II have been trying to get the settings right to be able to rip the "perfect" audiobook from CD to .mp3 for use in my vehicle and my iPod. I have already read through the threads listed below and I still have a couple of questions.

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....wtopic=1092&hl=
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....topic=28821&hl=
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....01&hl=AUDIOBOOK
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....topic=23282&hl=
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....wtopic=3270&hl=
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....wtopic=7128&hl=

Due to the intended use of the audiobooks I want to rip, I need to follow certain parameters:

1. I can't use ABR or VBR. CBR is a must. This is due to the fact that iPods sometimes have trouble with playback or seeking through a file that is ripped using ABR and VBR encoding.

2. Stereo is a must. This is to avoid the lock-ups that come ppl experience when using mono files on the iPod (Mine has locked up on more than one audiobook).

3. I want to try and keep the bit rate around 64kbs. This seems to be a happy medium between fidelity and size. I would like to be able to fit the average audiobook (12-15 discs) on to one CDR so I can listen to it in my truck. 64kbs is also the bit rate I use if I convert the mp3 to m4b (Apple's bookmarking AAC audio file).

What would be the best setting for EAC and Lame using the above guidelines?

While reading through the threads above I notice that many ppl use things like lowpass or resampling when ripping voice. How will resampling or adding a lowpass filter effect the way a file sounds?

I have ripped a couple of audiobooks that have a flange/echo sound in the high frequencies that is very irritating. Does anyone what causes this?

I am also curious about tagging methods. I have been ripping single tracks for testing purposes. Once I start ripping the entire audiobook, which can be several discs, how do I make EAC include the disc number in the track name so the files will sort properly? The filename output should be something like this:

disc number - track number - title of book - author

Thanks for the help!

Maybe not what you want, but you can run rockbox on you iPod, and play Vorbis files. Vorbis gives really good results at low bitrates (use latest versions).

Note: your thread title is a little misleading: you're asking question about encoding also, not only about ripping & tagging.

I taken to resampling all voice only stuff to 22050. It is certainly possible that a millisecond here or there might sound significantly different but so far everything I've ABX tested has been transparent. Some of it is actually fine, no change in sound, at 16kHz, but I decided it was too much trouble to test everything and just use 22kHz. Besides, resampling to 22kHz takes far less time than resampling to 16kHz. This alone reduces file size by half.

Lowpass filtering at 11kHz has pretty much the same effect on the audio but is less effective at reducing file size, at least for the VBR settings that I use. The same applies, of course to a lower cutoff and the 16kHz sample rate.

I don't know about your echo stuff but I've created such things by trying to filter out an abundance of 60Hz hum, with very strong harmonics at 180Hz and 300Hz. My difficulties were probably due to interaction with voice at similar frequencies, especially around 180Hz. I could only use the notch filter on the 60Hz and had to deal with the higher frequencies by a combination of other means. Perhaps the original masters of your disks had some similar problem and whoever cleaned them up for CD was just less fastidious.

A very common expedient for naming is simply to put each disk into a separate folder. I don't do much with EAC tagging, so I don't know the answer, but have you investigated the possibility that it can put some kind of constant value in each track's title? If so, you would just have to change that constant for each successive disk. Another possibility for that is editing the disk title before starting extraction and making the disk title part of the track title.

I have been debating on installing rockbox on my iPod, but not for listening to audiobooks. I use mp3/m4b because of the bookmarking capabilities, which is esstential IMHO for an audiobook on a DAP.

Srry if my title is confusing. I don't seem to be able to edit the subject of the thread. Perhaps a mod can change it to:

Audiobooks. Questions on ripping, encoding, and tagging.



The fact that resampling may help reduce file size is great.

Editing the disc title before extraction may be my best option. I had thought od that but I thought that maybe there was a parameter I could add to my output filename string that would automatically insert disc number.


I know the source material for the audiobook is good. The audio defect has only appeared in a couple of tracks. It sounds like the audio is being played through a fan or something. Kinda choppy. I have changed settings so many times that I don't know if it's something I may have done while encoding.

Sorry, my comment about reducing file size by half doesn't quite apply to the mp3 encodings. Resampling definitely reduces file size significantly, but the exact mp3 result isn't so consistent or predictable. I just wrote without thinking it all the way through. I do all preparation on the uncompressed files, where resampling to 22kHz cuts the files size exactly in half.

I tried a few settings last night. Below is a list of 4 different settings used with 2 different audiobook tracks, both male and female voice. I also ripped .wav files of both tracks for reference. I loaded the tracks on my iPod and listened to them via a pair of Etyomtic ER-4P headphones hooked to a Ray Sammuels Audio SR-71 headphone amp. This is my normal portable rig and is also very revealing to any flaws in the sound.



The tracks that were resampled and had the lowpass filter (1,1a) I didn't like at all. It sounded very flat and compressed. There was distortion in the other tracks, especially the ones with the male voice. Tracks 3 and 3a sounded the closest to the original recording and sounded the best to my ears, but also had the most distortion, especially with the deeper male voice. The distortion sound like a fuzzy echo. The male voice in track 4a was very distorted.

What could be causing the distortion? I would also like to roll off the highs just a little. How would I go about doing that?

All this may seem a little anal for a 64KB voice track, but I listen to audiobooks a lot and I want to find a setting that won't be fatiguing to listen to over long periods when using my iPod. Thanks for the help.

You choose a rather low frequency cutoff on your resample tests. Resampling to 22kHz means the highest frequency is reduced to slightly above 11kHz. Resampling to 16kHz allows maxximum 8kHz.

I said that some stuff was fine at the 16kHz sample rate but much was not satisfactory. Therefore I decided it was esier to just use 22kHz for everything. If you don't want to leave the 22kHz sample rate alone, if you have to cut the frequency off even lower, I suggest not going below 10hHz.

It might not be the ultimate test, but if you can listen directly from the computer you can much more quickly eliminate the obvious unsatisfactory. You should also be able to make reasonable tests on a short sample, say 30 seconds, which can be encoded several different way much ore quickly, saving more testing time.

I took the time to listen to them on my computer, although I rarely listen to audiobooks from the PC. I was using Klipsch Promedia 2.1.

I came to the same basic results as with headphones. Test track 1 & 1a sound very muffled and compressed. The distortion in the rest of the test tracks was barely audible on my speakers, but still there and annoying the hell out of me.

Test tracks 2,2a & 3,3a are impossible to tell apart on the PC. To be honest, if I could eliminate the ditortion in either of those tracks so it could not be heard on my headphones they would be perfect.

If the resampled versions sound any worse it is because of the poor choice for lowpass filter. Resampling to 22kHz should give you more bits for more important quality considerations. Speech doesn't need the higher frequencies of a higher sampling rate.

You should be easily able to verify this by resampling the uncompressed files to 22kHz and listening to that -- stop there, do the resampling, don't screw around with any filtering. You will most likely find the resampled WAV transparent. It certainly won't be muffled, flat, distorted or whatever.

Whether any 64kbit can be satisfactory is another question, but resampling [I]properly[/I ]should get you closer.

Does you player require full stereo or will js work? It seems that all the posting on the subject confirm that both js is superior and more efficient. This would mean more of those bits are available for more important tasks.

Don't certain iPod generations only have problems with higher bitrate VBR? At such a low bitrate, I don't think VBR would be likely to give that audio glitch. Correct me if I'm wrong. I don't recall ABR files giving problems either, due to the much more restricted bitrate variation.

AndyH-ha: iPods can use joint stereo just fine. It's better for him to leave it using JS.

Have you tried -V9 --vbr-new --resample 22 and tested it on your iPod to see if it actually skips (remembering that not all generations have the VBR issue)?

You've already had plenty of advice on this, but I thought I'd add my 2 cents anyway.

For encoding audiobooks, I always use the Lame string:

lame -b 64 -m m --resample 24 --lowpass 12 --lowpass-width 0 --noshort

I got this from a Razorlame preset (I think it was "Voice") but I increased the bitrate from 56 to 64. The last time I encoded an audiobook was with Lame 3.96.1. I haven't used the newer lame binary yet.

With this preset I was able to fit Harry Potter book 5 (23 discs) onto a single disc. Verbal Advantage (24 discs) also fit on one disc.

To my ears the mp3 files were very listenable, not fatiguing at all and no blatant artifacts. I have a long commute to work, so I often listen an hour at a time. On a long car trip I once listened to 10 hours of the Harry Potter book in one sitting.

Yes, the result is mono. I know you asked for stereo, but you should try one file with this string and see if it works on your iPod.

My iPod is a 4G 60GB Photo. I can play high quality VBR files just fine, so one would have to assume that low bit rate files would be fine also. I was just trying to create the most compatible mp3 file I could and avoid the known problems of an iPod.

I will make some test files using the command line above and see what happens.

I need all the advice this forum can give me!


If someone has a preffered setting for audiobooks, especially files that are played on an iPod, please list it here and will test it.

This has been the best sounding setting so far. Unless someone has a better command line that I can test, this will probably become my default setting for encoding audiobooks. The iPod seemed to have no problem seeking through the track.



I also tetsted this setting. The output file size was twice the size as anything else I have tried and the distortion was still present. It sounds like the reader of the audiobook is in a tin building during recording.

I also tested the "--preset voice" preset and I ended up with another really big file. The distortion was there, although not nearly as noticable. I thought the voice preset was supposed to be "--abr 56 -mm" but I ended up with a file just over 2,000 KB. Kinda strange.

A comment on stereo vs. mono encoding (this is more of an FYI than anything as it appears that the mono command line is working for you)...If you need to encode a nominally mono source in stereo, you may find that, depending on the recording, you can get a very noticeable decrease in artifacts by first summing the stereo WAV file from the CD to mono and then splitting that back out to stereo (essentially dual mono) and encoding that file as a standard joint-stereo MP3.

The reason for doing this would be to eliminate any small channel imbalances and/or phase shifts that can sometimes occur on what otherwise seems to be a mono recording, i.e. spoken word. Even if the stereo WAV from the CD *sounds* perfectly mono through headphones, it may still cause noticeable problems at lower stereo bitrates.

As far as automating the stereo->mono->stereo process with EAC (for instance)...I guess running it through sox a couple times should work.

Edit: Actually, you could run it through sox one time:

sox infile.wav outfile.wav avg 0.5,0.5,0.5,0.5

This mixes an equal amount of each channel into the other, creating a mono mix that is then output as a stereo WAV. You would need to use something like MAREO with its ability to run a pre-processing program on each WAV file, but it should work quite well.

I hope I can explain this....

I have started ripping "Mary Roach's Stiff: Curious Lives of Human Cadavers" and I have run in to a big problem. My problem is that the track number from disc to disc is not consecutive. In other words disc 1 has tracks 1-25, disc 2 has also has tracks 1-24, etc... Using my current file naming scheme I will end up with 12 (12 discs for this audiobook) track no. 1's, each containing a different chapter of the book. This is going to make sorting these files a nightmare.

I can't really sort by track name because the tracks start with the name and then chapter-subchapter(x-xx) like so: chapterx-xx, Introductionx-xx, Prologuex-xx.

I would like to sort the tracks numerically and by track number if possible. Is there any way of editing the track numbers so that disc 2 will have tracks 26-50 and disc 3 will have tracks 51-74 and so on, and it there a way to do this without having to edit each track individually?

Yes, you _could_ do this. Is it only for file ordering though? Generally, programs only support two-digit tracknumbers. You can enter more with foobar, but it might make your file FUBAR (or at least the F.U part of it)

If it's for file ordering, all you need to do is put the disc name in the file name before the tracknumber. Even easier would be putting the disc number, if you have a track value for that.

Also, for the command line, I have some audiobooks (which I didn't myself encode), which are probably done with

lame -V9 --vbr-new --resample 12 --lowpass 5 [--noshort]

it's worth trying this with noshort on or off...

I have a tempory fix for right now. I used the string"%A\%C-%N-%T" and the add the disc number to the CD title and I end up wih something like this"

Stiff-D1-01-Introduction00-01

This way it sorts it by the disc number. I wish that there was an actual tag for disc number. I would still like to sort by track number.

I use MP3 Tag Editor for this (no need to install, just extract and run). Although it is also handy to quickly spot MP3s with both V1 & V2 tags, I don't use it for anything else - I prefer MP3 Tag Studio (which does have a way of doing this, it's just a bit complicated).

I think ID3-TagIT will also do the job.

Why not use foobar2000 for tagging? then you can create / use the "DISCNUMBER" tag to store the disc number...

My approach is to just extract them into different folders. Number the folders and the player shoud go through them in sequence. There is thus no problem that the track numbers repeat within each folder.

I've also sometimes gone to the effort of renaming them afterwards. If you make a template name
title .mp3
and copy it,
you can then paste it into each file name in turn,
keying in an absolute file number
(001 through however many files you have).
It isn't exactly fun but it does not take all that long.

I know this isn't what you're looking for...but when I make mp3 versions of audiobooks, I combine the tracks (during extraction) so that I end up with one file per chapter of the book. The only pain is when a chapter is split across discs, then I have to use a .wav joiner program.

It's a little more time consuming, but with this method I can name each file the same as the chapter and tag the mp3 file accordingly. So even though Harry Potter book 5 is 23 discs and hundreds of tracks, my mp3 disc of it has only 38 files (with a 2 digit prefix).

If your player is flexible enough, large files might be ok, but with many players a large number off small files markedly reduces the navigation frustration level.

Good point. However, in my case the target was not a portable. I burn my audiobooks straight to an mp3 CD for use in my car deck. Listening to audiobooks this way is great. I can't imagine carrying and swapping 23 discs for 1 book. The safety factor alone makes it worth doing.

I don't think where one listens to them is particularly relevant; it is only about the player characteristics. IF the player supports resume at the point one stopped (most probably do) AND the player supports rewind (most seem not to, and I consider that of exceptional importance with this kind of material), large files are fine. For the many players that do not support rewind (reverse scan ... whatever the label) small files mean you don't have to
(1) give up ever hearing the part you missed because of that so and so buffoon in the next lane (or for any of dozens of reason one can miss a bit) OR
(2) start over 35 minutes back because that is the only place you can start over.

I personally prefer larger files for my iPod, mainly to reduce the clutter of having 200+ files for one audiobook.

I use Markable to merge several small files into a few larger files. I also use Markable to convert to the .m4b format. I just noticed the other day that Markable has a CD import wizard . It rips to a "64kb custom" mp3. I am going to give this a try also and see what kind of results I get from it. Maybe it will also solve my tagging problem since the software is geared toward ripping audiobooks.