Table of contents

1. The Introduction
   1. Installation
   2. Configuring the options
   3. Verifying or set­ting the drive options
   4. Setting the encoder options
      • LAME mp3
      • FLAC
      • Monkey's Audio
      • Ogg Vorbis
   5. Saving the com­pres­sion options to a profile
2. Using EAC
   1. Ripping an audio cd

I. Introduction

This is a detailed and up-to-date guide to con­fig­ure the best CD extrac­tor on the planet, also known as Exact Audio Copy, which is made for Windows. It will guide you through the setup It con­sists of infor­ma­tion I've found on var­i­ous rip­ping and encod­ing sites, includ­ing Hydrogen Audio. What I've done is com­pile the most impor­tant and use­ful spec­i­fi­ca­tions that go into mak­ing a proper rip with­out giv­ing you a lot of filler and infor­ma­tion that isn't under­stood by the aver­age user. At first glance, this guide may seem tedious or over­whelm­ing, but the ini­tial setup of EAC along with the setup of the four encoders is a one time deal. After that, it's smooth sail­ing. I might add that it isn't nec­es­sary to con­fig­ure EAC for all four encoders to use. Just the ones you pre­fer or need. Installation The very first step is installing EAC. You need to down­load v 0.95 beta 4. You also need a work­ing ASPI layer. If you have Nero installed you can copy wnaspi32.dll from the Nero instal­la­tion folder (C:\Program Files\Ahead\Nero) to your EAC instal­la­tion folder (C:\Program Files\Exact Audio Copy) after the instal­la­tion has fin­ished. If you don't have Nero you can down­load the needed file here.

• After instal­la­tion is com­plete, extract & copy wnaspi32.dll to your EAC instal­la­tion folder and run EAC.
• If it prompts you to run the Configuration Wizard, click can­cel then restart EAC.

Configuring the options

Press F12. You have to enter a valid email address. Select a server from the drop­down menu. The default server is high­lighted but as you can see there are mul­ti­ple servers located all over the world. Select the one you want and click OK.

Press F9 and select the 'Extraction' tab. Check 'Fill up miss­ing off­set sam­ples with silence' and 'Synchronize between tracks.' Also change the Error recov­ery qual­ity to High.

On the next tab General check fol­low­ing options:

• On unknown cds auto­mat­i­cally access online freedb data­base: When you insert a cd in your drive EAC will auto­mat­i­cally lookup the per­former, album and track titles from the online freedb data­base. That saves you a lot of typ­ing work if the cd is found in the online data­base. This option makes only sense if you have a per­ma­nent Internet con­nec­tion like DSL or cable.
• When using the Power Down fea­ture wait for exter­nal compressors.

On the third tab Tools you also must set a few options:

• Use CD-Text infor­ma­tion in CUE sheet generation
• Optional- Create '.m3u' playlist on extrac­tion and the sub option 'Write m3u playlist with extended infor­ma­tion.' This will make EAC add addi­tional infor­ma­tion to the playlist like the track play time.
• Automatically write sta­tus report after extrac­tion. This makes EAC write a sta­tus report (log file) after extrac­tion in which you can find pos­si­ble errors and the used settings.
• On extrac­tion, start exter­nal com­pres­sors queued in the back­ground. This con­trols how many com­pres­sor win­dows will open and encode while you are rip­ping. It is unnec­es­sary to select more than one.

• Select the Normalize tab.
• If Normalize is checked, then des­e­lect it.

• Select the Filename tab. You'll notice two input fields with text in them. Below you see %N - %A - %T in those fields. EAC gen­er­ates file­names using this string which would look like Number - Artist - Title. You can exper­i­ment with the var­i­ous com­bi­na­tions for the file­name con­struc­tion. In any case, please keep the file­names sim­ple and put the track num­ber (%n) first.

• Select the Interface tab and tick 'Installed exter­nal ASPI inter­face.' This would be the wnaspi32.dll file you copied to your EAC folder after instal­la­tion. This sec­tion is com­plete. Select Ok.

Verifying or set­ting the drive options

This is one of the most impor­tant parts of the EAC configuration.

• Press F10. Select the warn­ing dia­log box away.
• Select the 'Extraction Method' tab. Secure Mode must be enabled!

• Insert an audio into the selected drive.
• Click Detect Read Features. You will see the fol­low­ing when EAC begins to ana­lyze your drive and when it is complete.

• Click apply. EAC will then ask you if you want to share the results of the test for your drive. That's up to you.

Select the Drive tab.

• Select the drop­down menu and select Autodetect read command.
• Insert an audio CD into the drive you're configuring.
• Select Autodetect read com­mand now. After a few sec­onds EAC returns the cor­rect read com­mand for your drive.

Select the Offset/Speed tab

• Check 'Use read sam­ple off­set correction'
• In the input field below, enter the off­set cor­rec­tion value for your drive which can be found on this site. If you don't know what drive you have or what to look for, your drive will be listed at the top of the win­dow below. It's likely to be eas­ier search­ing for the model num­bers. (e.g. DRU-720A)
• Check 'Allow speed reduc­tion dur­ing extrac­tion' and 'CD-Text Read capa­ble drive.'

Select the Gap Detection tab

• It is rec­om­mended to use Detection Method A, and Secure here. Some dri­ves may not use these set­tings, if this is the case when you are detect­ing gaps, try chang­ing them.
• Select secure in the detec­tion accu­racy drop­down list.

Select OK.

Setting the encoder options

The con­fig­u­ra­tion of EAC and the dri­ves is done. Next step is to con­fig­ure the encoder set­tings. These dif­fer from codec to codec, but the four steps lists below will remain the same.

• Press F11
• Select External Compression
• Check 'Use exter­nal pro­gram for compression.
• Select User Defined Encoder from the Parameter pass­ing scheme drop­down box. Use the links below to advance to your pre­ferred encoder.
  1. LAME mp3
  2. FLAC
  3. Monkey's Audio
  4. Ogg Vorbis

LAME mp3

The first thing you need to do is get LAME.

• Open the down­loaded zip file. Extract the lame.exe file to the EAC instal­la­tion path. (default: C:\Program Files\Exact Audio Copy\)
• Back in EAC set 'Use file exten­sion' to .mp3 (includ­ing the dot in front). Next we need to set the path to the LAME executable.
• If you stored it in the rec­om­mended loca­tion, you can just copy and paste C:\Program Files\Exact Audio Copy\lame.exe.
• Further set the last four options on the tab as shown in the screen­shot below.

On the External Compression tab enter one of fol­low­ing com­mand lines in the Additional com­mand line options input field:

• -V 2 --vbr-new --add-id3v2 --ta "%a" --tt "%t" --tg "%m" --tl "%g" --ty "%y" --tn "%n" %s %d

• -V 0 --vbr-new --add-id3v2 --ta "%a" --tt "%t" --tg "%m" --tl "%g" --ty "%y" --tn "%n" %s %d

• -b 320 --add-id3v2 --ta "%a" --tt "%t" --tg "%m" --tl "%g" --ty "%y" --tn "%n" %s %d

List of rec­om­mended settings

Switch

• Check if the set­tings on the ID3 Tag tab page match the set­tings of the screen­shot below.

Select OK to save the set­tings. Continue read­ing at Saving the com­pres­sion options to a pro­file

FLAC

The first thing you need to do is get FLAC.

• Open the down­loaded zip file. Extract the flac.exe file to the EAC instal­la­tion path. (default: C:\Program Files\Exact Audio Copy\)
• Back in EAC set 'Use file exten­sion' to .flac (includ­ing the dot in front). Next we need to set the path to the FLAC executable.
• If you stored it in the rec­om­mended loca­tion, you can just copy and paste C:\Program Files\Exact Audio Copy\flac.exe.
• Further set the last four options on the tab as shown in the screen­shot below.

On the External Compression tab enter one of fol­low­ing com­mand lines in the Additional com­mand line options input field:

• -V -5 -T "artist=%a" -T "title=%t" -T "album=%g" -T "date=%y" -T "tracknumber=%n" -T "genre=%m" %s

• -8 -A tukey(0.25) -A gauss(0.1875) -b 4096 -V -T "artist=%a" -T "title=%t" -T "album=%g" -T "date=%y" -T "tracknumber=%n" -T "genre=%m" %s

• Just ignore the Bitrate field and the high and low qual­ity selec­tors. The bitrate of the com­pressed files will be "Lossless" no mat­ter the com­pres­sion (5/8) level used.
• Check if the set­tings on the ID3 Tag tab page match the set­tings of the screen­shot below.

Select OK to save the set­tings. Continue read­ing at Saving the com­pres­sion options to a pro­file

Monkey's Audio

The first thing you need to do is get Monkey's Audio. You will also need wapet. The Monkey's Audio for­mat sup­ports the so-called APEv2 tags but the com­mand line encoder doesn't. Therefore, we point EAC to wapet which does sup­port APEv2 tags and, which on its turn, points to the Monkey's Audio compressor.

• You'll have to down­load and install the full Monkey's Audio Windows suite. When that's done you'll find the com­mand line encoder mac.exe in the Monkey's Audio instal­la­tion folder (default: C:\Program Files\Monkey's Audio\). Copy and paste it to C:\Program Files\Exact Audio Copy\
• Extract the wapet.exe to C:\Program Files\Exact Audio Copy\
• Back in EAC set Use file exten­sion to .ape (includ­ing the dot in front). Next we need to set the path to the wapet executable.
• If you stored it in the rec­om­mended loca­tion, you can just copy and paste C:\Program Files\Exact Audio Copy\wapet.exe
• Further set the last four options on the tab as shown in the screen­shot below.

On the External Compression tab enter one of fol­low­ing com­mand lines in the Additional com­mand line options input field:

• %d -t "Artist=%a" -t "Title=%t" -t "Album=%g" -t "Year=%y" -t "Track=%n" -t "Genre=%m" mac.exe %s %d -c2000 -v

• %d -t "Artist=%a" -t "Title=%t" -t "Album=%g" -t "Year=%y" -t "Track=%n" -t "Genre=%m" mac.exe %s %d -c3000 -v

• %d -t "Artist=%a" -t "Title=%t" -t "Album=%g" -t "Year=%y" -t "Track=%n" -t "Genre=%m" mac.exe %s %d -c4000 -v

• Just ignore the Bit rate field and the high and low qual­ity selectors.
• Check if the set­tings on the ID3 Tag tab page match the set­tings of the screen­shot below.

Select OK to save the set­tings. Continue read­ing at Saving the com­pres­sion options to a pro­file

Ogg Vorbis

The first thing you need to do is get Ogg Vorbis.

• Open the down­loaded zip file. Extract the oggenc2.exe file to the EAC instal­la­tion path. (default: C:\Program Files\Exact Audio Copy\)
• Back in EAC set 'Use file exten­sion' to .ogg (includ­ing the dot in front). Next we need to set the path to the OGG executable.
• If you stored it in the rec­om­mended loca­tion, you can just copy and paste C:\Program Files\Exact Audio Copy\oggenc2.exe.
• Further set the last four options on the tab as shown in the screen­shot below.

On the External Compression tab enter one of fol­low­ing com­mand lines in the Additional com­mand line options input field:

• -q6 -a "%a" -t "%t" -l "%g" -d "%y" -N "%n" -G "%m" %s

• -q8 -a "%a" -t "%t" -l "%g" -d "%y" -N "%n" -G "%m" %s

• -q10 -a "%a" -t "%t" -l "%g" -d "%y" -N "%n" -G "%m" %s

• Just ignore the Bit rate field and the high and low qual­ity selectors.
• Check if the set­tings on the ID3 Tag tab page match the set­tings of the screen­shot below.

Select OK to save the set­tings. Continue read­ing at Saving the com­pres­sion options to a pro­file

Saving the com­pres­sion options to a profile

You've just set the options for your pre­ferred encoder and now it's time to save that con­fig­u­ra­tion to it's very own pro­file so you don't have to go that setup again. This is espe­cially con­ve­nient if you want to use sev­eral dif­fer­ent encoders because each time you change the com­pres­sion options in EAC the old set­tings will be lost. You can use one of two ways to cre­ate your new profile(s). 1st Method

• Press Shift+F2

• Enter a name for the pro­file. I sug­gest nam­ing it after whichever encoder it is con­fig­ured for. That way, there will be no con­fu­sion on which is which later down the road.

• Now choose a save loca­tion. There is a Profiles folder in EAC's default instal­la­tion folder. (C:\Program Files\Exact Audio Copy\Profiles\)

2nd Method

• In the sta­tus bar on the bot­tom of the EAC main win­dow you'll notice

Load, Save, New and Delete but­tons. With these but­tons you can man­age pro­files in EAC.

• Select the New but­ton. Provide a name for the pro­file, check All Compression options and select OK. You've cre­ated and auto­mat­i­cally saved your pro­file to C:\Program Files\Exact Audio Copy\Profiles\.

Your new pro­file should now be added to the drop­down box on the left of the but­tons. If you have sev­eral pro­files in the list you can switch between those by select­ing one from the list and select­ing the Load but­ton. The sec­ond method is the bet­ter of the two for it's sim­plic­ity and time sav­ing effec­tive­ness. You may now con­tinue set­ting another com­pres­sor or another pro­file, or you can start using EAC.

2. Using EAC

Insert the cd you want to rip in your cd-rom and wait for EAC to request the cd infor­ma­tion in the online freedb data­base. Verify the titles because the infor­ma­tion is sent in by vol­un­teers to freedb and often con­tains typos.

Ripping an audio cd

This is the most com­mon used extrac­tion method. Repeat this process each time you rip a disc.

• Select only the wanted tracks, or none at all if you wish to rip the entire disc.
• Press F4. EAC will now detect the gaps between tracks of the entire disc and shouldn't take very long.

• Create a CUE Sheet by select­ing Action > Create CUE Sheet > Multiple WAV Files With Gaps… (Noncompliant) from the menu bar.
• Save the .cue in the same folder you plan to save the com­pressed files in.

• Press Shift+F6. The folder that you saved the .cue in should be show­ing at this point.
• Select Save if this is the loca­tion where you indeed want to save the com­pressed files.

EAC will now start the extrac­tion process. It will test read each track for errors and then read, copy and then com­press the track using the exter­nal com­pres­sor. You will see another pop up dur­ing extrac­tion. This is the exter­nal com­pres­sor encod­ing the file. It looks just like the win­dow you get by click­ing Start > Run and typ­ing cmd. Do not close this win­dow! It will open and close as it begins and fin­ishes the com­pres­sion, respec­tively. During extrac­tion you'll some­times notice red dots light­ing up in the extrac­tion dia­log win­dow and after the extrac­tion com­pleted you get a log with things like Peak Level and Track Quality. When a Read Error or Sync Error occurs, there's an uncor­rectable error in the read audio data. After extrac­tion you'll get a list of the exact loca­tions of the sus­pi­cious positions.

EAC has now com­pleted the extrac­tion process.

• Click OK. Do not close EAC because the exter­nal com­pres­sion quite pos­si­bly be a track or two behind the extrac­tion process. Be sure all encod­ing is fin­ished before exit­ing EAC. Open the folder where you saved the com­pressed files. There will be a .log file. This file con­tains infor­ma­tion such as the out­put for­mat, the com­mand line which was used, pre-gap lengths, peak lev­els, track qual­ity, CRC check­sums, and any errors that occurred dur­ing the extrac­tion. You may want to com­pare the CRC check­sums in the .log to the ones listed in EAC to make sure they actu­ally do match. In the same folder, there should be an .m3u playlist which you can drop into the player of your choice and it will load all of the tracks for you. Congratulations! You've just made a proper rip.