ogg Vorbis encoding with libVorbis, FLAC encoding with libFLAC, and AAC and Apple Lossless encoding with Core Audio. Many PCM conversions are also possible using Core Audio and libsndfile.

Max is integrated with FreeDB to permit automatic retrieval of compact disc information. For MP3, FLAC, and Ogg Vorbis files Max will write this metadata to the output.

Max allows full control over where output files are placed and what they are named.

For advanced users, Max allows control over how many threads are used for encoding, what type of error correction is used for audio extraction, and what parameters are used for each of the various encoders.

Max is free software released under the GNU General Public License (GPL).

Sounds good, I'll check it out. I'm still wondering about the whole drive cache thing. Do you know if this program takes that into account? or what about pyripper? I've read that cdparanoia won't work as expected if ur drive caches audio, and almost all drives these days do have cache. Icouldn't find if mine actually caches audio though. I have an iBook g4 combo drive MATSHITA CD-RW CW-8123 it say s 2mb of cache if anyone knows Thanks for the link

ChesneyChrist

Dec 26 2005, 07:14

QUOTE(jas1612 @ Dec 26 2005, 03:24 AM)

I'm still wondering about the whole drive cache thing. Do you know if this program takes that into account? or what about pyripper? I've read that cdparanoia won't work as expected if ur drive caches audio.

Read the whole of this thread jas1612, and you'll have an answer.

sbooth

Dec 26 2005, 12:18

QUOTE(Mirage2k @ Dec 25 2005, 02:33 PM)

Can I use this to convert Apple Lossless files directly to FLAC? I downloaded it but there isn't any documentation AFAIK.

I will be releasing version 0.5 within a week, which will allow conversion to/from all formats supported by Core Audio and libsndfile.

desapje

Dec 27 2005, 13:07

Is it possible for you to make this app Panther (10.3) compatible?

Squabsy

Dec 27 2005, 14:43

QUOTE(desapje @ Dec 27 2005, 07:07 PM)

Is it possible for you to make this app Panther (10.3) compatible?

YES PLEEEEEEEEEAAAAASSSSSSEEEEEE

Etienne

Dec 27 2005, 17:11

Hi sbooth

Looks very nice. Could be what I am waiting for.

Unfortunately I cannot encode. I get:
"Input / Output Error
Unable to create the output file. (13:Permission denied) [/Users/me/Development/Max/RipperTask.m:56]"

Any idea?

Thanks

chrisgeleven

Dec 27 2005, 17:23

Couple of ideas that would let me switch to it:

1) Allow you to do a CUE sheet and 1 large FLAC file when ripping an album.
2) Allow you to apply ReplayGain (title and album) to that file.
3) Allow you to encode from the ReplayGained FLAC file to mp3 (foobar does this and it is fantastic, as in my car my adapter to connect to the iPod doesn't allow SoundCheck to be used).

sbooth

Dec 28 2005, 20:09

QUOTE(Etienne @ Dec 27 2005, 04:11 PM)

Unfortunately I cannot encode. I get:
"Input / Output Error
Unable to create the output file. (13:Permission denied) [/Users/me/Development/Max/RipperTask.m:56]"

You might check what is set as your output directory and make sure you have write access.

sbooth

Dec 28 2005, 20:11

QUOTE(chrisgeleven @ Dec 27 2005, 04:23 PM)

Couple of ideas that would let me switch to it:

1) Allow you to do a CUE sheet and 1 large FLAC file when ripping an album.
2) Allow you to apply ReplayGain (title and album) to that file.
3) Allow you to encode from the ReplayGained FLAC file to mp3 (foobar does this and it is fantastic, as in my car my adapter to connect to the iPod doesn't allow SoundCheck to be used).

These are on the TODO list, probably for version 0.6.

chrisgeleven

Jan 1 2006, 16:09

QUOTE(sbooth @ Dec 28 2005, 09:11 PM)

QUOTE(chrisgeleven @ Dec 27 2005, 04:23 PM)

Couple of ideas that would let me switch to it:

1) Allow you to do a CUE sheet and 1 large FLAC file when ripping an album.
2) Allow you to apply ReplayGain (title and album) to that file.
3) Allow you to encode from the ReplayGained FLAC file to mp3 (foobar does this and it is fantastic, as in my car my adapter to connect to the iPod doesn't allow SoundCheck to be used).

These are on the TODO list, probably for version 0.6.

Excellent, do this and you get a pernament user out of me!

sbooth

Jan 4 2006, 20:46

I am happy to announce that Max version 0.5 is released!

New features:

Audio can be generated from pre-existing files in addition to CDs
Multiple CD tracks can be encoded to a single file
AAC/Apple lossless files are now tagged with metadata
VBR mode enabled for AAC encoder
Parameters for FLAC/Ogg FLAC encoders are configurable
User-friendly interface added for MP3 encoder
Simultaneous audio extraction from multiple CD drives now possible
Integrated with Services menu to allow encoding from other applications

Bug fixes:

Fixed multithreaded issue in logger that caused crash if log saved during active ripping/encoding
Fixed bug where track selection checkbox could stay disabled when rip was stopped

krmathis

Jan 6 2006, 02:21

Thanks a lot for this great application!
Finally we have a secure and easy to use cd ripper on Mac OS X.

One small question. I ran 'strip' on the Max main executable and it shaved of 10MB (13439760 -> 3046852). Any good resons that I, or you, should not strip it?

Squabsy

Jan 6 2006, 13:32

QUOTE(krmathis @ Jan 6 2006, 08:21 AM)

Thanks a lot for this great application!
Finally we have a secure and easy to use cd ripper on Mac OS X.

Would really love to be able to use this on 10.3.9 (panther)

ChesneyChrist

Jan 6 2006, 14:51

Thanks for the update.

A couple of questions, does the lame "Transparent" setting use the -V 2 --vbr-new switch?

Also, what should the "Save encoder settings in comment" check box do? I assumed it would put the switch setting in the mp3 comment field, but when I imported the mp3s into iTunes there was no comment, and in the summary dialogue box the "Encoded with" field showed "Unknown". The tracks also imported with the track number as part of the track name.

When I uncheck the "Save encoder settings in comment" box, everything works as the previous version.

Cheers.

sbooth

Jan 7 2006, 16:15

QUOTE(Squabsy @ Jan 6 2006, 12:32 PM)

QUOTE(krmathis @ Jan 6 2006, 08:21 AM)

Thanks a lot for this great application!
Finally we have a secure and easy to use cd ripper on Mac OS X.

Would really love to be able to use this on 10.3.9 (panther)

I started looking into this, but I use the DiskArbitration framework which doesn't seem to be available in 10.3. It may be available as a private framework that I could use, but I have not gotten that far yet.

In any case, this is something I am looking into.

sbooth

Jan 7 2006, 16:17

QUOTE(krmathis @ Jan 6 2006, 01:21 AM)

Thanks a lot for this great application!
Finally we have a secure and easy to use cd ripper on Mac OS X.

One small question. I ran 'strip' on the Max main executable and it shaved of 10MB (13439760 -> 3046852). Any good resons that I, or you, should not strip it?

This is probably a good idea! I didn't realize the mp4v2 library was so large; in my rush to release I didn't think of stripping the application. I will in the future, though- it shouldn't cause any problems.

sbooth

Jan 7 2006, 16:21

QUOTE(ChesneyChrist @ Jan 6 2006, 01:51 PM)

Thanks for the update.

A couple of questions, does the lame "Transparent" setting use the -V 2 --vbr-new switch?

Also, what should the "Save encoder settings in comment" check box do? I assumed it would put the switch setting in the mp3 comment field, but when I imported the mp3s into iTunes there was no comment, and in the summary dialogue box the "Encoded with" field showed "Unknown". The tracks also imported with the track number as part of the track name.

When I uncheck the "Save encoder settings in comment" box, everything works as the previous version.

Cheers.

Transparent === -V 2 --vbr-new

The "Save encoder settings in comment" is supposed to do what you describe. I will go back and check to see if it causes problems for me. Were the problems you are referring to only for MP3 files or all formats?

Feel free to file bug reports @ http://sbooth.org/mantis/

ChesneyChrist

Jan 8 2006, 09:18

QUOTE(sbooth @ Jan 7 2006, 10:21 PM)

The "Save encoder settings in comment" is supposed to do what you describe. I will go back and check to see if it causes problems for me. Were the problems you are referring to only for MP3 files or all formats?

Feel free to file bug reports @ http://sbooth.org/mantis/

I only tried it with mp3. I'll have a go with the other formats and see what happens.

Edit: I tried the ogg output, the ogg file wouldn't import to itunes so I opened it with VLC and Media Rage, both showed the endoder and settings info and were tagged correctly.

I tried again with lame, this time I opened the file in media rage first, "LAME settings: VBR(q=2) qval=2" was in the comment field and "LAME 3.97 (beta) (Max 0.5)" in the encoder field. I then opened the file in iTunes, this time the track tag came in ok (no track number before the name) and the encoder info was present in the summary field, the comment field was empty however.

I'm not sure what happened the first time I tried it, regarding the track number in the tags and missing encoder info. The missing encoding info in the comment field also happened for me in the previous version of Max, it must be an iTunes specific problem.

I've also had trouble connecting to the freedb today, I get the error message "libcddb reported: unexpected end-of-file" any idea as to what is causing that?

Edit 2: One more thing, would it be possible to change the encoder info to reflect LAME 3.97b2 was used?

Cheers.

cloughie

Jan 9 2006, 00:26

The save encoder settings works OK for me using AAC.

ie. "Core Audio settings('aac ' codec): bitrate=192 quality=96"

I would like to know what the "Quality" setting does. The file sizes are pretty close to iTunes VBR.

I have ripped & encoded about a dozen albums but some cause Max to crash. One album that causes it to crash is brand new. Any ideas about what could cause this ?

sbooth

Jan 9 2006, 00:42

QUOTE(cloughie @ Jan 8 2006, 11:26 PM)

I have ripped & encoded about a dozen albums but some cause Max to crash. One album that causes it to crash is brand new. Any ideas about what could cause this ?

It isn't your CDs; it is the way the user interface is updated from multiple threads. Apparently some code I believed was thread safe isn't, and in certain circumstances the application will crash (Unexpectedly quit) . I have a beta that fixes the problem, and a new release should be forthcoming within the week.

Reference http://sbooth.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=14 if you are interested.

Sorry about that- it pains me to discover bugs in software I called a "release" version.

kagaku

Jan 25 2006, 18:46

Any chance of a Universal Binary version of Max in the near future?

sbooth

Jan 28 2006, 21:08

QUOTE(kagaku @ Jan 25 2006, 05:46 PM)

Any chance of a Universal Binary version of Max in the near future?

I am working on it; for technical reasons I would rather create static libs on an intel Mac and merge them manually versus creating universal frameworks.

If anyone could offer up some help who has an intel Mac this would be easy for me to do.

Etienne

Feb 5 2006, 04:14

Hi sbooth

A friend of mine emailed me a question about max:

"Have you been able to configure MAX thatway so that it sorts the files in folders artist/title and format (e.g. MP3 and FLAC)?
On my computer MAX stores all files in the folder I selected in preferences. Some more comfort would be great. I'd like to have the music stored in foldes like /music/AIR/Moon Safari/MP3 and /music/AIR/Moon Safari/FLAC."

Is this possible?

Thanks

sbooth

Feb 5 2006, 10:29

QUOTE(Etienne @ Feb 5 2006, 03:14 AM)

"Have you been able to configure MAX thatway so that it sorts the files in folders artist/title and format (e.g. MP3 and FLAC)?
On my computer MAX stores all files in the folder I selected in preferences. Some more comfort would be great. I'd like to have the music stored in foldes like /music/AIR/Moon Safari/MP3 and /music/AIR/Moon Safari/FLAC."

You can do this by using custom file naming and using the File Format button (or the placeholder {fileFormat})

HTH!

desapje

Feb 9 2006, 13:16

i haven't seen a definitive answer in this thread. will cdparanoia be of any use when your drive uses a cache/buffer?

i conducted my own test but i don't know if it's good. i ripped one track twice to .flac and compared the PCM output with shntool's cmp function (which you can find in xAct). the result was "the contents of these files are identical". does that mean i have a perfect rip?

krmathis

Feb 9 2006, 16:34

QUOTE(desapje @ Feb 9 2006, 08:16 PM)

i conducted my own test but i don't know if it's good. i ripped one track twice to .flac and compared the PCM output with shntool's cmp function (which you can find in xAct). the result was "the contents of these files are identical". does that mean i have a perfect rip?

No! It only mean you got identical PCM streams from your two rips.
They can both be perfect, or not perfect at all.

vindictive

Feb 9 2006, 18:11

Sorry if this is a bit off topic but when you rip a CD with MAX and create a CUE and WAV file what are you using to burn this under OSX. I have recently converted to MAC and trying to figure out how to do all the things I used to do.

ffooky

Feb 9 2006, 18:20

QUOTE(vindictive @ Feb 10 2006, 01:11 AM)

Sorry if this is a bit off topic but when you rip a CD with MAX and create a CUE and WAV file what are you using to burn this under OSX. I have recently converted to MAC and trying to figure out how to do all the things I used to do.

Not a well-catered for action I'm afraid.

desapje

Feb 10 2006, 09:53

QUOTE(krmathis @ Feb 9 2006, 11:34 PM)

QUOTE(desapje @ Feb 9 2006, 08:16 PM)

i conducted my own test but i don't know if it's good. i ripped one track twice to .flac and compared the PCM output with shntool's cmp function (which you can find in xAct). the result was "the contents of these files are identical". does that mean i have a perfect rip?

No! It only mean you got identical PCM streams from your two rips.
They can both be perfect, or not perfect at all.

yes, but aren't the chances that i got two identical not-perfect PCM streams, impossibly small?

and i'd like to see .ape (Monkey's audio codec) support in Max!

Martin H

Feb 10 2006, 23:06

QUOTE(desapje @ Feb 10 2006, 04:53 PM)

yes, but aren't the chances that i got two identical not-perfect PCM streams, impossibly small?

No, the chance of getting matching checksums on a faulty rip is not "impossibly small" since consistent errors could still be present, but on the other hand, you have a pretty good chance of having a good rip, since there isn't found any inconsistent errors and hence, the chance of consistent errrors isn't that great. It's the same chance as if you had used EAC in secure mode without C2, and gotten 100% in track quality. If using EAC in secure mode without C2 and gotten no errors reported but under 100% track quality, then there has been detected inconsistent errors in the rip, and all though they have been corrected by re-reading, then the chance of consistent errors being present is bigger.

alexn

May 27 2006, 22:11

QUOTE(Squabsy @ Jan 6 2006, 12:32 PM)

Would really love to be able to use this on 10.3.9 (panther)

So would I, but it looks like there's never going to be a Panther version of Max, which is too bad.

However, if you're stuck with Mac OS X v10.3.9, you may be interested in these AppleScript scripts.
http://www.lexial.ca/alex/applescripts/applescripts.html. They're not a replacement for Max, but you may find them a convenient way to control cdparanoia, cdrdao, and flac.