Rip my CD's to flac

Firstly, i did a search and found nothing on the first 4/5 pages. So I aplogise if this already a thread, but whatever.

Anway, i just got a new hard drive, so I want to rip my cd's to flac....

What's the best way to do this?

My needs;

• good quality (once we get to the quality of flac, I probly won't be able to notice the difference between the options I don't think)
  
  • the option to attach album art
    
    • get tags from web
      
      • and most importantly, it needs to he relatively easy to use (and free)
        

Any tips/advice/recommendations?

Thanks in advance

EAC guide to perfect flac

Best program ever, trust me.

here's the guide I used, bit of a bitch to set up but works fine once it's up and running.

http://blowfish.be/eac/

Isn't it the same guide? i've seen both before, the reason why i like mine is cause it's pictures in it, makes it a whole lot easier to set ut, as you said it's a bitch to set up, takes a long time

Is it really that easy? After nearly three years I still owe Sigmund Goid (of WATMM) some FLACs when I get my CD collection back. But I got bogged down trying to figure out how to do it, me being a technotard and all.

Yeah, definitely go with EAC. It's not all that hard but I can see it possibly being frustrating at first. IMHO hydrogenaudio is the best place for the technos info, to wit:

http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=Exact_Audio_Copy

http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=EAC_and_FLAC

Now that EAC has accuraterip bundled you can rip in burst mode and still be sure you got a clean swipe of digital audio asscrack.

Sorry, I'm a bit of a noob when it comes to this.

Once I have configured it what do I do?

EDIT;

Am I supposed to click Action -> Copy Selected Tracks -> Compressed

???

  On 8/11/2010 at 6:02 AM, mrguy said:

Sorry, I'm a bit of a noob when it comes to this.

 

Once I have configured it what do I do?

 

 

EDIT;

Am I supposed to click Action -> Copy Selected Tracks -> Compressed

 

???

I'm not sure if you have it set up the same way I do, but here's what I do:

action -> detect gaps

action -> create cue sheet -> then I forget exactly what it's called, but it's the uncompliant option

action -> test and copy selected tracks -> compressed

or, if you don't care about creating a cue sheet, just the last step, as you had suspected.

...what does a cue sheet do?

  On 8/11/2010 at 9:16 AM, mrguy said:

...what does a cue sheet do?

you can use it when you burn a cd to make sure it's the same as the original, i.e. with all the same gaps between the tracks. it's not necessary, though.

  On 8/11/2010 at 9:24 AM, nene multiple assgasms said:

  On 8/11/2010 at 9:16 AM, mrguy said:

...what does a cue sheet do?

 

you can use it when you burn a cd to make sure it's the same as the original, i.e. with all the same gaps between the tracks. it's not necessary, though.

So, basically, If you want to copy the cd onto another cd, you can check the cue sheet to have all the gaps the same?

Also, can you add album art?

  Quote

So, basically, If you want to copy the cd onto another cd, you can check the cue sheet to have all the gaps the same?

Yes, since it'll make the rip 100%, if you don't it won't be 100% of the original but you know that's just an option if you care or not.. test with both and without to see the difference.

You can also use EAC to burn your exact copy to a 100% new disc as the original, that is another guide though but shouldn't be to hard to find

  On 8/11/2010 at 1:31 AM, Caretstik said:

Is it really that easy? After nearly three years I still owe Sigmund Goid (of WATMM) some FLACs when I get my CD collection back. But I got bogged down trying to figure out how to do it, me being a technotard and all.

Hm, were those the Autechre japanese bonus flacs from ages ago, because I have those now from my hard copies. I've ripped so many damn CDs since then. You are relieved of your duties ;)

  On 8/11/2010 at 10:00 AM, mrguy said:

Also, can you add album art?

I don't think so.

I am also planning to rip all my CDs for archiving purposes once I get a new PC that can rip CDs without taking ages. I am familiar with EAC, but it's really not user friendly and does some stupid shit, like not making the .cue sheets work. Why has it not already been fixed?

I want a program that I just need to place the CD in, press a button and it rips a flawless FLAC copy if it with cue-sheets and album art with a filename I chose in a Folder I chose. Why is it so damn hard to do a program like that?

Also could you rip your audio CDs as images and if burnt back on CDs they would be like the normal CDs?

Another question. How does EAC handle CDs with tracks that start before track #1 like on AE's EP7. And would an image of said CD work as the original if burnt on CD?

  On 8/11/2010 at 11:31 AM, azatoth said:

Also could you rip your audio CDs as images and if burnt back on CDs they would be like the normal CDs?

why burn them back to cds? i understand it's for backup purchases but why not just burn the flacs to a data dvd or similar?

I could rephrase it. Would I be able to mount these CD images and play them like a normal CD, and if I wanted rip them as FLACs. I would prefer to rip all my CDs as FLAC, but as it is now EAC seems like too much of a hassle, especially when I am unclear on how it deals with certain things. Some CDs don't have gaps, this would be remedied with a .cue sheet, but as it is now it seems the cue sheets written by EAC can't handle the four letter file extnesion of flacs. How does EAC handle tracks with tracks before track #1, since I am looking to archive my CDs 1:1 this is sort of a big deal, if it can't handle them. I could live with it if it was included as a part of the first track in the rip.

  On 8/11/2010 at 12:27 PM, azatoth said:

Some CDs don't have gaps, this would be remedied with a .cue sheet

if you rip to flac/wav and use winamp with gapless playback enabled, doesn't that sound the same? i've never noticed any difference, even on my iphone playing mp3s most track transitions are not noticeable (sometimes a tiny click but never anything too severe)

It only takes two clicks with EAC to make a flawless rip after you have set it up. Take the time, read through the guides linked here and you will be just OK. Those two clicks are "detect gaps" and "test & copy". Actually, you don't even need to detect gaps manually if you don't want to, because EAC will do it for the files anyway.

And if I've understood correctly, don't worry about the gaps/no gaps thing. EAC will make sure it's an exact copy of the CD as it is. The cue file itself is virtually meaningless unless you want to a) use it for verifying the rip with accuraterip b) burn the music onto a disc c) rip your CDs as images which is plain wrong. Don't do it.

I am spergin, I know. I'll probably never manage to rip my collection anyways and they will one day just rot away :(

Sperging's alright, you know, EAC's made for such persons, heh.

As for your other needs, EAC doesn't fetch album art automatically, but I think there might be some sort of a plugin for that. Setting up file name pattern and path is possible, and you can add MusicBrainz in the tag database for accurate tags.

But really, EAC is your ripper of choice, it's one of the few among with XLD that can make accurate rips of CDs.

  On 8/11/2010 at 2:52 PM, modey said:

  On 8/11/2010 at 12:27 PM, azatoth said:

Some CDs don't have gaps, this would be remedied with a .cue sheet

if you rip to flac/wav and use winamp with gapless playback enabled, doesn't that sound the same?

Aye, it does... I use EAC and rip to v0 mp3s and it's completely gapless playback when playing back with Foobar on albums that are gapless (not even that really annoying click/glitch that you get tween tracks for people that rip with (ugh) iTunes)

worth bearing in mind that EAC fucking destroyed my cd drive.

  On 8/11/2010 at 3:07 PM, 40days said:

rip your CDs as images which is plain wrong. Don't do it.