Topic: Rip CD's directly to FLAC?

[lsd2525]

SSIA. Anyone recommend a free or cheap piece of software that will rip CD's directly to FLAC? Thank in advance for any suggestions.

[Gutbucket]

I still use the old gold-standard, EAC- Exact Audio Copy, set to output FLACs and save a txt report confirming the bit-perfect copy (or not).

[lsd2525]

Wow. Been so long since I've used EAC I didn't know it outputted to FLAC. That's even better.

Installed a new car stereo in GF's car yesterday. Thing plays FLAC's and every other file structure known to man, but doesn't have a CD player:) Should be able to put an assload of CD's on a 32g thumb drive.......

[Fatah Ruark (aka MIKE B)]

Second vote on EAC. Here is a good guide on setting it up to get the best rips.

http://wiki.slimdevices.com/index.php/Beginners_guide_to_EAC

It will take a little longer to rip each disc after you set it up correctly but you'll get accurate rips so you won't have to do any over.

[lsd2525]

I used to use EAC a lot back in the day, but really only to rip to wav files and reburn to CD. Hope it runs on Win 10

[rocksuitcase]

I've used Windows Media player to do this to go straight to mp3. It won't output to flac.
If interested, the path in WMP is: have disc in drive| open program | select burn |  in Tools->Options-> rip music| Format -> select mp3.   need to set output folder of course.

I still use EAC if I wish to go straight to flac like the others above.

[lsd2525]

EAC good at importing album and track names and such? Will be killer if this happens automatically

[swordfish]

I still use the old gold-standard, EAC- Exact Audio Copy, set to output FLACs and save a txt report confirming the bit-perfect copy (or not).

+1

[Brian Skalinder]

EAC good at importing album and track names and such? Will be killer if this happens automatically

Before you rip, you can use EAC to query freedb and capture metadata like artist, album, track names, etc.  Of course, this only works if the disc you're ripping exists in the freedb database.  But IME it works for all but the most obscure artists / albums.  Initiating the query isn't automatic -- it takes a single keystroke (alt-G) -- but if the disc is found in freedb, the population of all the metadata is automatic.

If you're ripping live recordings, this probably won't work.

[lsd2525]

Thanks. Most of these are regular commercial disks. Will be interesting to see how the JVC plays with the data. I also took a look at dBpoweramp. That looks interesting for a bulk job like I'm looking at. Anyone have any experence?

[Brian Skalinder]

I've used dbpoweramp, too.  And foobar2000.  They're both great.  That said, I think it's most efficient to capture the metadata while ripping, rather than a separate process after the fact.  But I have to admit I've never ripped from EAC directly to FLAC, so I can't say with certainty the FLAC files will include the metadata.  I'd be surprised if they didn't, but...I haven't confirmed.  Definitely worth a short test before you get rolling in earnest.

[Fatah Ruark (aka MIKE B)]

If you run into a disc that isn't in the freedb database, please take the time to label it all correctly manually and then submit it to the database. At the most this will take you an extra minute and then the next person won't have that issue.

As Brian said, it's mainly going to be obscure CD's. I mostly found issues ripping local bands CD's, but then all you have to do is label them yourself in EAC.

[if_then_else]

I've used dbpoweramp, too.  And foobar2000.  They're both great.  That said, I think it's most efficient to capture the metadata while ripping, rather than a separate process after the fact.  But I have to admit I've never ripped from EAC directly to FLAC, so I can't say with certainty the FLAC files will include the metadata.  I'd be surprised if they didn't, but...I haven't confirmed.  Definitely worth a short test before you get rolling in earnest.

There's a great tutorial for ripping CDs to FLAC (incl. metadata) on http://www.audiohq.de/viewtopic.php?id=47.
Unfortunately, it's only available in German - but the screenshots are self-explanatory.

FWIW: EAC can also use CDTEXT information (i.e. if your CD drive supports CDTEXT) to embed the corresponding metadata respectively to name the resulting FLAC files.