Howdy -

I am in the process of digitizing my CD collection to wav. files for archiving purposes and also to mp3 for casual use. I am using current versions of both EAC (0.95b4) and Lame (3.97b2). Within Lame, I was using the following string for tagging:

-V 2 --vbr-new --add-id3v2 --pad-id3v2 --ta "%a" --tt "%t" --tg "%m" --tl "%g" --ty "%y" --tn "%n" %s %d

With these settings, I fould that about one in ten discs would hang during the compression phase. I read some of the material in this forum and found a slightly different version of the string that does not have the "--tg"%m" term or switch. After removing it, I now find that the problem discs rip and compress just fine. Can anyone explain what that switch is and why things seem to work better without it? Also, am I missing anything by not using it?

In addition, I read in one post that the momentary flashing of the Lame "DOS Box" is a sign of some sort of problem. This happens on my system, which happens to be a pretty powerful machine, and I am also surprised how much these two programs eat up my resources. Are these common issues? Thanks in advance for any help.

- Bronco Leonard

Its a problem with "genre" tagging

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....showtopic=38260
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....47&#entry211247

(there are many more threads on this subject, if needed)

In short, LAME will choke on genre classifications that it doesn't specifically support. If you must do your tagging via the LAME command line, use only supported genres (as found in "lame --genre-list"), or [B] remove the genre tagging switch (as you already found) (--tg "%m"), or [C] try using "--ignore-tag-errors" which should just leave the genre field blank if an unsupported genre is passed and continue the encoding process.

Thanks, Cosmo, for being patient and answering my question. I had already looked at one of the two threads you recommended, but didn't understand enough of it at the time to solve my problem. I appreciate the help. In retrospect, most of the albums that I had problems with were ones that might have had questionable genre descriptions.

BTW, any thoughts about the DOS box pop up? Is it an indicator of a problem, or should I just ignore it?

- Bronco Leonard

No, DOS is the program used to run LAME.

If it doesn't 'pop-up' then you should be worried. Unless of course you have it set to run in the background...

Also, if you use "-ignore-tag-errors" in your command line it will enter the genre as 'Other' whenever an unsupported genre is entered.

Hope that helps.
JXL