Audio Lossless Audio CD Ripping [EAC + FLAC]

LOSSLESS (FLAC) / EAC Ripping Guide For PC

*fyi: flac stands for free lossless audio codec

1. Download Exact Audio Copy (EAC) and install it.

Code:

http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/en/index.php/resources/download/

2. Install the FLAC lossless codec/frontend.

Code:

http://flac.sourceforge.net/download.html

3. Download this file (wnaspi32.dll) and place it in your EAC folder.

Code:

http://www.dll-files.com/dllindex/dll-files.shtml?wnaspi32

4. EAC must be setup before you can continue. The following steps are one time setup options. You WON'T need to set them more than once unless something goes wrong... once done saving your EAC settings within a profile you will NOT lose them.

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A. Start by opening EAC.

The settings wizard will pop up. HIT CANCEL. This wizard does not have access to all eac settings.

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B. Hit F12 to go to the FreeDB Options.

Enter an email address here. Hit OK to exit out of the FreeDB Options. This is needed to access the freedb database.

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C. Hit F9 to bring up the EAC Options.

- Check Fill Up Missing Offset Samples With Silence.
- Check Synchronize Between Tracks are all that need checking here.
- Turn Error Recovery Quality to High.

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D. Now click on the General tab.

The only thing needing to be checked here, is "On Unknown CDs" and "Automatically Access Online FreeDB Database".

NOTE: These options for the most part have no effect on accurate ripping. Options such as Disable 'CD Autostart' For Audio And Data CDs While EAC Running might give you more luck ripping copy protected CDs, but that can be done outside of EAC by holding down SHIFT before and while you insert the CD until it loads as well.

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E. Now click on the Tools tab.

Check:
- Check Use CD-Text Information In CUE Sheet Generation.
- Also check Create '.m3u' Playlist On Extraction and Write m3u Playlist With Extended Information below it.
- Check Automatically Write Status Report After Extraction.

NOTE: Retrieve UPC / ISRC Codes In CUE Sheet Generation isn't required, but is always appreciated. You can also check Do Not Open External Compressor Window if you do not want to see one.

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F. Now click on the Normalize tab.

DO NOT check ANYTHING on this tab. DO NOT use Normalize in any way. This destroys any chance of it being lossless.

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G. Now click on the Filename tab.

Put in %N - %T like shown for tracknumber, and songname. Once you are done, hit OK to exit out of the EAC Options.

NOTE: You could change this to %D\%C\%N - %T to automatically place it in an Artist/Album folder. Example: /Stone Temple Pilots/Purple/01 - Meat Plow.wav

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H. Hit F10 to bring up the Drive Options.

A warning box will popup.
Uncheck the box, and just hit OK here so it wont come back.

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Extraction Method Tab:

- Select 'Secure mode'.
- Check 'Drive Has Accurate Stream' Feature.
- Check 'Drive Caches Audio Data'.

NOTES:

- If your drive or drives do not show up, you may need to close EAC, and make sure you placed wnaspi32.dll into your EAC directory...
- Not all drives support the Accurate Stream feature. To see what features your drive has click the Detect Read Features button.

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I. Now click on the Drive tab.

Hit the button for Autodetect Read Command Now. There needs to be a CD in the drive for it to detect the read command. Whatever read command it finds, use that.

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J. Now click on the Offset / Speed tab.

Check your drives offset in the AccurateRip Drive Database.

Code:

http://accuraterip.com/driveoffsets.htm

Use the offset it gives for your drive to set the Use Read Sample Offset Correction.

NOTE: Overread Into Lead-In And Lead-Out should usually not be checked. Only a handful of drives can do this correctly, and most are Plextors. If your drive supports it then use it but if your drive ever errors on the last track with this setting, uncheck it. Also note that the drive in the example has a read offset of +6. THIS IS ONLY AN EXAMPLE AND IS NOT THE CASE FOR ALL DRIVES! Look your drive up in the database listed above.

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K. Now click on the Gap Detection tab.

- Select either Detection method A, B, or C.
- Select Secure for Detection accuracy.

NOTE: Detection methods A usually works fine and the other methods usually work just as well but on the odd chance your drive cant read gaps on cds, try methods B or C.

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This ends step 4.

5. Now that the first time setup options are done, you are ready to rip a CD. These options need to be performed each time you rip a CD.

A. You should still have a CD in your drive from an earlier step. Now hit F4 to Detect Gaps

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B. Now make sure you have selected Append Gaps To Previous Track (Default).

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C. And then click Multiple WAV Files With Gaps (Noncompliant).

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D. Hit CTRL+A to select all tracks, then depending on whether you want uncompressed (WAV) hit F6, or compressed (FLAC) hit SHIFT+F6.

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NOTE: There are multiple ways to do this. If you want WAV, just hit F6. If you want FLAC, hit F11 and go to the External Compression tab...

- Setting Compression to FLAC

Make sure Use File Extension is set to .flac and in the Addition Command Line Options box, put this:

-V -8 -T "artist=%a" -T "title=%t" -T "album=%g" -T "date=%y" -T "tracknumber=%n" -T "genre=%m" %s

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Once you have picked and setup which type of compression you want to use hit OK to exit out of the Compression Options window. Then to rip, hit SHIFT+F6.

We recommend you save these settings using the profiles menu on the bottom of EAC. To do this click 'New' and create a profile. Then save the current settings into that profile.

AFTER RIPPING DO NOT FORGET TO INCLUDE YOUR .CUE, .M3U & LOG FILES!

YOU ARE DONE AND READY TO UPLOAD PERFECT LOSSLESS RIPS

*i didnt write this but found it very useful so I decided to share