Version 0.99 prebeta 5 is an outdated version of EAC. Among other things, it does not support unicode track titles, and the preset freedb configuration does not work as freedb has been shut down by it's owner, Magix. I do not recommend to use this version any longer, but will leave it here for reference. I now recommend to use the current Exact Audio Copy v1.5.
EAC is the best audio grabber, but installation and configuration is somewhat tricky. I have the following requirements:
With EAC, the scripting extension REACT, and proper configuration, all of the above can be achieved with only 2 mouse clicks per CD, as long as CD or track title do not need to be modified.
Download and install Foobar2000.
Make sure that the user account they are logged in has read+write permissions for the following folders:
The configuration below was first tested on my English Windows XP SP3 environment, and then migrated to Windows 7 Ultimate (Home Premium should work the same way). It was set up to grab audio tracks in flac and mp3. Other formats would work as well, but with limited functionality.
After installing EAC, run EAC (without REACT) first to configure your basic settings including CD reader. Go through the procedure of determining wether your CD reader can provide proper CR2 error feedback. To do this, copy a CD to a new disk and scratch this disk with a few scratches. If the CD reader can provide proper CR2 feedback, then EAC will detect a faulty CD within a few seconds, but will not detect any scratches on the original of the same CD.
After EAC has been properly configured, run REACT and configure EAC for REACT (type Ctrl-F2). After this has been done, some settings of EAC have been reset to default values to work well with REACT. Do not change these settings, as only with these default settings the scripting interface will work properly, even if it's possible to change some of the settings. It is important that the reset naming convention for tracknames remains at the default setting, including the name for compilation CDs, which defaults to “Various Artists”. If you change any of these, REACT will not work properly!
When properly configured as below, the Album Art Downloader is invoked when F4 is pressed in REACT. From 15 sources all matchable cover arts are fetched, after which you need to select one by right clicking the image and selecting “Save”. Do not save to any specific path, selecting save will save to the configured temporary album art path (D:\My Music), the REACT script will later copy the album art to the music folder.
The predefined settings for replay gain calculation would not work, also, the program Glob.exe necessary in the REACT default configuration file is not installed. Please refer to my configuration file examples to obtain a working replay gain calculation.
Note that replay gain can be done in 2 different ways. Either as a volume offset in the meta tags (supported by SqueezeCenter and Foobar2000) or by recoding the music track. I prefer the first which leaves the original music track, which you can find in the enclosed settings.
Note: ReplayGain is great for a music compilation of pop and rock, specially when you love to hear your music managed by playlists. But it is not recommended for classical music. Set ReplayGain=1 in REACT.ini before you rip classical music.
REACT can be configured through a ini file and a cfg file. The ini file contains the necessary modifications to grab the CD to a wave file (default EAC behaviour), convert the wav to flac and mp3, and then delete the wav file. Before grabbing, album art downloader is initiated, and the respective album art is saved to the music folder and automatically embedded into the track files. The cmd file is saved with extension cfg and is a batch file. The only thing I modified is saving the log file to the music folder, but other changes are possible, too.
The files provided here work with the setup as described in this post. You can also try to load my profile for EAC, but then need to rerun the CD reader detection, and might need to reset the file path settings.
Note: I did not modify EAC's default path to the temporary music folder (D:\My Music). REACT will delete all files created during the process, as long as the REACT process was properly completed. If you interrupt the script, you need to delete these files manually. You need to modify the music folder path for the permanent storage to your server or drive you are using. To do this, modify the 2 keys, CoverDownloaderLocalPath and OutRoot in REACT.ini. For your reference, my setting in the enclosed sample settings files are M:\EAC.
I prefer to have all music files in one directory for multiple CD albums, rather than having them split into different album names. This needs some editing of the CD album name before ripping. In addition, you need to rename the music files after ripping of each CD to keep control of the different CDs within SqueezeCenter and iPod.
Since REACT does not provide a possibility to do this automatically, I wrote a small utility which does this job automatically. To use it, download and unzip cdnum. Update the path name in the registry file to point to the path where cdnum.exe was saved, and where to find the LAME and FLAC encoding executables, then enter the registry information to your registry.
Follow the following steps to grab a multi CD album:
Since REACT does not provide a possibility to encode wav files directly, I wrote a small utility which does this job automatically. To use it, download and unzip wavcode. Update the path names in the registry file to point to the path where wavcode.exe was saved, and where to find the LAME and FLAC encoding executables, then enter the registry information to your registry.
Install Foobar2000 on your computer. It plays flac and mp3 files, and gives you comprehensive meta tag information on both formats.