[yaddy]

Hi All,

I am a new member on this forum. I am in the process of ripping all my CDs to either WAV or FLAC. I have already installed EAC and FLAC plug in on my PC. I tried ripping some CDs in both WAV and FLAC and tried playing it back using FOOBAR2000.

I need some help is using EAC ( Even though , I know that these question has been asked 1000s of times . So please bear with me)

1.   Can anyone update me  on some ideal SET UP options for EAC?

2.   Are the WAV or MP 3(FLAC) buttons on the left side of EAC main screen equivalent to F6 and Shift F6 respectively? I could see some difference. Process I am following is Insert CD-> Populate screen with CD information -> F4 to detect Gaps -> Create CUE sheet -> ( Shift) F6 so instead of (shift) F6 can I use the Button WAV or MP3(FLAC)?

3.   Is CUE sheet required if I intend to rip my CD into individual tracks?

4.   How to specify path to store CUE sheet along with the track files, at present EAC is saving all CUE sheet ( ACTION-> Create CUE sheet..) in root directory. That is for example: a ripped  CD album is stored at C:\Music\artist\album while CUE sheets are stored in C\Music

5.   Sometime EAC won’t generate a CUE sheet and there is no error message either.

6.   I heard that FLAC file has CUE sheet embedded in it, but when I play a FLAC file using Foobar2000 it displays ‘No embedded CUE sheet’, what is happening?

7.   If I rip with FLAC , EAC first creates a WAV equivalent and later (user specified Option) deletes it after converting it into FLAC. Is this intermediate WAV is equivalent to WAV created is the normal way?  I want to rip some CDs in both WAV and FLAC so if the answer is YES then this would save my time.


Regards

Yaddy

[Val]

I had those questions and some more when I used EAC. dBpoweramp with AccurateRip cured my paranoia. Simple, fast, accurate and free. If you want to blow a few bucks (I think of it as the tip jar), get the Reference version which gives more options.

[PurplePanties]

Take a look here - http://www2.firehose.us:81/~jiggafellz/eac/index.html

[JEaton]

2. Are the WAV or MP 3(FLAC) buttons on the left side of EAC main screen equivalent to F6 and Shift F6 respectively?

No, they're equivalent to F5 and Shift+F5, resepectively.  They don't do a Test pass.

I could see some difference. Process I am following is Insert CD-> Populate screen with CD information -> F4 to detect Gaps -> Create CUE sheet -> ( Shift) F6 so instead of (shift) F6 can I use the Button WAV or MP3(FLAC)?

If you want to do a Test & Copy you need to use either the menus or keyboard, not the buttons.

3. Is CUE sheet required if I intend to rip my CD into individual tracks?

No, but a CUE sheet is nice to have if you ever might want to burn the CD from your files.  Create "Non-compliant" CUE sheets and you can burn exact duplicates of CD by using a compatible program such as Nero, Burrrn (without the correct offset, however) or EAC itself.  Just do an Action > Create CUE Sheet > Current Gap Settings.

4. How to specify path to store CUE sheet along with the track files, at present EAC is saving all CUE sheet ( ACTION-> Create CUE sheet..) in root directory. That is for example: a ripped  CD album is stored at C:\Music\artist\album while CUE sheets are stored in C\Music

Hmmm, not sure if you can.  I ususally create the CUE sheet before ripping, but I designate the directory by typing it in manually.  My guess is that if you create it after ripping, EAC may place it in the album's folder, since it remembers the last folder used.

5. Sometime EAC won’t generate a CUE sheet and there is no error message either.

I've never seen this.

6. I heard that FLAC file has CUE sheet embedded in it, but when I play a FLAC file using Foobar2000 it displays ‘No embedded CUE sheet’, what is happening?

You _can_ embed CUE sheets in Flac files, but they're mostly used when ripping the whole album to a single file.  Then the CUE sheet is used by the playback program to find the track boundaries within the file, and to supply track information such as title and performer.

7. If I rip with FLAC , EAC first creates a WAV equivalent and later (user specified Option) deletes it after converting it into FLAC. Is this intermediate WAV is equivalent to WAV created is the normal way?  I want to rip some CDs in both WAV and FLAC so if the answer is YES then this would save my time.

Yes, it's the same.  That same WAV file just gets passed along the Flac encoder.  You've probably seen the option, then, to not delete it after compression.

[richidoo]

Eventually EAC will drive you nuts and waste time. It is just a shell, and not very well integrated to the conversion apps - I don't like manually programming the strings to pass to lame and flac. dbpoweramp is much better. It has lots of advantages technically and in convenience over EAC, which with all respect is the grandaddy of lossless rippers.

[yaddy]

Thanks everybody especially 'JEaton ' . All questions got answered ! Now I can start ripping my my entire CD collection .

Regards

Yaddy

[Lyndon]

Well,
I'm still in the dark, in wanting to know the easiest and best software for ripping my cd's for a pc based hard drive server.
I thought I had set EAC to rip to FLAC, which I thought was the preferred lossless codec for music, only to find out that it was actually ripping the cd's to another form, WAV or WMA lossless.
I am trying Media Monkey currently, as I have had a horrible time trying to put both albums and album art onto my Sansa e200 portable player. I know it is these kind of headaches that has made iPod's the dominant player, but Apple was very slow in coming out with their flash based player, and they are overpriced.
Anyway, I am open to suggestions for the best software that accomplishes both building up my server, and converting music to a lossy format for my portable.
Lyndon
Salt Lake City

[ted_b]

Lyndon,
Just because EAC first rips to WAV doesn't mean it can't automagically take WAV and convert to FLAC in the background process, as per jeaton's comments.  Or, just let it rip to wav, then take all the days rips and use the FLAC front end to batch them up for encoding.  It's real easy.  Do the same with wav -> lossy using any number of mp3 encoders, including EAC, foobar, dbpoweramp, etc. 

I like ripping to wav first cuz from there any number of programs can handle wav files.  There are many ways to skin this cat.  Me, personally, I use EAC to rip to album-sized wav files w/ cue sheets.  Then, at the end of a ripping session, I take the wav files and batch them to the FLAC front end for my Squeeze Center server (and spend final 2 min using find-n-replace program to create cue files that point to the .flac file, rather than the .wav file).  I also use the wav files to import them to iTunes for any lossy or lossless iPod needs.  The wav files are eventually discarded, but the cue files remain stored in their own directory (for any later burning needs).

[Lyndon]

Thanks, Ted.
That is better ideas than my friend who just told me to give up on PC based, and go Mac.  He does a method similar to yours but uses an Air Transporter, and then he picked up an old MacBook on fleabay as his interface.

I got this answer from a fellow on the anythingbutipod forum. 
"Over a year ago, I posted some MM (Media Monkey) instructions on the forum, I couldn't find the post and it's a little out dated but still should help you. I've moved on to  EAC for ripping,  LAME for encoding -V2 --vbr-new (~190 kbps),  Mp3tag for tagging, but I still use MM to create data base lists in excel."

Lyndon

[bbaker6212]

Foobar2000 will convert to and from various formats (ogg, FLAC, wav, mp3).  Wav to FLAC with foobar is quite easy after installing the FLAC frontend.

Btw, you can also use RockBox to play FLAC files on your IPod.  I have a 30GB gen3 IPod given to me by a friend, which I installed Rockbox. The UI is a pain in the ass but it works and sounds great... especially for the cost Questionably better than converting my whole music collection which is in FLAC format.

[Lyndon]

I will have to look at Foosbar.
Media Monkey also seems to be able to convert most formats, as well as dBPoweramp, etc.
 I also have Rockbox loaded up.  It was the painless solution to adding bookmark features so I could listen to audiobooks.  Maybe I should go through my Rockbox to attach those pesky album art covers that were so easy to add on WMP 10.

[bbaker6212]

Oh, and for the record, EAC will rip to FLAC if you have it setup correctly.  Not directly to FLAC....it rips to WAV first, then does post-processing calling the FLAC frontend to convert it to FLAC.  But the whole thing is automated... ie, you don't have to do anything manual.  After EAC rips to WAV it will call FLAC (you will see a black DOS/command box open) and then it will crunch through all the WAV's converting them to FLAC.

This EAC article on 6moons may help, though the info is now out of date.

This AutoFLAC tool may help too.