Can EAC have both MP3 and FLAC compression?

Newbie Forum
#1

After a long hiatus due to poor health, and significant memory loss due to recurrent seizure-like episodes, I’m trying to get back on my feet (or at least back into my chair at my PC) to resume my project of digitizing my music collection.

I tried to rip some MP3s from a CD with EAC, (V0.99 prebeta 4, running under Win2K) but the only compression option available to me in EAC was for FLAC.

Do I have to change the settings and remove the FLAC compression options and replace them with LAME and then do the same thing if I want to switch back to FLAC or WAV?

Is there a way to have EAC configured so I can have all three compression options installed at the same time?

#2

Will , Yes you have to change “External Compression” for each audio file type.
Such as FLAC or MP3.
If you want to keep the .wav that is created by EAC before it does the conversion just uncheck " Delete WAV after compression" in “External Compression”.

.WAV is different. Just uncheck “Use external program for compression” in
"External Compression" . The use " Microsoft PCM Converter" on the Wavform page.
44.100 kHz, 16 Bit, Stereo for the “sample format”.
Then just use " Copy Selected Tracks"/ “Uncompressed” .

What I have is a *.txt file I keep the " Additional command-line options :" in for each type of conversion . Then all I have to do is copy & paste them in. This is fairly easy.

I always use " User Defined Encoder"
You may want something different this is what I use:
FLAC
-0 -T “artist=%a” -T “title=%t” -T “album=%g” -T “date=%y” -T “tracknumber=%n” -T “genre=%m” %s

.mp3
-V 0 --vbr-new --add-id3v2 --pad-id3v2 --ta “%a” --tt “%t” --tg “%m” --tl “%g” --ty “%y” --tn “%n” -m s %s %d

#3

[QUOTE=Clueless in Seattle;2688081]I tried to rip some MP3s from a CD with EAC, (V0.99 prebeta 4, running under Win2K) but the only compression option available to me in EAC was for FLAC.[/QUOTE]

Do you have Lame.exe in your EAC folder?
And may I ask you why you use this older version of EAC? :slight_smile:

#4

@ roadworker , I’m using EAC versoin 99 prebeta 5.
I haven’t had in not do anything I expect it to.
Is there some reason to get a newer version ?

#5

Seems that André removed support for win2k from his 1.0 beta versions…:eek:

@ cholla,quite a few things have changed from the 1.0.1 beta and up,and also several bugfixes.
I like the CueTools Database plugin,as it’s an extra option to verify a rip…:slight_smile:

changelog.txt (6.69 KB)

#6

Thanks, as always cholla, for that detailed info.

I especially like your idea of keeping the command lines for the various converters in a text file.

#7

You might want to investigate the use of MAREO with EAC if you want to rip into mp3 and FLAC:
http://www.synthetic-soul.co.uk/temp/mareo/index.html

#8

[QUOTE=yojimbo197;2688133]You might want to investigate the use of MAREO with EAC if you want to rip into mp3 and FLAC:
http://www.synthetic-soul.co.uk/temp/mareo/index.html[/QUOTE]

THX for that info and link!:bow:
Never heard of MAREO,but definately worth to checkout…:iagree:

#9

What I ended up doing is keeping the EAC version 0.99 prebeta 5 .
I just went ahead & installed EAC version 1.0 beta 3 as well.
That should be the newest version.
Of course I had to do all the “Options” settings .
The "Compression options " “External compression” are quite a bit different.
It took me a while to figure them out. The "Test Encoder " came in very handy for this.
This is what I’m using for the “Additional command-line options”.

LAME mp3:
-V0 --vbr-new --add-id3v2 --pad-id3v2 --ta “%artist%” --tl “%albumtitle%” --tt “%title%” --ty “%year%” --tn “%tracknr%” --tg “%genre%” -ms %source% %dest%

FLAC:
-0 -V -T “artist=%artist%” -T “title=%title%” -T “album=%albumtitle%” -T “date=%year%” -T “tracknumber=%tracknr%” -T “genre=%genre%” %source% -o %dest%

I checked the MAREO link but didn’t DL it yet.

#10

Why the -0 for .flac,instead of -5 or -8?? :slight_smile:

For EAC 1.0.beta 3,you can update the CTDB plugin to the latest version from here:

http://www.cuetools.net/wiki/CTDB_EAC_Plugin#Links

#11

[QUOTE=roadworker;2688213]Why the -0 for .flac,instead of -5 or -8?? :slight_smile:

For EAC 1.0.beta 3,you can update the CTDB plugin to the latest version from here:

http://www.cuetools.net/wiki/CTDB_EAC_Plugin#Links[/QUOTE]

the V0 setting will take the least amount of time to compress. Conversely V8 will take a long time on an older system. I used to average about 17-20 minutes per disc using the V8 setting with EAC on my old Pentium 4 laptop with an external CD drive.

#12

[QUOTE=roadworker;2688213]Why the -0 for .flac,instead of -5 or -8?? :slight_smile: [/QUOTE]
For me it’s not a matter of time. I know that FLAC is supposed to be lossless but I figure the compression might cause some quality difference. I could be wrong on that ,
Since I’m going to about half of .wav size anyway I figure why not set it a 0 .
The difference betwwen a 0 & a 5 is about 4MB in size. So not that much .

#13

My Issue with using FLAC is that for the limited number of CD’s that I want to archive for various reasons (typically because they are borrowed OR I’m doing compression and tagging for a clueless customer) it simply doesn’t save enough space to bother using FLAC over WAV.

I still maintain that HDD space is cheap…

When I’m using EAC to rip I want to feed discs into the drive like a mortar crew feeds shells to their tube, the extra time creating an mp3 or FLAC disrupts my rhythm…

I do my compression as a separate run with a program that will grab every
wave file in a given folder(and all included subfolders) and convert them as part of a batch… often several hundred files as a group… that takes me 60 seconds to set up and start running and allows me to walk away…

The object is o spend the minimum amount of time feeding the discs to be ripped to the machine then let my automation work automatically… which is kinda the point.

#14

[QUOTE=cholla;2688218]For me it’s not a matter of time. I know that FLAC is supposed to be lossless but I figure the compression might cause some quality difference. I could be wrong on that ,
Since I’m going to about half of .wav size anyway I figure why not set it a 0 .
The difference betwwen a 0 & a 5 is about 4MB in size. So not that much .[/QUOTE]

It’s like the musical equivalent of a zip file, ie. lossless is lossless. So no difference between a VO, V5, and V8 in terms of sound quality.

#15

[QUOTE=AllanDeGroot;2688230]My Issue with using FLAC is that for the limited number of CD’s that I want to archive for various reasons (typically because they are borrowed OR I’m doing compression and tagging for a clueless customer) it simply doesn’t save enough space to bother using FLAC over WAV.

I still maintain that HDD space is cheap…

When I’m using EAC to rip I want to feed discs into the drive like a mortar crew feeds shells to their tube, the extra time creating an mp3 or FLAC disrupts my rhythm…

I do my compression as a separate run with a program that will grab every
wave file in a given folder(and all included subfolders) and convert them as part of a batch… often several hundred files as a group… that takes me 60 seconds to set up and start running and allows me to walk away…

The object is o spend the minimum amount of time feeding the discs to be ripped to the machine then let my automation work automatically… which is kinda the point.[/QUOTE]

HD space is cheap now. Back when I started digitizing my collection 8 years ago it was somewhat of a different tune. I think I was happy to get a 250Gb external at Staples for $100. Now look at how much you get for $100.

If you have a larger collection its still worth it. I’ve got roughly 800Gb of music in FLAC. Saving roughly another 800Gb is worth it to me.

Also,it’s a lot easier to tag FLAC files than WAV’s.

And as far as compressing to FLAC or mp3 taking time, that used to be the case back in my Pentium 4 days when I used FLAC frontend to compress. Now that I have an i5 with dB Poweramp, I can use 3 cores to compress 3 different tracks to FLAC while ripping with another. So what would have taken me 17-20 minutes a CD now takes 3-6 minutes.

#16

[QUOTE=yojimbo197;2688238]HD space is cheap now. Back when I started digitizing my collection 8 years ago it was somewhat of a different tune. I think I was happy to get a 250Gb external at Staples for $100. Now look at how much you get for $100.

If you have a larger collection its still worth it. I’ve got roughly 800Gb of music in FLAC. Saving roughly another 800Gb is worth it to me.

Also,it’s a lot easier to tag FLAC files than WAV’s.

And as far as compressing to FLAC or mp3 taking time, that used to be the case back in my Pentium 4 days when I used FLAC frontend to compress. Now that I have an i5 with dB Poweramp, I can use 3 cores to compress 3 different tracks to FLAC while ripping with another. So what would have taken me 17-20 minutes a CD now takes 3-6 minutes.[/QUOTE]

As for the time factor? I can often rip a CD in <90sec, my issue was having the job take 3-5 min.

Any disc that has “issues” gets itself set aside for special treatment later.

What I want to do is feed the discs in as rapidly as possible then set up
the compression operation which will then be completely “hands off” once it’s running. I recently managed to rip a ~200 disc collection in just under six hours. I have no idea how long the compression operation took because it was running while I slept… but I can guess… typically on my setup creating the mp3 file takes all of 8-12 seconds depending on how long the track is (stuff like Jethro Tull’s “Thick as a Brick” and Arlo Guthrie’s “Alice’s Restaurant Massacree” obviously longer)

#17

[QUOTE=cholla;2688218]For me it’s not a matter of time. I know that FLAC is supposed to be lossless but I figure the compression might cause some quality difference. I could be wrong on that ,
Since I’m going to about half of .wav size anyway I figure why not set it a 0 .
The difference betwwen a 0 & a 5 is about 4MB in size. So not that much .[/QUOTE]

Makes sense…but is the -0 needed then in the commandline when ripping to uncompressed .flac?

[QUOTE=AllanDeGroot;2688230]I do my compression as a separate run with a program that will grab every
wave file in a given folder(and all included subfolders) and convert them as part of a batch… often several hundred files as a group… that takes me 60 seconds to set up and start running and allows me to walk away…

The object is o spend the minimum amount of time feeding the discs to be ripped to the machine then let my automation work automatically… which is kinda the point.[/QUOTE]

Interesting approach…so you rip to .wav for archieval purpose,what EAC settings do you use to create a “perfect” rip?
If you can rip as “fast as a mortar crew who feeds shells to their tube”,do you rip in secure mode with file veryfying,or burst mode and no verify?
I know speed is also drive dependant,but whatever I try,I can’t get the job done under 5 minutes,so a rip < than 90 secs makes me really wonder how that’s possible…:slight_smile:

#18

[QUOTE=roadworker;2688310]Makes sense…but is the -0 needed then in the commandline when ripping to uncompressed .flac?
[/QUOTE]
I will have to run a test to see what happens without the -0 .

.flac is compressed by EAC whatever the setting -0 to - 8 .
EAC first creates a .wav & then does a conversion from that.
Although a .flac file is supposed to be lossless & to my ears is.
It is still approxamately half the size of a .wav . If that isn’t compressing then I don’t know what to call it.

#19

From Hydrogenaudio on FLAC:

"The encoding of audio (PCM) data incurs no loss of information, and the decoded audio is bit-for-bit identical to what went into the encoder. Each frame contains a 16-bit CRC of the frame data for detecting transmission errors. The integrity of the audio data is further insured by storing an MD5 signature of the original unencoded audio data in the file header, which can be compared against later during decoding or testing. "

http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=Free_Lossless_Audio_Codec

#20

@ roadworker,
I did a rip of the same track
With EAC additional options set to -0 the file size is 48.97MB (26% compressed)
With no number set the file size is 44.98MB (32% compressed)
The stats are from dBpoweramp . If you have it installed a hover over the file gives you this & more.

@ yojimbo197 , flac files sound good to me & I can’t tell them from .wav files.
It does make me try to figure out why if a -0 setting fits what you posted & is lossless .
If set to -8 it is also lossless.
Since the file size is smaller why even have a -0 if both are the same & lossless.
Just to see if fools like me will try it?