Hello, I am wanting to archive my music CDs to hard drive. Being somewhat new to saving audio I have done a few days of research and beleive I am set on going with FLAC as the file format and possibly using a program like Media Monkey to organize my collection. I want to be able to have flexibility of burning a backup CD if needed or converting to another file type for media players and such. And easily moving my collection from drive to drive if needed. I am fairly computer savy but don't have much if any computer audio experience. I have no hands on experience with FLAC or Media Monkey as of yet. And very little with Windows Media Player or iTunes for that matter. I was using a Mac for the past few years but am again back on a PC that I built. But during my time on a Mac I found it that iTunes made it hard to do thing like burn a backup or use a different style media player other than my ipod. And if I remember correctly it did not allow me to rip some CD to my drive. I do like all the metadata, and cover art informataion that iTunes, or possibly WMP, provides you with. But it sounds like I could get that with Media Monkey as well I would love to hear others ideas on saving or archiving your CD collection to hard drive.
Hi g725s!..Using flac format for CD archiving is a great choice(IMO)..It's what I use for my archive storage..Most, if not all SW media players support it as well as many HW one's.. From the lossless flacs you can create/burn a copy just like your original CD, providing you rip using a ripper that utilizes secure & AccurateRip (e.g. EAC, dBPoweramp etc. For many using apps such as , Cdex, iTunes, MediaMonkey, will suffice..Of the proggies mentioned(with the exception of iTunes) all support flac format.. For ripping I mainly use either EAC or dBPA..My media player of choice is foobar2k, but I also use MM and Winamp..I create most(but not all) of my lossy files (e.g. MP3, AAC/m4a etc using f2k..And you can convert from one lossless> < to another lossless format w/o losing any quality, b/c (drumroll) their lossless... As mentioned, iTunes does not support flacs, but it does of course support ALAC(lossless).. One of the easiest, user-friendly apps is dBpoweramp(IMO)..Try it out(Trialware).. Of course we all have our preferences..I use both freeware and payware apps to git-er-done, err I mean to get things done..Can never have too many tools in the chest. Good luck!.. http://flac.sourceforge.net/ http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=EAC_and_FLAC http://www.dbpoweramp.com/cd-ripper.htm
Thanks for your input I'll check those out. I do have Nero 9 on my Windows 7 PC here, got it free w/rebate. So I was wondering if I could use that to make backup CD from a FLAC file. It seems I change computers often. I just want an archive that I can move from PC to PC without having to rip my whole collection over again. Does all the metadata tranfer easily? Also you mention "exact rip". Does a program MM not "rip" exactly? And by rip I am saying taking the original CD and putting to your hard drive via MM program. And more searching the web I see mention of different "levels" of FLAC. Never easy I guess. You also seem to like many programs which is great if you have the time for that. I need simplicity and little tweaking for this. My time is demanded elsewhere. So I'd like to use as few programs and have as much simplicity as possible.
I don't use Nero and I'm still on XP and Vista, sorry!..As stated many prefer the likes of MM or Cdex etc for ripping CDs..I just offered my suggestions for secure and AccurateRip apps I use..Not sure about MediaMonkey(MM) since I don't use it for ripping CDs, and AFAIK does not rip securely..But again it may just be good enough for you.. If your rips go smoothly with no hiccups, then you will not have to touch/re-rip your CDs again.. I do agree, I like to have many tools/apps/proggies at my disposal..It's always fun to try new stuff.. As far as "simplicity" and little tweaking, well I mentioned dBpoweramp b/c it's a great app, and very user-friendly(IMO).. I'm sure others will chime in soon enough with their preferences.. Remember, to each their own!..
No I understand. I am just not up to speed yet with all the options out there for ripping your CDs to your drive. I am looking into using EAC as it is free. I have also read about dBpoweramp. From my reading Media Monkey is great for managing your music but not the best for ripping your FLAC files. That using EAC is better. Still looking into my options here. I just mention Nero 9 because I have it. But it does not rip to FLAC, it can only burn a CD from FLAC files as far as I can tell. Thanks for your input!
There are many burners better than Nero, most free. Media Monkey does a fine job but maybe imgburn may do a better job maybe not. Imgburn is one of the finest and maybe the finest video burner. Videos are far more finiky than audio. You can see a ultra minor defect but you might not hear it. Human hearing is not very sophisticated. It is smart to back up your library as lossless. I rarely play originals so I can afford to rip as lossy and play the lossy. I archive the originals (lossless). My wife plays her originals so I backup hers as lossless when they are new. She just trashed a rare original this weekend. The only addition I can make is, I suggest you compress the hell out of them. Flac and ape are the best at making the smallest lossless files. Both formats have several levels of compression. They both take longer to compress the most compact files. You will be keeping them for a while so I think it is worth the extra time. Formats are less important with lossless than with lossy since nothing is removed. All you care about is will I be able to play my music. Because you can't hear the difference between a good lossy and lossless it is common to down grade lossless to lossy for mp3 players. Flac is used a bit more than ape.
Thanks to both of you for your input. I have been reading up a fair bit on this. I did install EAC and have messed around with it a bit. I found a site Hydrogenaudio with lots of good guides. One thing that I'm still not sure about is how to save the FLAC. There seems to be lots of different terms for Image, Single File, Tracks, etc.. And then for the Cue sheet also many options. This part sort of has me wondering which way to go. I've read many EAC guides I've found on the web and at Hydrogenaudio. But what I don't understand is that none of them talk about the features within the Action Menu. What way you want to go with the files and what exactly these options do.
You get 30 days free trial with dbpoweramp. That is much easier to use than EAC and normally faster and sometimes better, rarely not equal or better. Rip your older more rare disks with it. Dbpoweramp uses a paid for database to get the metadata, EAC uses Freedb. I would not have a single file unless you would listen to the whole album at a time. There are some players like foobar that will allow you to play selected tracks using the cue sheet. You are limited to those files. If you are using the flac for archive maybe a single file with cue is best. As I said before, you can archive your CDs and rip to HiFi lossy for listening. For all practical purposes they are about the same and sound the same. If you rip then burn lossy to disk then rip and burn again eventually you will be able to hear a difference. Putting lossless on an mp3 player is foolish unless you can tell the difference with an AB (double blind) test. Many persons that go through the trouble to experiment with AB tests put only mid range fidelity such as -V5 for LAME VBR on their portable. Check out the top sticky on the forum "you to can be an audio expert". There are several links to very useful info. The sources are all ultra senior members of Hydrogenaudio and audio is their day time job. One of the last articles point is you will hear what you want to hear so AB testing is critical if you really want to know something.
I agree with our friend Mez, lossless files on portable player is foolish..But hey, to each their own.. I'm surprised you didn't get all the info needed over at HA..AFAIK most all info I've searched for is there..Did you see/read this, http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=62670&st=0&p=559516&#entry559516 http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=40608 Just a few.. If archiving, then (IMO) a single image with accompanying CUE makes sense..If for everyday listening then I'd rip to individual tracks...Your choice!.
Thank again both of you for your input. From my research I am very much leaning towards individual tracks and saving a CUE sheet with the tracks just in case for later use if wanted. From my research this seems to be the favored way to use EAC. Since I want to "use" the rips I put to my hard drive and not just archive them. So I assume that would be in EAC: Action > Test and Copy Selected Tracks > Compressed. And then just save a CUE Sheet: Action > Create Cue Sheet > Multiple WAV Files With Gaps... (Noncompliant). I would also like to learn how to use Foobar2000. This program also seems very favored by users over at HA. If I understand correctly Foobar2000 does not accept Noncompliant CUE Sheets. I guess I would have to learn what exactly Playlists are and how to use them. Yes, the guides online at HA and elsewhere are very good for initial setup, I think especially if you already have some understanding in the first place of all this other stuff relating to image or track and the various types of CUE sheets and what they can do. But there are not any guides I can find that go into detail about the Menu options in EAC, especially under Action, Database, and Tools. And exactly how to use these files and CUEs in other programs. And yes, I did read both of those before. At the time I think it was a bit much to grasp but is starting to make "some" sense. I'm only going by the option terms I see in EAC and the terms used there. What I think is a bit confusing for me is that these are probably not the exact terms used with other programs. Do other programs do the same thing essentially but with slightly different naming to the process? I do understand that dBpoweramp is a good program. I am wondering if I should just go with it. Seeing that I'm working 60-70 hours a week and also have fatherly duties I just don't have a whole bunch of time for this. If I switch my learning process over to dBpoweramp I'm going to have to somewhat start at the beginning again, at least for it anyway since I have no experience with it at all. But maybe that would be the better route for me. I do have 2000+ CDs in our immediate and somewhat extended family that I am intending to put to hard drive. is the forum over at dB helpful for beginners like myself? Or do they like to say "have you tried the search function?"
Yes EAC is a bit daunting at first to set up, but once setup it's a great proggie..That said, IMO, dBpoweramp is user-friendlier, without a doubt..Hardly any learning processs needed..And spoon over at the dBPA forums is always there to help...I'm not a member, but frequently visit the site.. As far as f2k is concerned, I use it and it's my default player, and I absolutely love it..It's more than just a media player..Everything there is to know/learn is over at HA's foobar forum...Check it out..I also like MM(MediaMonkey), and WinAmp.. We all have our preferences.. Good luck!! http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=Cuesheet http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Playlist
Great advice and do not worry about screwing up. You can always do them again. My advice is go with dbpa first to get some action. You will actually learn by using a more friendly app. EAC will not be very daunting after you rip a few. k00ka I have good friends that listen to lossless on the their portables cause they want to. I agree with that. My point is you ought to try an AB test your self first. Too many persons claim they can hear the difference. My friend likes the rich base response of lossless. I can't even discuss that with him without making him look foolish. (Base is unaffected with lossy compression. )
First maybe I should not have wimped out so much on EAC at the end of my last post thinking that I should maybe just switch to dbpa. I have put a fair bit of time reading up on EAC, having printed out and read the entire EAC knowledge base over at HA a few times, as well as many treads. And I have tried all the ripping options a few times as well, just to compare what they produce. And I have now used Nero 9 to make a few Audio CDs from my FLAC tracks and they seem identical to the original as far as I can tell on good audio speakers. My question and general assumption from my research is that most users save tracks via: Action > Test and Copy Selected Tracks (or just Copy Selected Tracks) > Compressed. And then just save a CUE Sheet: Action > Create Cue Sheet > Multiple WAV Files With Gaps... (Noncompliant). Do you both think this is the most popular and best way to use EAC for saving FLAC tracks? Would there be any reason to make a different type of CUE, or use a different EAC Action if saving tracks only and not an image? Second, Do both dbpoweramp and EAC produce the same types of FLAC Files (tracks/images) and CUE Sheets? And if I did the above with my entire CD collection using EAC, assuming it is the best way to save tracks, could dbpoweramp take all the tracks and CUEs and deal with them the same as EAC? Third, one last thing I've not done much research on are Unconpressed and Compressed options. Why would you choose either when working with FLAC?
First things first..Lets clear up this comment.. Providing of course your rips were secure and Accurate, the flacs are identical to the originals..Think of a flac as you would a zip file..When you un-zip it ,is it not in it's original form?..If you think or it seems to you that it's somewhat not the same,or somehow sounds different, then perhaps it's a placebo affect..Since you know which is which, and you think/feel that they're different..They are the same..When you burn a standard Audio CD from the flacs, the tool/app used decodes(think un-zip) the flacs to there original wav format..You follow? The proper way would be to conduct a double blind ABX test..If you have any doubts about FLAC being a LOSSLESS format that is!..foobar2k comes with an ABX comparator utility if you care to try it. As I stated above, for archiving I prefer(most of the time) a single image with Cue sheet.But I don't always rip this way..A cue sheet is not necessary(at least not to me) to burn an Audio CD..What's important is the data, and how it was extracted (i.e securely and accurately etc.. When setup both EAC and dBPA will rip to flac as well as other formats, and the flac(s) will be the "same type"..I'm not sure dBPA has a cue sheet option(yet)..Check the site..The flac levels(e.g 5, 8 etc. are compression levels not quality levels..The higher the # the more it's compressed..So when choosing the flac format you will be using a lossless compressed format.. http://flac.sourceforge.net/ http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=16295
Ddpa does not produce cue files but it will in the next full release. You need to use a secure mode for EAC. Dbpa uses burst mode until it finds an error then it will cycle through modes until the track was ripped correctly. A weak point is if your CD is not in Accurip then it will not cycle and can rip with errors. Then is the time to use EAC. Both EAC and dbpa warn you when it ripped with errors. The strong point for dbpa is that it has more modes than EAC and cycles through them automatically. If the CD is in Accurip it may rip without errors while EAC may not be able to do so because it is a one trick pony. The other weakness of EAC is it uses data entered by persons using freeDB there is absolutely no quality control. I have often seen erroneous metadata or incomplete metadata in freedb. I use it as a last resort and verify with the jacket. Where cue files become important is if the album has non standard gap times between tracks which is rare. You can have individual tracks and still burn with or without a cue file. Almost lastly, it is unlikely you could hear the difference if you burned mid fidelity lossly tracks to the CD. You chose lossless not because it sounds like the original but because it is exactly the same as the original. Lastly, it find it interesting you are particular about ripping but not burning. If you demand perfection you ought to use something like imgburn. Nero uses quick and dirty burning practices. If you poll persons that routinely burn videos most will not touch Nero with a ten foot pole. I personally couldn't get 50% of my videos to burn perfectly with Nero. The problem with audio is you will probably not even hear major screw ups. The whole point of lossless is to make an exact copy. My opinion, not that your asked, is if any of your steps are flawed you might as well use mp3s.
Real quick I'll try and reply more later. But I found FLAC Frontend bundled in the FLAC.exe from the FLAC website. It was suggested that I could just use EAC to burn a backup with it's internal burning engine that makes do of drive offset, something that others do not. So I tried that and it works. I just point Frontend to my Noncompliant CUE Sheet and presto. Only thing is that it leave a set of WAV files in the folder with my FLAC's so that it can burn. I have not had the time yet, but will look to see if Frontend will delete the WAVs after the burn. But other than that I've learned a lot in the last few weeks about all this and it seems that it is going good with EAC.
Ok so I've setup EAC using the guide at Hydrogenaudio.org. There is little info in the Knowledge Base there on how to use EAC so I searched the web and found a few guides that actually talk about using the program, and that was helpful. I made posts there as well as at the EAC site for info. And so far have ripped probably just over 100 CD to my hard drive in FLAC. Using both Secure and Burst modes. I have two drives. Sometime I need to rip a specific song or two with a different drive or go from Burst to Secure, Test and Copy, or polish the disc to get a good rip. I am ripping to Tracks and saving a Noncompliant CUE Sheet. Also I have somewhat setup Foobar2000 and trying to learn that. I've set it up to read my folder where I store my FLAC. Installed the ColumnsUI component and an album art component. I can see a lot of potential in Foobar2000. But have yet to spend a lot of time with it, as I am focusing on trying to rip roughly 1000 CDs to start. I'd also like to say thanks to both of you for your helpful insight.
You sound like you have it down pat. That is exactly what you need to do. For your needs Foobar is the only way to go. How many of you albums are found automatically? Every year freedb gets more complete. When I ripped my library a few years back freedb only had 1 in 10 of my albums. It was worth 25 bucks a year to use a complete and accurate database and have the metadata just 'pop' in. Granted, my collection has a abnormally large collection of rare and old CDs. I am expecting your collection would have to have some rare CDs.
Mez, So far I've not had to manually input any CD info completely. I have had to do many changes to title and artist or for Various Artist CDs you need the correct Artist/Title format. Often times the title might include a serial number off the CD, or someone put the date in the title, or weird symbols, or the genre is Pop Rock when I just want it listed as Rock. I'm keeping it simple, Name, Title, Date of original album release rather than CD release if that is applicable. So there is a bit of editing there. Example: "Beatles [UK]", where I just wanted what I feel is the correct band name "The Beatles", simple. And you need to keep an eye out for notes put into track titles. Stuff like that. But I'm getting the feeling that EAC is probably one of the best rippers out there, and maybe even one of the best burners of what your ripped using FLAC Frontend, since it is one of the only burning engines that makes due of your drives Write Offset. I hear Burrn is also good and makes due of your drives Write Offset, but I've not had time to look into that program. Pretty much a complete package though with EAC and FLAC Frontend. Now I need to look into what happens when you move your music to a different drive. Do you need to edit anything? If I move it from C:EAC to say D:EAC, do the tracks or the Noncompliant CUE need to be edited if you want to burn a backup? I can see having to move it a few time over the years, so I need to start looking into that. I don't know anything about CUE editing, but have installed CUETools and will look into that soon too.
Nothing should happen when transferring your flac(s) and CUE sheet from C: to whichever drive back and forth..You can easily burn using the CUE sheet or individual tracks from any source drive..No editing needed..I keep several copies of my flacs, on internal/external HDD/CDs etc.. I normally just rip with EAC or DBPA and burn with the simple Burrrn..
