Hello Everybody,

I'm trying to create mpc's and I'm stuck. I've looked here and elsewhere for help with no results. Maybe one of you can help me get going. This is the setup and the problem:

The setup (per Sticky):
MPC Batch Encoder 2.2.6
mppenc 1.14
mppdec 1.95
These are placed in C:\Program Files\MPC Bundle (a folder I created - plans are to add tag, replay gain, etc.) In an effort to fix the problem I installed Visual Basic 6 Runtime files, mscomctl.ocx(in C:\Windows\System) and tabctl32.ocx to the registry as instructed by Speek.

The Problem: After loading a file, the switch command --quality 8 --xlevel, I encounter this: ERROR: Unable to read or decode: D:\Library\Music\Beautiful Melodies\Town & Country Orch. - Three Coins In The Fountain CQ2JRE~1.68 (one filename, for example). Interestingly enough, the first file I tried worked with 2 different switches, but every file since encounters this error. I don't get it. Please help.

Thanks in advance.

Well, I guess nobody knows or it's a personal problem.

FWIW, MuseDrop works except for one file out of several hundred. It produced some funny looking tags, but they sound good. Batch MPC Encoder still won't work and Monkey's wont work either (as a frontend).

/me never used the mentioned mpc batch encoder, but some gui's need the files to be in the system path... (right click my computer, properties, enviroment, and add your musepack dir to the 'path')

Thanks, Smok. I have Win98SE and placed mppenc & mppdec in both C:\Windows\Command and C:\Windows\System but it did no good. At least with Monkey's. Haven't tried Batch Enc. yet as I have to reinstall and my computer has stayed busy.

TABCTL32.OCX is supposed to go into C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\

Registering The File's (don't know if this is necessary):
Start->Run: REGSVR32.EXE "C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\MSCOMCTL.OCX"
Start->Run: REGSVR32.EXE "C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\TABCTL32.OCX"

If the files did need to be registered it would probably be best to restart Windows.

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If you want all of your MPC files (not the two system files listed above) tidy in one single directory and not scattered about in the Windows directory you can use a Set Path in the C:\Autoexec.bat file, it would look like this:

SET Path=%Path%;"C:\Program Files\MPC Bundle"

After you reboot all of the files in the MPC Bundle folder will be found by MPC Batch Encoder, therefore you won't need to place files like Tag in the Windows directory.

It also works if you put it in \SYSTEM. And I think I have also had Speek's frontends working without registering it, but I do so anyway.

Best would be to use EAC for extracting and also as the front-end for encoding (just love the pseudo on-the-fly feature). Search a bit on this topic and you'll find what you want.

Thanks Andavari, Volcano, and lucpes for the suggestions. I've tried them all and nothing works.

But I'm not quitting. I don't want to delete all these Waves without making mpc's. So, right now I'm ripping everything out and starting over. Including rooting out the registry. I should probably point out that I have never had any trouble running anything on my system. The only thing I can think of was I did do some windows updates recently, including DirectX 9. But that shouldn't matter, should it?

FWIW, yesterday I had 2.2.2 going for a while and I really thought I was home free. I had tag & replay gain in the bundle. I tested for quite a while (about 40 files were made). I then added --auto to add replay gain while encoding and it worked for one small batch. But then, like many times before, for no apparent reason, it just quit. I get the same error message as described in the original post. This is a pattern that has repeated itself many times now. It works for a short while, then quits reading the wave file, I guess.

It doesn't look like 2.2.2 will work any better than 2.2.6, they both act the same, though 2.2.2 worked much longer. So, I'm still open for any advice or suggestions.

Thanks.

IIRC, the newer versions of mppenc won't work with Monkey's frontend.

Maybe try using Multi Frontend instead of MPC Batch Encoder. I've been using it and it works great. Create a directory called Mutli (or some other name you like). Unzip the Multi Frontend files to that directory and then unzip all the other files (mppenc, mppdec, tag, etc) into that same folder. That's how I've always used any of Speek's Frontends and have never had a problem.

Rob

Not really. But we're talking about Windows here No seriously, that can't be the reason.

But what is? I'm stumped, to be honest. I think your best bet would be to try a different frontend (Multi Frontend, MuseDrop etc.). Or first, please try the AudioHQ MPC Bundle with the OCX Installer. I don't think that's going to help much, but it might be worth trying.

Have you tried encoding/replaygaining files from the command line manually? I think you should do that, to narrow down the source of the problem - if it still persists even when using the command line, then something is definitely wrong with your system.

Make sure win2dos.exe is in the same directory as MPC Batch Encoder, if it isn't download MPC Batch Encoder from Speek's website.
http://home.wanadoo.nl/~w.speek/speek.htm

MuseDrop is working fine with the --quality8 --xlevel switch, so that should rule out a system problem, right?



Now that's a good idea, I hadn't considered the Multi-Frontend. Since I've begun with MuseDrop, I set up Tag with the Tag Frontend. And the Tag Frontend works flawlessly. So I'll definitely try it.


Neither have I, till now. And like I said, Tag Frontend works great. Case has offered to look at my mpcbatch.bat file that MPCBatchEnc created to see if there are any clues. Unfortunately, I had already deleted the one with the most usage, but maybe he can learn something from it.

Right. I was just weary because you said that MuseDrop also choked on one file.

You could post the content of the batch file created my MPC Batch Encoder in this thread, too, BTW.

Bingo! The solution has been found. And many thanks to everybody for your input, because you are the ones who steered this problem in the right direction.

Case diagnosed it with the mpcbatch.bat file and here is the answer:
"According to this batch file one of your directories has a '%' sign in its name and this is the cause of problems. I can e-mail Speek a solution to fix this for next version but for now you can get the frontend working by renaming the directory."

Well, that was it. Here's a short explanation. I’m re-compressing several thousand wave files to ape, mpc, and mp3., organized by genre in 38 folders (including subfolders). So I used the % character as a temporary tool to distinguish between otherwise identically named files in other folders, instead of creating another 38 folders X 3. Then I would delete the other folders and take off the % character. I could have used any character but chose that one at random.

Since the other frontends were working - RazorLame, Tag 1.5.1, Musedrop, Monkey's - I would have never suspected that. I would think Speek's Multi-Frontend would have worked, as Volcano and rocketsauce suggested, but I never got that far as Case identified the problem in short order.


Boy, was this thread getting hot! Thanks again to everybody.