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Rspaight
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Postby Rspaight » Fri Jan 20, 2006 8:44 am

COLA, have you tried Max? It's a frontend for cdparanoia and numerous other things (LAME, Flac, OGG, WAV, all the QuickTime formats, etc.). The cool thing about it is that it's multithreaded, so it rips tracks in one thread while compressing them in another (even compressing multiple tracks simultaneously), which makes it gobs faster than EAC on comparable hardware.

The thing that makes me, er, paranoid about cdparanoia is that I've heard several times that it lets errors through that EAC catches. Am I being too picky?

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Postby David R. Modny » Fri Jan 20, 2006 1:49 pm

Crummy Old Label Avatar wrote: I don't see the point of .cue sheets anyway. Why have an entire CD in one large file anyway?


Well, it's not really a large file anymore after the index points have been put in place - courtesy of the cue sheet. As noted, for us PC folks it's the easiest and simplest way to get an *exact* clone on CDR of an original CD with all the gaps correct and the subindex points where they should be. A perfect replica of the original.

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Postby lukpac » Fri Jan 20, 2006 2:03 pm

Crummy Old Label Avatar wrote:Why have an entire CD in one large file anyway?


Well...if you're making a straight copy, why *wouldn't* you want one big file? I'd much rather have one audio file and one index file per CD on my hard drive than 15 audio files plus an index file.
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Postby Andreas » Fri Jan 20, 2006 2:56 pm

Uhm....why is it so important to have exact clones? We are able to copy the digital content exactly without using cue sheets...isn't that enough? (I am ignoring the rare issue of pre-emphasis here.)

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Postby lukpac » Fri Jan 20, 2006 2:58 pm

Andreas wrote:Uhm....why is it so important to have exact clones? We are able to copy the digital content exactly without using cue sheets...isn't that enough? (I am ignoring the rare issue of pre-emphasis here.)


Some of us are anal and like the indexes to be exact.

Of course, I don't care too much about offsets.

Even though I have them set up correctly in EAC (at least I think I do).
"I know because it is impossible for a tape to hold the compression levels of these treble boosted MFSL's like Something/Anything. The metal particulate on the tape would shatter and all you'd hear is distortion if even that." - VD

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Postby David R. Modny » Fri Jan 20, 2006 3:10 pm


Some of us are anal and like the indexes to be exact.


Exactly.

Of course, I don't care too much about offsets.

Even though I have them set up correctly in EAC (at least I think I do).


I'm not a big worry wart on offsets either. It only really becomes an issue if you're duping or treeing a disc over and over again - like, say, on a Grateful Dead tree. At a certain point, the cumulative offset error *could* start to be a problem.
Last edited by David R. Modny on Fri Jan 20, 2006 3:22 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Postby lukpac » Fri Jan 20, 2006 3:18 pm

Or if you have something with goes right to one end of a disc. I once burned a CD where the last track didn't have any extra silence at the end of it. The fade went right to the end of the track. When I made a copy, the very end of the fade got cut.

Although...that was with the offsets set (seemingly) correctly. So I guess you need to watch out even then.
"I know because it is impossible for a tape to hold the compression levels of these treble boosted MFSL's like Something/Anything. The metal particulate on the tape would shatter and all you'd hear is distortion if even that." - VD

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Postby Andreas » Fri Jan 20, 2006 4:34 pm

Thanks for the replies, I guess in this case, I am not anal enough. (Quietly leaving thread.)

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Postby Crummy Old Label Avatar » Fri Jan 20, 2006 4:47 pm

Rspaight wrote:COLA, have you tried Max? It's a frontend for cdparanoia and numerous other things (LAME, Flac, OGG, WAV, all the QuickTime formats, etc.). The cool thing about it is that it's multithreaded, so it rips tracks in one thread while compressing them in another (even compressing multiple tracks simultaneously), which makes it gobs faster than EAC on comparable hardware.

The thing that makes me, er, paranoid about cdparanoia is that I've heard several times that it lets errors through that EAC catches. Am I being too picky?

Ryan


I'll check out Max. Thanks!

There is a new, secure ripper for OS X called Pyripper. I haven't yet tried it (just downloaded it, though). It's command-line-only at the moment:

http://www.gentoolinux.demon.nl

The flaw with the cdparanoia lib is that it doesn't cope very well with drives that cache audio. The designer apparently hasn't updated the lib in years and has no interest in doing so. From what I've garnered at Hydrogen Audio, you need to test your drive and make sure that it is providing secure rips. To do this, extract a few tracks from a CD and then create .md5 checksum files for each individual wave file (checkSum+ is a nice free app for this purpose).

Now re-rip the same tracks and use the .md5 files you already created on those. If they match (no errors), then you have no worries; you are getting consistent rips. If they don't match, then the drive is not playing nice with cdparanoia.

Hydrogen Audio thead is here

I'm not anal enough either, but then I believe technology has rendered these concerns obsolete. I suppose some still have a burning desire for precise indexes and gaps, but ever since I started ripping my collection losslessly and using HDs as the transport, I don't give a damn about CDs anymore. At this point, they just seem ridiculously clunky and quaint to me.
Last edited by Crummy Old Label Avatar on Fri Jan 20, 2006 4:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby lukpac » Fri Jan 20, 2006 4:51 pm

Crummy Old Label Avatar wrote:There is a new, secure ripper for OS X called Pyripper. I haven't yet tried it (just downloaded it, though). It's command-line-only at the moment:

http://www.gentoolinux.demon.nl

The flaw with the cdparanoia lib is that it doesn't cope very well with drives that cache audio. The designer apparently hasn't updated the lib in years and has no interest in doing so. From what I've garnered at Hydrogen Audio, you need to test your drive and make sure that it is providing secure rips. To do this, extract a few tracks from a CD and then create .md5 checksum files for each individual wave file (checkSum+ is a nice free app for this purpose).

Now re-rip the same tracks and use the .md5 files you already created on those. If they match (no errors), then you have no worries; you are getting consistent rips. If they don't match, then the drive is not playing nice with cdparanoia.

Hydrogen Audio thead is here


Hmm. That should only be a problem if your drive doesn't do an accurate read (do any *not* do that these days?) or if you disc has a lot of errors. That is to say, it probably isn't an issue for most discs and drives.

I suppose some still have a need for precise indexes and gaps, but ever since I started ripping my collection losslessly and using HDs as the transport, I don't give a damn about CDs anymore. At this point, they just seem ridiculously clunky and quaint to me.


I guess I'm behind the times. Between listening in the car, bringing things to work and burning CDs for others, I've been using CDs as much as ever these days.
"I know because it is impossible for a tape to hold the compression levels of these treble boosted MFSL's like Something/Anything. The metal particulate on the tape would shatter and all you'd hear is distortion if even that." - VD

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Postby Crummy Old Label Avatar » Fri Jan 20, 2006 5:03 pm

CD-R, iPods, FLAC, HD.... It's just data that one can move around at will and use as he or she wishes. That's all fine. Life's too short to care about a 1.467 second gap vs. a 1.358 second gap. But then that's just me, I guess. Is this really a huge problem, though? Seems that EAC and cdparanoia (and even Toast, for that matter) have no problem extracting individual tracks properly -- including those that segue into each other gaplessly).

But then I figure the majority of (downloading) people nowadays are more than likely using iPods/iTunes/whathaveyou, at least some of the time. That's why I think offering a single huge WAV file for downloading is just going to be a pain for a lot of people.
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Postby lukpac » Fri Jan 20, 2006 5:10 pm

The biggest problem with "Copy" in Toast is that it ignores pauses. So instead of, say, a minute of stage banter before a live track, it's actually tacked on the end of the previous track upon copy. Not huge, but it bugs me.
"I know because it is impossible for a tape to hold the compression levels of these treble boosted MFSL's like Something/Anything. The metal particulate on the tape would shatter and all you'd hear is distortion if even that." - VD

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Postby Crummy Old Label Avatar » Fri Jan 20, 2006 5:25 pm

That's also why I don't use the Toast ripper. cdda2wav/cdparanoia extracts correctly. Which app do you use to rip?

I've NEVER had a problem with cdda2wav/cdparanoia frontends. It seems to be a prominent internet myth that EAC = infallible and all else is suspect. When I still had my Windows machine, EAC let pass a couple of fucked up tracks (complete with audible clicks) that cdda2wav caught each and every time (and I was using the same Plextor firewire drive on both machines). Yeah, I'd say EAC works well 99.999% of the time, but so does cdparanoia.

If you're on Mac and want to do this with a minimum amount of fuss and not have to bother with command lines, I'd just recommend that one download xAct and be done with it. It's free, easy and works very well.

OH, one thing that DOES bug the hell out of me: why does cdda2wav/cdparanoia ALWAYS reverse the channels if you rip to AIFF???? Sure, you can use the -c s command to put things right, but why should you have to do that in the first place? If you output to WAV, everything is fine. Every single app -- Missing Media Burner, xAct, etc. -- does this. I've never understood why.
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Postby lukpac » Fri Jan 20, 2006 5:32 pm

Keep in mind all audio stuff I do on the Mac is in OS 9. I've got too much that doesn't run in X that's either free or...well, you get the picture.

I use Astarte CD-Copy to copy. Seems to work well, even though it's ancient. Preserves the pauses correctly.

EAC probably isn't necessary for 99.95% of discs. Not sure about drives, but it probably isn't necessary for most of those either. Of course, it's more of an issue of "it works, and works well, why not use it?" On the PC anyway.
"I know because it is impossible for a tape to hold the compression levels of these treble boosted MFSL's like Something/Anything. The metal particulate on the tape would shatter and all you'd hear is distortion if even that." - VD

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Postby Crummy Old Label Avatar » Fri Jan 20, 2006 5:41 pm

I'm assuming the ripper in Toast 7 (I'm still using Toast 6) is identical to all previous versions? I don't know why they just can't have Toast output the pauses correctly. After all, Toast makes fine SDII files. The correct info is all there (just throw the resulting SDII file into Peak, if you want to take a look at it), so why does Toast do screwy things when outputting the individual files? So stupid, these Roxio designer dweebs.

I've been complaining to Roxio about this since Toast 5. They don't seem to think it's a problem. Go figure.
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