Make Bit-Perfect Archives of Your CDs With FLAC
Make Bit-Perfect Archives of Your CDs With FLAC
Posted 06/28/2007 at 5:02pm
| by Michael Brown
11
Comments
Print
Audio CDs are susceptible to damage and aging, so it’s a good idea to make archival copies of your collection. We’ll show you how, using the lossless compression algorithm FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec).
A lossless encoder compresses digital audio files with absolutely no compromise in fidelity compared to the original. The only drawbacks are large file sizes (though they’re much smaller than WAV files) and scarce support among portable players. On the other hand, FLAC enjoys wide support among audio-streaming boxes.
What You’ll Need
- Your audio CD collection
- Exact Audio Copy (free)
- FLAC (free)
- AccurateRip (free)
STEP 1: INSTALL EAC AND FLAC
Exact Audio Copy (EAC) will detect and attempt to auto-configure any optical drives on your system during setup. Check those you wish to use and click Next. Use the “I prefer to have accurate results” option and click Next.
Choose the option “I don’t trust these values…,” drop a clean audio CD in the drive, and click Next. It’s crucial that the drive you rip from has an “accurate stream,” meaning it does not produce “jitter” (if the drive can’t accurately seek a specific sector on the disc, ripped tracks will have audible distortion).
Remove the checkmark next to “Install and configure LAME…” and click Next. Enter an email address and click Next. Choose the Expert option at the final prompt and click Finish. Exit EAC.
Install FLAC, ignoring the Winamp and Nero messages. Leave checkmarks next to all the default options and click Install.
STEP 2: INSTALL ACCURATERIP
Using AccurateRip and EAC’s Test & Copy option will provide an added measure of assurance that your rips are precise and worthy of your archive.
Install AccurateRip and then copy the file accuraterip.dll from C:\program files\illustrate\dbpoweramp to C:\program files\exact audio copy. Put a CD in the drive and relaunch EAC. Click the Configure button and then click OK. Select all tracks and click EAC’s Action menu. Choose Copy Selected Tracks from the drop-down menu; use the uncompressed option.
AccurateRip will compare your results to a database of rips by others and report a confidence level. “Confidence 30,” for example, means your rip is identical to that of 30 other people, so there’s a high probability it’s accurate. Click OK.
STEP 3: CONFIGURE EAC
Click the EAC menu and choose EAC Options. Click the General tab. Leave these options at their defaults but place a checkmark next to “On unknown CDs” and select the option “Automatically access online freedb database.” Click the Tools tab and place checkmarks next to everything except “Create ‘.m3u’ playlist…,” “Do not open external…,” and “Activate beginner mode.”
Click the Filename tab and enter the values %A\%C\%N - %T into Naming Scheme to create a nested directory structure that follows the Artist Name\Album Title\Track Number - Track Title scheme. Check “Use various artist naming scheme” and enter the values Various Artists\%C\%N - %A %T so compilation albums are stored in a “Various Artists” folder broken up by album. Click OK.
Click the EAC menu again and choose Drive Options and Extraction Method. Make sure Secure Mode is selected, with a checkmark next to “Drive has Accurate Stream feature.” Click the Drive tab and check “Spin up drive before extraction.” Leave everything else at default and click OK.
Click the EAC menu once more, choose Compression Options and External Compression. Check “Use external program for compression.” In the drop-down menu “Parameter passing scheme,” select “User Defined Encoder.” Type .flac in the “Use file extension” box.
Click Browse, locate the FLAC executable (flac.exe), select it, and click OK. Enter these characters into “Additional command line options”: -6 -V -T “artist=%a” -T “title=%t” -T “album=%g” -T “date=%y” -T “tracknumber=%n” -T “genre=%m” -T comment=”%e” -T “comment=EAC (Secure Mode)” %s. Bitrate doesn’t matter, but check “Delete WAV after compression” and “Check for external compression return code.”
STEP 4: COMMENCE ARCHIVING
Place the audio CD you wish to archive in the drive. Click the Action menu and choose “Test and Copy Selected Tracks” using the Compressed option this time. This will perform a cyclical redundancy check (CRC) to verify the integrity of your rip. It’s another paranoid step, but we think it’s warranted when producing critical backups. An OK will appear in EAC’s CRC column if the rip was executed successfully. Repeat until you’ve backed up your entire library.
More like this
dripka
April 24, 2009 at 10:24am
EAC is a great little program. I do however believe that your EAC instructions need to be updated. For one, EAC version 0.99 Pre-Beta 4 includes FLAC and does not have to be installed.
Thanks
david.paige
April 06, 2009 at 7:23pm
I like using EAC, because I can create a single wav file to burn to a CD using the cue file. However, when I use .flac files, they each have a separate file. (In fact, I may have created a single .flac file as well.) However, EAC cannot use the cue file to burn the .flac to recreate the CD image.
What is the best way to do this? Can EAC be modified to use .flac instead of .wav? I tried using 7zip to see if I could save some disk space, but it doesn't get nearly the compression ratio that flac can.
Thanks
eac <at> paiged.fea.st
CCFruti
October 21, 2007 at 3:18pm
I also experienced the same issues and lack of detail mention in the "Better Job" comment. I just haven't resolved them yet. Please reply and let me know how you fixed those issues, especially the file save structure. I found the m4p plugin. It is designed for winamp, but works with mediamonkey. This plugin will play all of your songs you purchase from itunes store.
Thanks
djninja1
March 03, 2008 at 9:22pm
Is there a naming scheme that will allow the artist, album and other info to show up properly when I add the file to my itunes library? Currently when I add the songs or album to itunes it shows up with the song number infront of the song title and no album or artist info.
Aloha
scorpiusmaximus
October 12, 2007 at 12:03pm
I have an extensive CD collection an was excited about this article but it does seem to be rather incomplete. I have installed this routine a number of times, never received the install and configure LAME screen, a file named "accuraterip.dll" already exists in the EAC install folder. Is it to be replaced with the dbpoweramp file?? I Dunno... I did not get any screens referencing WinAmp or Nero when installing DbPoweramp. It is very vague about the second EAC "configure," sending results for comparison. There is no "Configure" button to click after re-starting EAC, only the file list screen. I thought I configured a naming scheme and nested file structure but I have to manually go to the particular folder I want to save the audio files to, creating manually my own file structure. I think a much better job of explaining this could have been done.
The links given above are instrumental in setup. Now, everything works like a charm. I can code into many different formats.
Media Monkey is totally awesome. I deleted Windows Media Player from my machine. It will play flac files as well as many other codecs and burn them to CD. It also has an I-Tunes plug-in, though I have not tried it. I use Creative Media Player.
Great subject it just needed a little more elaboration and some attention to detail.
NH3MAN
September 04, 2007 at 10:03pm
MEDIAMONKEY is a great music file organizer. It plays Flac files. it will rip (encode) to Flac as well as other formats. MM also syncs with my PDA and automatically converts the FLAC files to compressed mp3's (that you set) and loads them, without any hassle, so you can listen to Flac files on your computer and mp3's on your mp3 player. It also blows away ITUNES with its functionality and superior interface. Its also free.
MRDATA
August 23, 2007 at 5:14pm
Although a lossless compression codec is undoubtedly ideal for archiving, I am curious whether any of these files are likely to play on my iPods. If not, is it difficult to encode flac files as mp3s?
Thank you.
Mayhemm
August 28, 2007 at 5:17pm
Good article, but you forgot to mention how we actually play these files or reburn them into CD-Audio again (ex: if we need a playable backup). None of the programs I use recognize .flac files (WMP, Nero, etc.)
Perhaps this stuff is all general knowledge to the majority of the MaxPC crowd, but I'm not finding a lot of use in this since I can't play or burn the files I create.
What utilities do I need to play/burn these files, preferably with the TAG info intact?
Jabrjaws5000
July 09, 2007 at 8:02pm
If anyone has figured out a compression error fix for this tutorial please post at http://www.maximumpc.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=62484&start=0&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=
thanks
Celzorz
July 03, 2007 at 3:47pm
It's great to see the love for FLAC and EAC... but a few things come to mind:
1. The compression level hardly hurts compression time as it only affects decompression noticeably. That being said a better line might be:
-8 -A tukey(0.25) -A gauss(0.1875) -b 4096 -V -T "artist=%a" -T "title=%t" -T "album=%g" -T "date=%y" -T "tracknumber=%n" -T "genre=%m" %s --sector-align
2. You miss a ton of options including:
a. Drive offset and the creation of a CUE file with proper gap detection.
b. Ensuring a secure mode rip and determining whether or not the drive supports certain features, like the cache which will cause a lot of mutt rips and CRC mismatches if you set it wrong for example.
c. Read command detection and using a burned test CD to detect write offset.
3. Also, in a further update possibly showing off Monkey's Lossless Audio or another decoder would be interesting as EAC has an option to save compression profiles. One last thing: Why no M3U? FLAC isn't just a great way to store music, it's also a great way to listen to it.
Links:
http://www.accuraterip.com/driveoffsets.htm
http://jiggafellz.isa-geek.net/eac/
http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=Exact_Audio_Copy
Connect with MaximumPC
Featured Content
We introduce Intel's latest class of tablet killers and review 4 of the first Ultra...
Where have all the memorable videogame enemies gone?
This month's issue
Feature
11 Hardware Hacks
Feature
Overclock Your CPU
How-To
Supercharge Your Smartphone
Build It
A Powerful $830 Rig
Most Commented Articles
Latest Max PC Tweets
- maximumpc: Multi-Monitor Usage On The Rise http://t.co/eWfJfCEG9 hours 9 min ago
- maximumpc: Windows 8 Consumer Preview Coming On February 29 http://t.co/3Nd04FdR14 hours 57 min ago
- maximumpc: Can RIM *ever* catch a break? Not today! App World numbers not as great as previously reported http://t.co/3ERRhr311 day 10 hours ago
