Stephonovich
Headphoneus Supremus
- Joined
- Jan 6, 2003
- Posts
- 3,260
- Likes
- 11
I purchased a NJB2 from 1911 awhile back, and was quite thrilled. 10GB is more than adequate for my needs, and after getting Notmad Explorer, started eagerly filling it up. Well, no. First I had to finish converting my FLAC images to single tracks, and then I had to go about re-learning LAME. It'd been awhile. 3.90.3 is apparently no longer the exalted king. So 3.97b2 it was, with -V 2 and --vbr-new. Much faster, and sounds the same or better to me. But wait, what about gaps? Foobar does a good job of filling them, but DAPs are notoriously bad at it. Hmm. --nogap, you say? Marvelous. Although it does play hell with track lengths, essentially making seeking impossible, it removes the gaps.
However, I quickly tired of the process I was using - decode FLAC files, encode into LAME with Multi Frontend, (manually entering Tag information) apply MP3 Album Gain, transfer. Tried Batchenc, and various others, to no avail. The main problem was the --nogap switch. FLAC apparently doesn't play nicely with it, which means I have to decode them into WAV first. This, in turn, means I have to enter tag information by hand, since it can't just grab them from the FLAC files.
Today, I discovered FB2K's Disk Writer. Well, now Converter. (new version of FB2K out - looks much nicer, but it's been dumbed down a lot) Realized all my steps could now be combined into one, but alas, I discovered yet another problem. FB2K writes id3v2.4 UTF-8 tags. Also id3v1 and APEv2, but those don't help me much. The NJB2 reads id3v1/2, but apparently not Unicode. So I have to transfer the files over, tagged with id3v1, and then for the ones that break (Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was the latest), manually edit each tag through Notmad, which writes a version it can read. Of larger concern, though, Converter doesn't have any options for additional CLI options. So I can't encode them with --nogap. Very noticeable difference on the NJB2 without that.
Really, there's absolutely nothing I can do. But I felt a rant was in order.
What really bugs me is the fact that modern players don't even need the --nogap tag. So I'm going to end up re-encoding everything when I upgrade anyway. Hell, I might join the masses, get an iPod, and just go AAC. Or could get an X5 or some such and go with Ogg. *weeps for Musepack*
EDIT: New discovery - the 'Custom' option for Converter. --nogap woes are gone.
However, I quickly tired of the process I was using - decode FLAC files, encode into LAME with Multi Frontend, (manually entering Tag information) apply MP3 Album Gain, transfer. Tried Batchenc, and various others, to no avail. The main problem was the --nogap switch. FLAC apparently doesn't play nicely with it, which means I have to decode them into WAV first. This, in turn, means I have to enter tag information by hand, since it can't just grab them from the FLAC files.
Today, I discovered FB2K's Disk Writer. Well, now Converter. (new version of FB2K out - looks much nicer, but it's been dumbed down a lot) Realized all my steps could now be combined into one, but alas, I discovered yet another problem. FB2K writes id3v2.4 UTF-8 tags. Also id3v1 and APEv2, but those don't help me much. The NJB2 reads id3v1/2, but apparently not Unicode. So I have to transfer the files over, tagged with id3v1, and then for the ones that break (Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was the latest), manually edit each tag through Notmad, which writes a version it can read. Of larger concern, though, Converter doesn't have any options for additional CLI options. So I can't encode them with --nogap. Very noticeable difference on the NJB2 without that.
Really, there's absolutely nothing I can do. But I felt a rant was in order.
What really bugs me is the fact that modern players don't even need the --nogap tag. So I'm going to end up re-encoding everything when I upgrade anyway. Hell, I might join the masses, get an iPod, and just go AAC. Or could get an X5 or some such and go with Ogg. *weeps for Musepack*
EDIT: New discovery - the 'Custom' option for Converter. --nogap woes are gone.
