Installing, configuring, and ripping with Exact Audio Copy (EAC)

Guide written by caaok.
I'd like to thank everyone who helped me with this guide. You know who you are.

Download link: http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/en/inde...rces/download/
Current version as of this guide: EAC 1.0 beta 3.

This guide was made for EAC version 1.0 beta 3 and will not completely work with earlier versions. Versions 0.99 or earlier should use the blowfish guide.

Anything with a green outline around it is a required setting. Anything orange is required but depends on your drive. Anything unmarked is optional.

This is meant to be a no-frills guide with little extra info. A more comprehensive (but outdated) guide can be found here:
http://blowfish.be/eac

Step 1: Download and install EAC
Download the installer and fire it up.

Attachment 178265

Eventually you'll get to a screen like this. Make sure you install AccurateRip, CDRDAO, CTDB, and freedb as a bare minimum. FLAC will be useful as well if you don't have it separately installed. GD3 is only useful if you want to pay for metadata results. I assume you don't.

Step 2: Start EAC

Attachment 178266

When you first start EAC, you'll see a screen like this one. Hit "Cancel". Next, put a popular CD into your drive, preferably not one that was recently released (a few months old at least). You'll see a window like the one below appear. If you have an older version of EAC or dBpoweramp installed, it's likely AccurateRip was already configured, and this may not appear.

Attachment 178267

Hit Configure. It may take a few minutes. Hit "Ok" afterward. Once again, if you have an older version of EAC or dBpoweramp installed, it's likely AccurateRip was already configured, and this may not appear.

Step 3: EAC Options
All of the options dialogs can be found from the EAC menu at the top of the screen.

Attachment 178268

Start with EAC Options. Any tabs not pictured are completely optional settings, or are irrelevant to ripping.

Attachment 178269

Make sure you set the green highlighted settings as shown. If you're using an older version of EAC, make sure "No use of null samples for CRC calculations is UNCHECKED. The rest is optional, choose as you will. Locking the drive tray during extraction isn't a bad idea though.

Attachment 178270

These settings are pretty much all optional and self explanatory. I'd recommend using Alternate CD play routines and disabling autostart though.

The "Create log files always in english language" is very important for our international users. This will let you keep EAC's language as your native one, but write the log file in English, allowing it to pass our logchecker without needing to be rescored manually.

Attachment 178271

If your drive is capable of reading UPC/ISRC codes and CD-Text (you can only really figure this out by trial and error), you're welcome to keep the top two options checked. Otherwise, uncheck them.

Other than that, these settings are pretty much ideal. I wouldn't recommend using more than 1 compressor thread even if you have a multicore computer. It doesn't take very long compared to the track extraction anyway. Note that in tests run by punkmeup, disabling the queue of external compressors in the background fixed an issue where EAC was generating WAV files instead of FLAC, so I've made that a required option. It should have no bearing on the rip quality. If rip queueing works for you (it does for me), feel free to leave it enabled.

Attachment 178272

Friends don't let friends normalize their EAC rips. Don't ever do it. It will instantly be given a 0% by the logchecker.

Attachment 178273

This is the proper way to name tracks. The only difference acceptable here would be perhaps %tracknr2%. %title% if you prefer periods instead of dashes in the filenames. If you need track numbers to go into triple digits for some reason, use %tracknr3% instead.


Naming Convention : %tracknr2% - %title%

Check 'Use Various Artists Naming Scheme' and use : %tracknr2% - %artist% - %title%

Don't replace spaces by underscores. It looks ridiculous.

Spoiler: Show

A note on directory naming schemes: Don't use a directory structure here, unless you want to go back and edit your CUE sheet later. When you add a directory to the naming scheme, it'll put that directory path into the files. Then when someone goes to burn the files in EAC using your cuesheet, they'll be unable to do so. If you do insist on using a directory structure here, you need to go back, edit the CUE in a program such as notepad, and remove the folder name from each line.

For example, a cuesheet line should look like this:

FILE "01 Last Known Surroundings.wav" WAVE

Not like this:

FILE "C:\EAC Rips\Explosions in the Sky - Take Care, Take Care, Take Care (2011) [FLAC]\01 Last Known Surroundings.wav" WAVE

Step 4: Drive Options

Attachment 178274

Start by hitting "Detect Read Features...". This will actually take a few minutes. The only feature detection that actually matters is Accurate Stream. If your drive can use it, checkmark the setting (most modern drives have Accurate Stream). If it can't, don't.

Even if your drive doesn't cache audio, just do us a favour and leave that checked. Not only will it stop you from having to have each of your uploads rescored by hand, but it doesn't affect the audio quality at all. Yes, the rips take a bit longer with that setting enabled. Go watch TV or something while you wait.

Do not use C2, even if EAC thinks you can. Most drives have terrible C2 error implementation.

Attachment 178275

Hit "Autodetect read command now". It shouldn't take long. Leave everything else unchecked unless you're having problems. You can checkmark "CD-Text Read capable drive" if you want to test whether your drive can do it. If it can, great, otherwise, uncheck it. It's unlikely you'll ever use that feature anyway.

Attachment 178276

If you did the AccurateRip configuration at the start of this guide, the top half here will be greyed out. If not, you'll need to find your read offset correction from this list. Don't use a combined read/write offset.

If you want to figure out whether your drive needs "Overread into Lead-in and Lead-Out" checked, you can check by temporarily unchecking "Use AccurateRip with this drive". Stick a CD in the drive and hit "Detect read sample offset correction...". If you're just doing this for the Overread, see below:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by blowfish.be

Check "Overread Lead-In and Lead-Out" only if the test result says that your drive can overread from both the Lead-In and Lead-Out, or if it says Lead-Out and your offset correction is positive ,or if it says Lead-In and your offset correction is negative. Otherwise disable (uncheck) it.

---

Remember to check "Use AccurateRip with this drive" again once you're finished. AccurateRip is always a good idea.

Attachment 178277

Pretty much every drive should work with the settings shown. If yours stalls on detecting gaps or detects gaps that are obviously wrong (like 30 second gaps on a non-live album), try Detection method B or C. If A, B, and C all fail, you can switch "Secure" to "Accurate" and try again.

Step 5: Metadata Options

Attachment 178278

Here's where you pick your metadata provider. If you did install GD3, it'll be in the list. You can only rip 10 discs before you have to pay for a subscription though. Otherwise, you have a choice between the MusicBrainz plugin (CTDB), freedb plugin and EAC's native freedb support. I'm not really sure what the big difference is, I'm guessing it's the cover+lyrics. Anyway, change those settings above if you wish.

Attachment 178279

If you use EAC's native freedb instead, the settings should look like this. Make sure you put an email at the top, it doesn't need to be real. Hit "Get active freedb server list". Then checkmark the last option.


Step 6: Compression Options

Attachment 178280

Set up this tab exactly as shown. You'll have to browse to the path where you have flac.exe, if you installed it with EAC it's in C:\Program Files (x86)\Exact Audio Copy\FLAC\flac.exe. If you installed it separately it's wherever you installed it. The bitrate and high/low quality have no effect on the rip.

The commandline parameters have changed in this version, so this will look new to most of you. The commandline recommended for optimal completeness is this:

-8 -V -T "ARTIST=%artist%" -T "TITLE=%title%" -T "ALBUM=%albumtitle%" -T "DATE=%year%" -T "TRACKNUMBER=%tracknr%" -T "GENRE=%genre%" -T "PERFORMER=%albuminterpret%" -T "COMPOSER=%composer%" %haslyrics%--tag-from-file=LYRICS="%lyricsfile%"%haslyrics% -T "ALBUMARTIST=%albumartist%" -T "DISCNUMBER=%cdnumber%" -T "TOTALDISCS=%totalcds%" -T "TOTALTRACKS=%numtracks%" -T "COMMENT=%comment%" %source% -o %dest%

It takes no extra effort on your part, just copy and paste that into the additional commandline options and you're done.

Note: the %comment% function is broken in version 1.0b2 (it returns the track CRC). Use something like -T "COMMENT=EAC V1.0 beta 2, Secure Mode, Test & Copy, AccurateRip, FLAC -8" instead.

Also, as of Beta 3 you may use the %tracknr1% variable instead of %tracknr% if you would like to have no leading zeroes in the track number field (like XLD does). tracknr1 will use, for example, '1' instead of '01'.

Spoiler: Show

A note on the FLAC commandline in versions prior to 1.0b3: If you're using EAC 1.0b1, use the following commandline for FLAC:
-8 -V -T "ARTIST=%a" -T "TITLE=%t" -T "ALBUM=%g" -T "DATE=%y" -T "TRACKNUMBER=%n" -T "TOTALTRACKS=%x" -T "GENRE=%m" -T "ALBUMARTIST=%v" -T "COMMENT=EAC V1.0 beta 1, Secure Mode, Test & Copy, AccurateRip, FLAC -8" %s

Anything older than that, just change the version number in the tags.

Spoiler: Show

A note on ripping to lossy formats like MP3: So first off, this is a complete waste of time. In most cases, EAC is overkill for lossy files, and takes far too long to rip the CD to be practical. If your goal is to upload tracks here, your best bet is to rip once to FLAC and then use a program like dBpoweramp to convert that rip to the other formats. Even if you don't need a FLAC (one already exists on site, or this is for your personal collection only), it'll still be much faster to rip using any other program, and won't produce an audibly different result unless your CD has skips and bad scratches.

However, the MP3 and Ogg command lines are included below. You'll need to browse to LAME.exe or oggenc2.exe, and set the extension to .mp3 or .ogg, respectively. The other settings remain the same, bitrate is still irrelevant.

V0 MP3:
-V 0 --vbr-new --add-id3v2 --ignore-tag-errors --ta "%artist%" --tt "%title%" --tg "%genre%" --tl "%albumtitle%" --ty "%year%" --tn "%tracknr%" %source% -o %dest%

V2 MP3:
-V 2 --vbr-new --add-id3v2 --ignore-tag-errors --ta "%artist%" --tt "%title%" --tg "%genre%" --tl "%albumtitle%" --ty "%year%" --tn "%tracknr%" %source% -o %dest%

320 kbps MP3:
-b 320 -h --add-id3v2 --ignore-tag-errors --ta "%artist%" --tt "%title%" --tg "%genre%" --tl "%albumtitle%" --ty "%year%" --tn "%tracknr%" %source% -o %dest%

q8 Ogg:
-q 8 -a "%artist%" -t "%title%" -l "%albumtitle%" -d "%year%" -N "%tracknr%" -G "%genre%" %source% -o %dest%

Attachment 178281

Leave everything unchecked except the last option.

Congrats! EAC is now properly set up! You may wish to save your settings in a profile by hitting "New" at the bottom of the screen. However, unless you're changing your settings frequently there's no need, EAC will remember all of this on next launch regardless.

Step 7: Tagging

Attachment 178282

So now let's look at the main window. Be sure everything is named correctly here, as these will be the tags on your ripped files. If you're ripping a classical CD, you may wish to fill in the Composer/Performer fields.

Drag a cover image into the EAC window. I think ~500x500 is a decent size in most cases. Google images is your friend here.

If you're ripping a box set, you may wish to use the options under the cover image, otherwise leave them all as "1".

Finally, if you want to add lyrics to the tracks, use the "Lyrics" button.

Note: I've also highlighted the "New" button where you can save your settings. This is not a necessary step each time you rip.

Step 8: Gap Detection and Cuesheets

Attachment 178283

The pre-rip stuff happens here. Make sure "Append Gaps to Previous Track (default)" is checked. It should be. Next, hit the options in the order shown.

First, hit "Detect Gaps". This is very important, your rip will fail the logchecker if you do not complete this step. If the first track is highlighted in red, you have a hidden track. You'll want to look at this section of the blowfish.be guide.

Next, go to Create CUE Sheet -> Multiple WAV Files With Gaps... (Noncompliant). This is usually where I create the folder for ripping as well. Do NOT rip your tracks to any directory containing your name. You should NEVER edit a log for any reason, especially now that we have checksums. A simple C:\EAC Rips is fine.

I name my directories as follows:
Artist - Album (Year) [Format] {Extra}

So for example, with the album in the screenshots, it'd be

Sam Roberts Band - Collider (2011) [FLAC] {UMC 0252764577}

However, as long as it contains the album name and no nested folders (don't do \Artist\Album\), you're fine by the rules here.

Anyway, make the folder, save the .cue file into it. I usually just name mine Noncompliant.cue, it doesn't really matter.

Step 9: Ripping

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Finally, the rip itself! Make sure all the tracks are checkmarked in the main window unless there are some you don't want to rip.

Test & Copy -> Compressed.

Depending on your drive and whether or not the CD is scratched, this could take anywhere from ten minutes to four hours. Be patient.

Step 10: Post-Rip

So you're done! You may wish to use a logchecker to check and make sure your rip is proper, but if you followed this guide, the only possible errors would be with the CD itself. It does happen... some CDs are too badly damaged, even for EAC. Your best bet is to clean the CD and try again.

Other than that, it never hurts to make sure your files are tagged and named properly (though they should be). Any extra stuff you want to include should be added now as well... Additional artwork, an md5 fingerprint, an info.txt file, that sort of thing.

Appendix A: CueTools Plugin (Optional)

This is now installed by selecting "CTDB" in the EAC 1.0b3 options. Therefore, this will only be necessary for EAC 1.0b1 and 1.0b2, or if you want to update the plugin by hand to a newer version.

Starting with version 1.0b1, EAC now supports plugins! While they've so far been few and far between, the CueTools plugin is quite handy. Not only does it give you a second opinion past the AccurateRip database and include the CueTools hash in the log, but it also gives you an option to get metadata from MusicBrainz if you prefer it to freedb.

Download page:
http://www.cuetools.net/wiki/CTDB_EAC_Plugin

Installation: Extract the files to EAC's root directory (containing EAC.exe). Usually this is located at C:\Program Files (x86)\Exact Audio Copy.

Usage: None, it works automatically. You can check whether it's installed under EAC Options->Audio Plugins. If you wish to use MusicBrainz, go to Metadata Options and select "CUETools DB Metadata Plugin" from the list.

Very nice guide, everything is well-explained with screenshots to boot. This is how a tutorial should be done. :yup:

Two small thingies - you might want to edit the paragraph about creating logs in English so that it's clear you're referring to What.cd's log checker. Same goes for the recommendation of not editing logs under any circumstances.

I actually tried to be as non-site specific as possible since this is more of a public guide, so I'll probably edit those down.

Good work done, Thanks mate :)

kudos !!

i updated to beta2 today (clean install, uninstalled previous version & reinstalled new)
i followed this guide side by side, and ripped an flac. what cd throws me its only 75% flac :(
i reverted back to my old configuration (as fas as i remember my last config) now when i ripping (test & copy) its showing me estimated time as much as 2hours :O

does anyone has any clue whats wrong ? previously to 100% flac it was taking me 10-15 minute max.

EAC beta2 , win7 x64, 16GB RAM

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Evelyn

i updated to beta2 today (clean install, uninstalled previous version & reinstalled new)
i followed this guide side by side, and ripped an flac. what cd throws me its only 75% flac :(
i reverted back to my old configuration (as fas as i remember my last config) now when i ripping (test & copy) its showing me estimated time as much as 2hours :O

does anyone has any clue whats wrong ? previously to 100% flac it was taking me 10-15 minute max.

EAC beta2 , win7 x64, 16GB RAM

---

You should read what the logchecker tells you is wrong, and paste the errors here (or PM me, I'm more likely to notice). Send me the log as well. I'll tell you what to change.

As for the ripping speed, no clue. EAC seems to arbitrarily choose its own speed based on any number of factors.

Did you install the optional CUETools plugin? One poster claimed that slowed the rip (no idea why it would though).

Updated for 1.0b3.

Thanks for this guide cuz I was totally confused about how the hell to use EAC. It made no sense to me at all, I can't decide whether to stick with it or foobar2000?! Or CueTools? OMG :X

I will use EAC for now, but I love the others as well. Thanks for your work on this guide man I am ripping my CD's to single FLAC and CUES then playing in foobar2000

I dunno seems like an awful lot of work compared to simply shoplifting the stuff.

HI need some help. I just installed EAC 1.0 beta 3 by following the guide that Ca_aok wrote. Everything seems OK and I can rip WAV and FLAC files (yeah I keep the WAV files too).... but the problem is that neither the WAV nor the FLAC files are playing on my PC (i tried to play those with Foobar, Mediamonkey, VLC, etc but nothing worked).
Just to test if there's any problem with the CDs, I ripped those with Foobar and the ripped files played just fine on my PC
All other FlAC and WAV files on my PC play fine .....even FLAC/WAV files that i created a year back using an older version of EAC (the PC where i had that old version installed crashed and i got myself a new PC hence i had to reinstall EAC all over again).

I even trying uninstalling the EAC and reinstalling again - but I still have the same issue : File ripped OK but the files don't play

Can somebody please help?

Here is an extract from the data sheet of one of the CDs that I ripped but ripped files are not playing:

Exact Audio Copy V1.0 beta 3 from 29. August 2011

EAC extraction logfile from 16. May 2013, 21:48

Faith Hill / The Hits

Used drive : HL-DT-STBD-RE BH16NS40 Adapter: 0 ID: 1

Read mode : Secure
Utilize accurate stream : Yes
Defeat audio cache : Yes
Make use of C2 pointers : No

Read offset correction : 6
Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out : Yes
Fill up missing offset samples with silence : Yes
Delete leading and trailing silent blocks : No
Null samples used in CRC calculations : Yes
Used interface : Native Win32 interface for Win NT & 2000
Gap handling : Appended to previous track

Used output format : User Defined Encoder
Selected bitrate : 320 kBit/s
Quality : High
Add ID3 tag : No
Command line compressor : C:\Program Files (x86)\Exact Audio Copy\Flac\flac.exe
Additional command line options : -8 -V -T "ARTIST=%artist%" -T "TITLE=%title%" -T "ALBUM=%albumtitle%" -T "DATE=%year%" -T "TRACKNUMBER=%tracknr%" -T "GENRE=%genre%" -T "PERFORMER=%albuminterpret%" -T "COMPOSER=%composer%" %haslyrics%--tag-from-file=LYRICS="%lyricsfile%"%haslyrics% -T "ALBUMARTIST=%albumartist%" -T "DISCNUMBER=%cdnumber%" -T "TOTALDISCS=%totalcds%" -T "TOTALTRACKS=%numtracks%" -T "COMMENT=%comment%" %source% -o %dest%


TOC of the extracted CD

Track | Start | Length | Start sector | End sector
---------------------------------------------------------
1 | 0:00.00 | 3:39.44 | 0 | 16468
2 | 3:39.44 | 6:15.32 | 16469 | 44625
3 | 9:55.01 | 4:08.54 | 44626 | 63279
4 | 14:03.55 | 4:11.28 | 63280 | 82132
5 | 18:15.08 | 3:52.73 | 82133 | 99605
6 | 22:08.06 | 3:47.73 | 99606 | 116703
7 | 25:56.04 | 3:41.51 | 116704 | 133329
8 | 29:37.55 | 3:28.73 | 133330 | 149002
9 | 33:06.53 | 4:08.13 | 149003 | 167615
10 | 37:14.66 | 4:15.20 | 167616 | 186760
11 | 41:30.11 | 4:25.19 | 186761 | 206654
12 | 45:55.30 | 3:15.28 | 206655 | 221307
13 | 49:10.58 | 3:18.35 | 221308 | 236192
14 | 52:29.18 | 4:01.63 | 236193 | 254330
15 | 56:31.06 | 2:47.00 | 254331 | 266855


Track 1

Filename D:\Youtube Downloads\EAC TEST\faith\01 Red Umbrella.wav

Pre-gap length 0:00:02.00

Peak level 46.0 %
Extraction speed 2.7 X
Track quality 96.8 %
Test CRC 28C3E28D
Copy CRC 28C3E28D
Track not present in AccurateRip database
Copy OK

Track 2

Filename D:\Youtube Downloads\EAC TEST\faith\02 Stronger (live).wav

Pre-gap length 0:00:00.82

Peak level 46.0 %
Extraction speed 1.0 X
Track quality 96.8 %
Test CRC 6B264754
Copy CRC 6B264754
Track not present in AccurateRip database
Copy OK

I'm in no way an expert but for Wav or Flac this kinda jumps out at you...


Used output format : User Defined Encoder
Selected bitrate : 320 kBit/s

Hey Stan, thanks fror the response. The tutorial says use "User Defined Encoder". I read somewhere that the selected bitrate field is irrelevant - anyway i tried ripping with 768kbps too - same problem - file doesn't play

OK, I'm back again : problem solved - found out the wrong settings in the Drive options and corrected those. Now everything is good in the world again. EAC rips to FLAC and WAV and the files play.... yaaaaaa :-D

Excellent guide..Thanks a lot

tHANK yOU!

Excellent

The most recent version of this is now mirrored at http://blowfish.be/eac

Also yes, the selected bitrate is irrelevant for the way the guide is set up. User-defined encoders use only the commandline settings to determine bitrate.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ca_aok

The most recent version of this is now mirrored at http://blowfish.be/eac

Also yes, the selected bitrate is irrelevant for the way the guide is set up. User-defined encoders use only the commandline settings to determine bitrate.

---

Hi ca_aok

I followed your guide all the way up to the point of pre-ripping.

The reason is, I want to rip my CDs in AIFF. Not sure what options/settings should I adjust to make proper AIFF rips. Best sound quality is my goal.

Could you please tell me what to do/change? This would be my third time ripping my CD collection and I definitely want it to be the last since its growing at a very fast rate lately :)

Awesome guide, properly explained. Keep it up!

I'm no expert at ripping to AIFF as it's pointless for almost all users... it's a Mac only format and EAC is a Windows only program. Additionally it's inefficient (essentially the Mac equivalent of WAV files) compared to something like Apple Lossless. Nonetheless:

The differences are in Step 6: Compression Options.

Download Sox here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/sox/files/sox/14.4.1/
Install the Windows version to a folder you can easily find.

Under "use file extension", type in .aiff or .aif instead of .flac

Instead of browsing to C:\Program Files (x86)\FLAC\flac.exe (as shown in the image), browse to C:\whatever\sox.exe. By default it'll be at C:\Program Files (x86)\sox-14-4-1\sox.exe

Make the command line the following:
-t wav %source% -t aif %dest%

Keep in mind you can't tag AIFF files, at least not that I'm aware of. Hope that helps!

Ok, i've been searching for awhile and can't find the additional command line string for 320, V0, etc. (320 is most important to me). The one for FLAC in the guide here is far different from the command in the last version EAC I had installed (just reimaged/upgraded my box), so i'm assuming the same will be true for others. I hate to ask what seems like must be an oversight on my part, but i've put an hour into it now. Thanks in advance, and thanks for the updated guide!

Nice and easy to understand tutorial

thank you

Wow ! Great post indeed. I really enjoyed a lot as it is very useful and informative for me. Thanks for sharing and keep sharing your valuable experience with the readers.

Nice tutorial there, now has someone done one for dvd etc ? lol

Many thanks!

Good work done. Thanks mate

Who would have updated the pictures :)

I just reuploaded them.

Awesome user guide ! Thanks and Kudos.

Greetings,

I would like to know if the configuration recommendations presented in this tutorial are still recommendable today, since the current version of EAC is v1.5...or if it is possible to update this guide?