EAC guide for accurately ripping CDs

[Steve]

This guide is based on the standards expected by the torrent site, What.CD. This is a slow (sometimes painfully) method of ripping CDs, but it gives you the best results. This guide is lengthy and may seem complicated, but you only need to run through this once when you initially set the program up.

 

First off, download and install EAC here: -

 

http://www.exactaudi...urces/download/

 

1. Configuring your drive.

 

The first time you use EAC the Configuration Wizard should run, but if it doesn't you can go to EAC - Configuration Wizard... which will launch it. Hit next and select the drive(s) you want to use and hit next again. On the following screen choose "I prefer to have accurate results" and hit next. EAC will then ask you to insert a clean, unscratched music CD into your drive, so do that and hit next. Some tests will be performed and you'll need to repeat this for each drive you've selected.

 

Once you've ran the config wizard, you should be on the main screen. At this point EAC should pop up a message saying that the CD in the drive can be used to set the drive offset. If this doesn't happen, try ejecting the disc tray and closing it again. If it still doesn't happen, you can go to EAC - Drive Options... - Offset / Speed and hit the "Detect read sample offset correction..." button.

 

Under EAC - Drive Options... the tabs should look like this: -

 

http://www.digitalvertigo.co.uk/sigma/eac/d1.jpg

 

http://www.digitalvertigo.co.uk/sigma/eac/d2.jpg

 

The figure for the offset correction on this screen will vary depending on the drive make/model, so don't worry if it's not +6. Make sure the box is checked to use AccurateRip: -

 

http://www.digitalvertigo.co.uk/sigma/eac/d3.jpg

 

This may say "detection method A" on your screen. You don't need to change this unless you have a problem (see the "ripping CDs" section below): -

 

http://www.digitalvertigo.co.uk/sigma/eac/d4.jpg

 

You can ignore the Writer tab as the settings there relate to burning CDs, which is why I haven't posted a screenshot.

 

2. Metadata options.

 

EAC can automatically pull in metadata (artist info, song info etc.) from the web. To configure this, go to EAC - Metadata Options.... Under the "Metadata Provider" tab, select "freedb Metadata Plugin" from the drop-down list. Then click on the "freedb" tab and enter in an email address. This email address doesn't have to be real (you can use something like me@blah.com if you like), but you have to enter one. Once you've done that, click the "Get active freedb server list" button, then you can hit OK and close out of that screen.

 

3. EAC main options.

 

The main options are found under EAC - EAC Options.... To save time, I'll post some screenshots of the tabs you need to pay attention to. If a particular tab isn't shown here, you don't need to change anything.

 

http://www.digitalvertigo.co.uk/sigma/eac/e1.jpg

 

http://www.digitalvertigo.co.uk/sigma/eac/e2.jpg

 

http://www.digitalvertigo.co.uk/sigma/eac/e3.jpg

 

http://www.digitalvertigo.co.uk/sigma/eac/e4.jpg

 

On this screen, I've got it set up to name the tracks as "song number - song title", but you can change this to whatever you prefer: -

 

http://www.digitalvertigo.co.uk/sigma/eac/e5.jpg

 

4. Ripping CDs.

 

OK, so EAC is now set up to rip, but we haven't set up any external encoder as we're going to rip to WAV and then encode to MP3, FLAC or whatever using a different program. If you want to set up EAC to also encode files for you, you can, but I prefer to use something else.

 

a) Insert your CD and it should try and pull in the metadata from freedb.

 

b) Go to Action - Detect Gaps. This detects the gap between each track. If it takes forever or just doesn't work, go back into drive options and change the gap detection method (see screenshot 4 in the "configuring your drive" section above).

 

c) Go to Action - Test & Copy Selected Tracks - Uncompressed. Select where to save your files and EAC will begin ripping your CD. This setting does a test rip of each track before it does the actual rip, then it compares the 2 results to make sure they match.

 

d) Go to Action - Create CUE Sheet - Current Gap Settings and save the CUE sheet in the same folder as your audio files. You can use a CUE sheet to burn a CD so all of the gap settings are exactly as they are on the original CD.

 

Once the rip is complete, a log file will also be saved in the folder along with the audio files. This is used on some torrent sites to prove that you've ripped the CD properly and that the rip is 100% perfect.

 

5. Tagging/encoding files.

 

For tagging files, I use MP3Tag. There's an advanced guide to using it here: -

 

http://www.digitalve...showtopic=28368

 

For encoding files, I use dBpoweramp as this allows you to quickly encode files to any format of your choice. If you want free options, then I would recommend the following apps for MP3 and FLAC respectively: -

 

http://rarewares.org/mp3-lamedrop.php

http://flac.sourcefo...t/download.html

[Steve]

Oh, and to clarify why the above method is preferred, even though it's slow - There's 2 main methods used for ripping CDs: -

 

1. Burst mode. This is the default setting in a lot of programs that rip CDs. It reads the data from the CD sequentially and only once. The main advantage is speed - it's really fast. The disadvantage is accuracy and error correction. If you value accuracy and you want to make certain of getting glitch-free rips - especially if some of your CDs are scratched - then don't use this setting.

 

2. Secure mode - This reads each piece of data on the CD a number of times and compares the results to make sure it's the same every time. The disadvantage is speed - it's slow. The advantage is accuracy and the ability to accurately read data from scratched CDs.

 

There's also a couple of other features of the above guide that make it the preferred method: -

 

1. Test & Copy mode. This does a test read of each track before it copies it and makes sure that the results are identical. It slows the process down, but again, it helps ensure that you get accurate results.

 

2. AccurateRip. This creates a CRC of each track as its ripped and then compares it with CRCs of the same tracks ripped from the same CD by other users using an online database. Again, this helps ensure that your results are accurate by comparing them to the results of other users who own the exact same CD.

[doppelkorn]

So when you say "slow" Steve what are we talking? If it takes me about 10 minutes to rip a 45 minute album what's the increase for using this method?

[Steve]

The only way to know is to try it really mate, cos there's a lot of variance between drives. Also, the speed can pick up as the rip progresses, so don't be too put off if it's very slow to start with.

 

One thing that can make a big difference to the speed is the "Drive caches audio data" setting in the very first screenshot. If you're not ripping to upload to a torrent site that makes use of the log files, then you can try enabling that feature if you like as it can speed things up quite a bit and from that I've read, it doesn't affect the end result. I've only left that box unchecked because it's required to get a 100% log score on What.CD as I was writing this thread with Vekked in mind.

 

With my drive, it hovers between 2-3X when ripping, so a 45 minute CD would take somewhere between 15 and 22 minutes to rip, but that's with the "Drive caches audio data" box unchecked. If I check it, then it's a lot faster than that - maybe even faster than 10 minutes.