I have a big problem in my hands...

I'm used to rip & encode my own CDs, so I can rest in peace knowing that my mp3's are top-notch quality. I use EAC v0.9b4 and LAME 3.90.2 --aps, as recommended here (I used to use LAME 3.92 --r3mix, and thanks to the info found here, I changed my way of encoding)

But, trying to rip my Rush - Hemispheres album, I noticed the 1st track is scratched beyond repair. EAC managed to rip the other 3 tracks without read error, but the long 18" 1st track took 40 minutes to rip... the 1st minute! And, so far, with 12 errors. Bottomline: its a lost track, and I must find it somewhere else or tear apart my weak HP9310 trying to read it.

Trying to find this track in WinMX led me to this:

Rush - Hemispheres (Full Album).mp3 , 320kbps CBR

Its the best I could find, but its surely an overkill for 2 reasons:
- 320 CBR if for people that never heard about loseless. If i'm into mp3, its because I do care about space
- Yo! Full Album? No, thanks! EAC had a hard time ripping the other 3 songs to perfection, and I owe ti this one! besides, I dont trust an unknown ripper. I need only the 1st track.

So, what I need:

- Slice this big fat mp3 to isolate the 1st track
- Convert from 320 CBR to --alt-preset standard

Is there any "right" way of doing so? What and how shall I do? Which tools do you recommend? After the terrible things I've heard about transcoding, Im afraid of doing something wrong or stupid.

Thanks in advance!

If I were you I'd isolate the first track with mp3 directcut (or other lossless cutter) and leave it alone. Transcoding will make the quality worse and you wont save much space anyway.

Polish out the scratch. As long as there is no label side damage, you should be able to fix the cd.

There are multiple threads on cd repair.

I have bought cd's at yard sales that were completely unreadable in EAC and brought them back to easily readable condition with a little bit of stuff from hardware stores and some elbow grease.

Also, something to consider:


Is your copy the original cd or the remaster? Is the downloaded one original or remaster?

If you have an original pressing, just do your ears a favor and get the remaster. I'd help you out, but I just moved, and all my cd's are still in storage.

Have you ever tried Feurio? I personally use nothing else

Why do you recommend Feurio?

EAC or even CDex are better (read: more reliable), I believe.

Just because I have very good experience with the program... I work with it from the version 1.30 and now I have 1.65 and I must say I had only twice a minor problem. I've tried and still give a try almost everything what can be found on net, but up today I really haven't found a competitor for Feurio; at least for me there's nothing better available. That goes also for the very professional programs, as Sound Forge, Cool Edit Pro, Stomp Record Now, Roxio WinOnCD and more... I personally use for grabbing and burning Audio CDs nothing else except for Feurio!

Well... for me the only option is:

1- Rip with EAC Secure Mode: that way, I know that if it reports: "There were no errors", I can be 100% sure there weren't.

2- Burn with any program you want that doesn't have bugs in it's CD Audio burning features.

I currently rip with EAC with cue sheet creation active, and then burn with Nero.

I think that's more reliable than Feurio. But I think Pio2001 and some more people from the CD Hardware forum can bring more details about Feurio vs. EAC. I suggest you check there. Or even ask

For what its worth, I use EAC for ripping, Feurio for audio and Nero for data.

My personal choice, and I've had no problem.

auldyin

When you listen to the MP3 you created, do you actually hear errors? When I rip CDs and it says I have errors, I check to see if they're audible. If not, I just keep the MP3. It's not perfect but if you can't hear any problems, that's the best you're gonna get. Especially with EAC Secure Mode, which is pretty reliable.

The other option is to try ripping it with EAC Burst Mode. Apparently, that mode can sometimes provide better results with badly scratched CDs. Try it and listen for the difference.

Also, that MP3 that you downloaded may be an AlbumWrap. Try downloading this free program and unwrapping the MP3 that you downloaded. If it's an AlbumWrap, you'll be able to split out a specific track far easier than using MP3DirectCut (which is still a damn good program).

Or you could look into a program called cuemaster. It creates a cue sheet for the file.

You can then use musicutter to chop the file up based on the cue sheet info.

If you need to edit the cue sheet a little, I use the winamp plug-in, mp3cue. I find that the cuemaster times are always a little bit off.

All three progs are easy to find with google.

If its a non-corrupted albumwrap though, nothing could be easier than that.

My CD is unfortunatly the original pressing. The downloaded I dont know. It sounds the same as my album, but Im not sure If I could tell the original form the remaster. Is there any passage in Hemispeheres that makes clear the difference between the original and the remaster?

Btw, tks for your help and input!

Well, actually I didnt wait for EAC to finish the job. It spent almost 50 minutes to rip only 1 minute and 42 seconds, so I aborted the operation. When checked the 12 erros EAC found in these 1:42, I found no audible error. As far as I could listen, wav sounded perfect. Problem is: If I let EAC rip it again, it will take hours, perhaps even a full day (its a 18 minute track. Im afraid of wearing off my fragile drive and tearing it apart by this humongous effort. I use the same drive for reading and writing, so the drive is worth more then this track (actually, I could buy a dozen Hemipsheres CDs for that price)

Burst Mode seems to be a nice idea. Since none of the erros found in the 1:42 "sample" were audible, maybe the Burst mode will do the job without overheating the drive. Problem is... EAC is famous for its quality in bit-by-bit ripping. will I be happy with a wav that may sound OK, but will be full of glitches when I buy a better equipment? Well, maybe I sould not care about that, because it seems i have no choice. Its worth a try

I will download AlbumWrap. Thanks for the info. Too bad its a proprietary program.The good thing about the mp3 world is that you get easily used with open source, GLP'ed, or at least freeware programs. Its weird to see things like "10-day demo period", or "an unlock code is needed to run the software". Anyway, 10 days is more then enough to slit that damn file!

Btw... anyone out there could create a cuesheet for this album? I already download one from (Cuesheet Heaven, but it seemed so... bare. No UPC/ISRC codes, and the 1st track has only the 01 index. Im sure Cygnals X-1 Book II is split in several indices in this album, just like they did with 2112. So I dont trust this cue was taken from the actual album, but rather build based on track times.

thanks a lot for your (and everybody else's) help!

Here you go. Save and change extension to . cue. Test it first though. Like I say, Cuemaster is a little off on the times now and then.



TITLE "Hemispheres"
PERFORMER "Rush"
REM ** Generated by CueMaster v1.3 **
REM Time : 36:14:00
REM Length: 2174 seconds
REM Year : 1978
REM Genre : Progressive Rock
REM DiscID: 2d087c04
FILE "Rush - Hemispheres.mp3" MP3
TRACK 01 AUDIO
TITLE "Hemispheres, a) Prelude, B) Apollo, c) Dionysus, d) Armageddon, e) Cygnus, f) The Sphere"
PERFORMER "Cygnus X-1 Book II"
PREGAP 00:02:00
INDEX 01 00:00:00
TRACK 02 AUDIO
TITLE "Circumstances"
INDEX 01 18:08:05
TRACK 03 AUDIO
TITLE "The Trees"
INDEX 01 21:52:47
TRACK 04 AUDIO
TITLE "La Villa Strangiato"
INDEX 01 26:37:50