EAC, FLAC ripping help requested

[sleepysurf]

I just received my SB2, and am duly impressed. However, as a CD ripping Neophyte, I am having a rough time configuring EAC, particularly re: specifying the BEST file and directory format. Right now, I have set file naming as... %A - %C - (%N) - %T but the album name keeps showing up as "No Album" on the SB2 (though I can then scroll right to get the real name).

My .flac files are also ripping into a SINGLE Audio directory (on a Buffalo Linkstation). Would SlimServer and SB2 function better if each album is assigned it's own directory?

Thanks for any guidance.

BTW, a SQUEEZEBOX-specific FLAC and EAC tutorial (similar to generic one's I've found elsewhere on the net) would be welcome for us neophytes.

[pfarrell]

On Thu, 2005-04-14 at 19:39 -0700, sleepysurf wrote:
> BTW, a SQUEEZEBOX-specific FLAC and EAC tutorial (similar to generic
> one's I've found elsewhere on the net) would be welcome for us
> neophytes.

I started a document along those lines.

http://www.pfarrell.com/music/slimserver/tips.html

additions, corrections, comments, etc. welcome


--
Pat
http://www.pfarrell.com/music/slimse...msoftware.html

[relen]

I'm using EAC and the FLAC encoder to rip CDs, and I set up the system according to the guide at:
http://www.saunalahti.fi/cse/EAC/

This is really for another external compression app, but at the end is a section telling you what you change for various alternative external codecs, including FLAC. It works really well!

Also useful is an item here:
http://www.fifthgate.org/articles/mp...ing_guide.html

I moved over from using the Winamp FLAC ripping plugin because I wanted more control over the tags (it would set the artist to "audio" in my case for example). EAC is /very/ flexible in this regard.

I like to have each album in its own folder. I haven't the faintest idea if it makes any performance difference or impact, but it certainly makes things easy to identify! You can do this by putting backslashes in the filename config - see below. EAC will create subdirs that don't exist. I don't bother going as deep as the example below: I just put numbered track names in a folder named with the artist and album title.

Here's an excerpt from the second link above:
- tab "Filename" in "EAC\EAC options" allows you to set the format of the filename. I've set it to "%A\%C\%N - %T". It means that songs for each album will be stored in the subdirectory named "Artist Name" of directory "Album Name" (%A and %C respectively). Each song will consist of track number and track title, e.g., "Rid of me" is a first track on PJ Harvey's "4-track demos" album so its filename will be "01 - Rid of me" and it will be stored in "PJ Harvey\Rid of me" directory.
It's convenient to have track number in file name for easy sorting songs in file system according to the position they appear on the album.
- tab "Directories" in "EAC\EAC options" allows you to set the main directory where ripped songs will be saved
[...]
- use "EAC/CDDB - Lyrics options" to tell EAC where to get album information from. www.cddb.com list available cddb servers. You should check www.freedb.org for a free alternative.
[you can only use freedb in my version]
- tab "General" in "EAC\EAC options" allows you to tell EAC to automatically access CDDB info after CD is inserted, very useful. Check "On unknown CDs" box and choose "automatically access online CDDB database"

I really need to do that last one - I evidently didn't spot it when I set this up!

The only thing I would like EAC to do is to have an auto mode where you just insert a CD and it rips it and ejects at the end. Right now I have to clear a couple of dialogs after the disc ejects, insert a new one, and hit the "MP3" (really means "rip") button.

Hope this helps!

[For some reason pfarrell's page only displays source in my browser (FF) but I'll try it in Safari later - apologies if I've covered ground he already dealt with.]

--Richard E

[sleepysurf]

Wow! Great links... EXACTLY what I was looking for. Pat, you're Squeezebox specific FAQ is great... looking forward to more tips.

Just curious... what are y'all using to collect Album Art?

I found something called Album Art Aggregator, which finds a host of cover art, then lets you choose which one to save... seems to work very well with SoftSqueeze. However, it does require MS .NET Framework (free d/l).

See... http://thenexusnet.blogspot.com/2004...ersion-10.html

[Jeb]

Check out: http://www.virroaudio.net/ripping/EACconfig.htm

This guy is a .wma user but, otherwise, seems a good person. Very good primer on ripping, encoding , converting, etc. Also, includes detail on EAC configuration with lots of screenshots. Good luck.
Jeb

[street_samurai]

The best guide I've seen for converting CD to FLAC using EAC comes from the HydrogenAudio forums:

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/...howtopic=30959

For a more general overview of using EAC to create a music archive (basically a post of links to the best guides I've found) see here:

http://www.informationaddiction.com/...e.php?sid=1793

Neither guide has a lot on the tagging itself. Personally I've found http://www.mp3tag.de/en/ to be the best program for tagging and organizing my music once its ripped.

ss.