[el_matt0]

self explanitory...got a long slog ahead of me..about 300 or so classical albums that im guna rip to flac onto an HD. i dont have alot of experience ripping cds, especially not to flac for that matter...most of my FLAC stuff is downloaded via torents etc. can you guys give me some good suggestions on what a good program to utilize for this would be? definitely want something thats free...and preferably something relatively simple to use...im not too picky about differnt technical options i would have when ripping (mainly because im a bit noobish about that kinda thing). mainly i just would care that my recordings are in a high quality format. thanks for any help you can offer guys

 

[SysteX]

If you want easy to setup and easy to use, check out dbPowerAmp Reference; but, it's not free--$20, I think. Otherwise, if you want free, search around hydrogenaudio.org for EAC (Exact Audio Copy)--it is the audiophile standard in secure CD ripping, but it is a bit more front-end work to set it up.

 

[mojo]

EAC with React is probably your best bet. It will rip, convert, tag and download album art all in one go. If you have two drives, you can even rip two CDs at once by running two copies.

The best thing is that it does all the FLAC compression in the background, so you can just keep feeding it CDs and ripping as fast as your drive can manage.

 

[el_matt0]

whats react? like a plugin or separate interface of sorts?

 

[wanderman]

I honestly would use eac to rip to wav and do all your tagging and transcoding in foobar.

 

[poo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by el_matt0 /img/forum/go_quote.gif whats react? like a plugin or separate interface of sorts?

Pretty much. Not the easiest of applications to setup unless you are familiar with editin .ini files, but there is alot of help available from these links...


http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=REACT
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/...50273&hl=react

 

[Redo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by wanderman /img/forum/go_quote.gif I honestly would use eac to rip to wav and do all your tagging and transcoding in foobar.

That would be a major pain in the rear, plus a massive time waster. EAC automatically tags just fine, and works flawlessly with external compression programs.

 

[zhopudey]

Use normal EAC to rip to wav. It would be the fastest. Then start Flac Frontend and let it run overnight

 

[el_matt0]

ok, flac frontend just convers wavs to flac i assume, and it sounds like you can just queue up the whole lot and let it run? is there no sacrifice in quality by doing it this way? i mean as opposed to ripping directly to flac.

 

[zhopudey]

No loss in quality. Whether you use flac frontend, EAC, foobar or anything else, they all use the same encoder. EAC always rip to wav first, and then encodes to whatever format you set.

With flac frontend, you can queue all your CDs. It'll encode to flac (in the same directories), and can even delete the wav files as it goes along. So you don't have to worry about running out of space.

 

[Redo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by zhopudey /img/forum/go_quote.gif No loss in quality. Whether you use flac frontend, EAC, foobar or anything else, they all use the same encoder. EAC always rip to wav first, and then encodes to whatever format you set. With flac frontend, you can queue all your CDs. It'll encode to flac (in the same directories), and can even delete the wav files as it goes along. So you don't have to worry about running out of space.

EAC does this all in realtime! No stacking massive amount of wav files then throwing them in a queue, it comes out as flac. Plus you can do cuesheets and all, perfection right from EAC.

Honestly, I don't understand why you wouldn't rip to FLAC directly from EAC.

 

[poo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Redo /img/forum/go_quote.gif EAC does this all in realtime! No stacking massive amount of wav files then throwing them in a queue, it comes out as flac. Plus you can do cuesheets and all, perfection right from EAC. Honestly, I don't understand why you wouldn't rip to FLAC directly from EAC.

Yeah I have to agree. The only reason I add React to my EAC FLAC processing is because I rip to FLAC and MP3 at the same time.

 

[zhopudey]

Well, depending on how fast your PC is, it could add a minute or two to each CD. For 300 CDs, that means 4-5hrs extra that you would have to spent in front of your PC, feeding in CDs With Flac Frontend, this can be done unattended.

 

[Chri5peed]

Quote:

Originally Posted by zhopudey /img/forum/go_quote.gif Well, depending on how fast your PC is, it could add a minute or two to each CD. For 300 CDs, that means 4-5hrs extra that you would have to spent in front of your PC, feeding in CDs With Flac Frontend, this can be done unattended.

Except its not an unnattended job is it? Whats FLAC Frontend doing, converting WAVs.

Where do these WAVs mysteriously come from? You have to take time to put in 300 CDs to rip. No way is going to dodge doing this. Plus you'd have 300 CDs worth of WAVs, potentially 200GBs.

Google 'Jiggafellz' to get an EAC set-up guide.

 

[Lord Chaos]

El_Matt, I recommend simplicity. Use Itunes. I know some folks here don't like it, but I've ripped upward of 1300 CDs and find that Itunes does a fine job. Its key distinction, though, is in tagging. The database it uses is much more complete and accurate than others I've seen, especially for classical. Set it to Apple Lossless and you'll be in clover. Sound quality is as good as the original, and it reads accurately or it quits.

You will still need to check the tags before you rip. Many CDs are improperly tagged as compiliations. Compilation is defined (by CDDB) as a disc comprised of songs by different artists. So, if you have a CD of three different works by different composers, but played by the same orchestra, it is NOT a compilation. If you have a CD of two different orchestras, that is a compilation. This makes a difference in how Itunes files the music. The compilation tag is designed to keep records, such as the O Brother, Where Art Thou soundtrack, together.