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Gear / Technical Help => Post-Processing, Computer / Streaming / Internet Devices & Related Activity => Topic started by: scb on September 29, 2010, 04:09:13 PM
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xACT 2.0
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/14246/xact
-rewritten entirely from scratch in Objective C
-many bug fixes
-updated UI, new icons
-added auto-update via Sparkle
-multithreaded - can execute multiple tasks at once (see application preferences to set the number of threads). Dock icon will show number of tasks in queue.
-can cancel tasks already in progress
-progress bars for most tasks
-option to specify the format of custom "by disc" and "fileset" shntool len output text (see application preferences)
-tags tab can now tag FLAC and M4A (aac, Apple Lossless) files
-converting flac > Apple Lossless will now copy Flac tags to the Apple Lossless files
-splitting tracks from a CUE sheet will now rename tracks based on TITLE info in the cue sheet
-updated shntool to 3.0.10
-updated wavpack to 4.60.1
-updated ttaenc to 3.4.1
-updated cdda2wav to 3.0
-"fix" option will now process files even if they need no fixing
-user can drop a directory on a file list or dock icon to process all of the known file types in the directory and subdirectories
-added shntool "pad" and "strip" functions
-added ability to add or remove Flac Replay Gain (Util tab)
-added ability to trim characters from beginning or end of lines when entering track names
-Checksum files can be saved in source directory.
- Requires Mac OS X 10.6 or higher and Intel processor
huge thanks to greenone for helping test
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:coolguy:
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I love this release...multithreading is absolutely huge. And thanks to Scott for tolerating my constant pesters for the ability to custom-format the shntool len output. ;D
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thanks to dave for telling me all the ways i screwed things up :)
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the ability to custom-format the shntool len output.
This is great although I have to admit I was hoping for the ability to leave off the milliseconds as my track markers are always placed on the second. So I'll still have to go and delete the ":00" by hand but I'm happy now I won't have to add the [brackets] by hand!
(i.e. 1:00 vs. 1:00:00)
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the ability to custom-format the shntool len output.
This is great although I have to admit I was hoping for the ability to leave off the milliseconds as my track markers are always placed on the second.
(i.e. 1:00 vs. 1:00:00)
really? that always works out for you?
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really? that always works out for you?
Yes. I've been processing this way for ~ 5 years now and I've never a problem with it. I use Sound Studio, set the grid to 1 second, snap to grid, and add markers. The tracks always align on sector boundaries (since each second is on a boundary) so I eliminate that step as well.
I realize this is probably too highly specialized of an issue for you to deal with so that's why I never mentioned it. I'd be seriously surprised if anyone else processed shows the way I do even though I've posted about it before. It's the absolute quickest and easiest workflow I've ever used.
I still do greatly appreciate your time and energy that you put into this software!
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it works even for bands that do a lot of songs flowing into each other? you never have a track split that seems a half second too soon or too late?
it's not a hard thing to implement. I just never thought of doing it...
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- Requires Mac OS X 10.6 or higher and Intel processor
damn... :(
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- Requires Mac OS X 10.6 or higher and Intel processor
damn... :(
sorry. some of the things I used in the code are 10.6 only...
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Great stuff - a great program becomes even better - the multithreading is sweet!
many thanks for all your hard work.
cb
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Awesome!
as usual
xACT Rocks!
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Definitely faster, and it now converts the FLAC tags to MP3s completey (used to chop off longer titles).... Also love the "Queue" that it shows now so one knows how much progress has been made. Thanks so much!
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I've personally never worried about SBE & don't know that I'd notice a CD plagued by it. 1/75th of a second? I say meh :)
Used xact 2.0 for the first time the other day to rip flac24->mp3 for someone at work. Freaking awesome stuff Scott!
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I've personally never worried about SBE & don't know that I'd notice a CD plagued by it. 1/75th of a second? I say meh :)
Used xact 2.0 for the first time the other day to rip flac24->mp3 for someone at work. Freaking awesome stuff Scott!
Blasphemy! And blasphemy again! Time to turn in your lossless audio badge and gun, sir. :P
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Thanks, Scott!
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I've personally never worried about SBE & don't know that I'd notice a CD plagued by it. 1/75th of a second? I say meh :)
Used xact 2.0 for the first time the other day to rip flac24->mp3 for someone at work. Freaking awesome stuff Scott!
Blasphemy! And blasphemy again! Time to turn in your lossless audio badge and gun, sir. :P
Yeah, but I mean who really has the time to try and explain lossless audio & all things not-iTunes to a marketing person? :P
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joMgeXLJ0lc (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joMgeXLJ0lc)
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I've personally never worried about SBE & don't know that I'd notice a CD plagued by it. 1/75th of a second? I say meh :)
Used xact 2.0 for the first time the other day to rip flac24->mp3 for someone at work. Freaking awesome stuff Scott!
it all depends on your player. some players make an audible click between tracks if they're not cut on sector boundaries. you'd notice that...
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I've personally never worried about SBE & don't know that I'd notice a CD plagued by it. 1/75th of a second? I say meh :)
Used xact 2.0 for the first time the other day to rip flac24->mp3 for someone at work. Freaking awesome stuff Scott!
it all depends on your player. some players make an audible click between tracks if they're not cut on sector boundaries. you'd notice that...
True that. Both my work computer and the stereo in my truck make the audible click if I somehow miss and sbe. I use the "snap to" function in Audacity now, though, so no sbe problem any longer either way. Still always check for sbe just out of habit.
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- Requires Mac OS X 10.6 or higher and Intel processor
Yeah yeah yeah. . . I'm building an intel Hackintosh, so I'll get to enjoy 2.0 soon enough. :'(
I've personally never worried about SBE & don't know that I'd notice a CD plagued by it. 1/75th of a second? I say meh :)
Oh, you WOULD notice if you heard one.
it all depends on your player. some players make an audible click between tracks if they're not cut on sector boundaries. you'd notice that...
I always thought it depended more on the burning software. I've never once noticed an SBE with orangebook CD's burned in Toast.
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Toast automatically fixes errors when burning and has for years. but it'll also pad the last track with zeros
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http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/14246/xact
link seems to be dead, does anyone have a better link? thanks
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i just put in a new update in the past 5 minutes. maybe they took it down?
i'll PM you
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- Requires Mac OS X 10.6 or higher and Intel processor
damn... :(
my thoughts as well...........................
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Toast automatically fixes errors when burning and has for years. but it'll also pad the last track with zeros
Ok, that makes perfect sense. Then you just have to watch out for the SBE at each disc change of a ripped fileset burnt with toast. That would be the only place it would be noticeable. Point being, it's easy enough to use xACT to do the job on the whole fileset at once! ;D
edit italicized
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thanks to the developper
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I just noticed 2 things (xACT 2.06):
1. When encoding to FLAC and with the "Delete original files" box checked, the files are actually deleted completely from the hard drive. In previous versions the files would just be moved to the Trash Bin. Is it possible to change this back so it just moves the files to the Trash Bin?
2. It says "Delete original files after decode" on both the decode and encode tabs.
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I just noticed 2 things (xACT 2.06):
1. When encoding to FLAC and with the "Delete original files" box checked, the files are actually deleted completely from the hard drive.
In previous versions the files would just be moved to the Trash Bin.
Is it possible to change this back so it just moves the files to the Trash Bin?
I kind of like that feature myself
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I just noticed 2 things (xACT 2.06):
1. When encoding to FLAC and with the "Delete original files" box checked, the files are actually deleted completely from the hard drive.
In previous versions the files would just be moved to the Trash Bin.
Is it possible to change this back so it just moves the files to the Trash Bin?
I kind of like that feature myself
Fair enough. I can understand why. I was just used to the old way and the built in "idiot proofing"....I guess I just need to be more careful!
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I just noticed 2 things (xACT 2.06):
1. When encoding to FLAC and with the "Delete original files" box checked, the files are actually deleted completely from the hard drive. In previous versions the files would just be moved to the Trash Bin. Is it possible to change this back so it just moves the files to the Trash Bin?
Just going from memory here, but I think that was a really old version that just moved files to the trash. I had a bunch of people complain that they thought files were being deleted when they were just in the trash. They bitched at me saying I was killing their hard drive space. So I changed it to delete the files.
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It was like that in 1.69 for sure. I think that may have been the most recent version I was using until I upgraded to 2.0.
I guess you aren't going to change it back which is fine...I'll deal with it. But I don't see how someone could not know the files were going to the Trash Bin. It even made the sound effect when it happened. "killing their hard drive space" ??? :lol: That's a little dramatic...
Thanks for your reply about this though!
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you're right...1.69 moved to the trash
I guess I'll at least put the warning "are you sure?" message back in when you have the delete option checked
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Scott, is source code available? I kinda want to see if I can compile in linux just for giggles.
In all likelihood, I'll play around for an hour or 2, get all pissed off and scrap the idea.
But I still usually learn a thing or 2 in the process. ;D
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it relies heavily on os x stuff. I don't know how you'd get it working in linux without just starting from scratch
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Gotcha. Thanks though.
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you're right...1.69 moved to the trash
I guess I'll at least put the warning "are you sure?" message back in when you have the delete option checked
I think even 1.71 moved 'em to the trash.
Yeah, the "are you sure" seems a little annoying, but I'd rather be safe. I guess you could make it a preference, to ask or not, but that's more work too.
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"yes" would be the default, so a quick hit of enter/return will proceed
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I was hoping for a feature that parses the txt file, adding tracknumber, artist, date, song to the flac fileset. also has the ability to add/create other tags like album and comment. the ability to edit/create tags and to add album/cover art automatically (if the proper sized jpg was present in the folder) would be sweet, too.
thx for asking.
There is already a feature 'Load track names from file' located in the File Menu.
this option ("load track names from file") is greyed out. what am i doing wrong..? (v 2.20)
thx.
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it's only relevant to the filenames window, so it's only active when that window is open
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I am confused. what is the file names window?
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is there a way to generate .ffp from the fix sbe tab??
I know you can generate from the encode tab and that you can generate .md5 from fix sbe
not that it takes more then 30 sec to do but sometimes i'm lazy
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I am confused. what is the file names window?
the one you enter track names in (from the shntool len "names" button, or the "autoname" checkbox on the tags tab)
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is there a way to generate .ffp from the fix sbe tab??
I know you can generate from the encode tab and that you can generate .md5 from fix sbe
not that it takes more then 30 sec to do but sometimes i'm lazy
I can add that
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is there a way to generate .ffp from the fix sbe tab??
I know you can generate from the encode tab and that you can generate .md5 from fix sbe
not that it takes more then 30 sec to do but sometimes i'm lazy
I can add that
had a little time yesterday to do this. I can probably give you a version to test this weekend
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is there a way to generate .ffp from the fix sbe tab??
I know you can generate from the encode tab and that you can generate .md5 from fix sbe
not that it takes more then 30 sec to do but sometimes i'm lazy
I can add that
had a little time yesterday to do this. I can probably give you a version to test this weekend
Cool
Thanks
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thx again for the program-it makes what we do very easy on the apple platform...
three requests, if i may be so bold...
1-can you make it so the checksums can be done recursively..? tlh does this, for example. I ask because when doing four channels with the r-44, the machine names ch1-2 wav "1" and ch 3-4 wav "2" and then puts these into directories; every time the wav splits at 2gigs, the r-44 creates a new directory, and drops the 1.wav and 2.wav files in. when recording two sets at 24/96, this makes at least four directories. so I then have to make st5 files four+ times from the card on the r-44, and then check each one seperately from the hard drive. if the checksums were made recursively, I could make one checksum (dragging all pjt dirs in at once), save it to the parent dir on the hd, and the just run that same checksum once to check the transfer went correctly. I tried doing this, but all the checksums showed the same, so I think it just ran the first set of wavs four times...
2-is there a way to add replaygain for 24 bit files? I get an error when I try to add replaygain to those files now...
3-is there a way to view tags, and subsequently add/edit them..?
thanks so much for reading. like I said, the program is an indespensible tool for the apple platform.
now, if I can just find a way to make my txt files format line returns properly, without having to open them on windows wordpad and then saving, i would be done with windows forever...
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3-is there a way to view tags, and subsequently add/edit them..?
Select the tags tab and drop a file in the area there, the tags show up (at least it does on mine; v2.21)
now, if I can just find a way to make my txt files format line returns properly, without having to open them on windows wordpad and then saving, i would be done with windows forever...
look into a converter app. You're not the first person to run into that.
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3-is there a way to view tags, and subsequently add/edit them..?
Select the tags tab and drop a file in the area there, the tags show up (at least it does on mine; v2.21)
now, if I can just find a way to make my txt files format line returns properly, without having to open them on windows wordpad and then saving, i would be done with windows forever...
look into a converter app. You're not the first person to run into that.
Textedit works fine with a twist. If you start from scratch it wants you to save as rtf, but if you open a txt you can rename it etc. and it will still stay txt. So I just open the last one I used, make changes, rename and it works fine. LMA never recognized my MS Office txt files, but ones made this way work perfectly.
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goto textedit prefs and you can change it to save as .txt (plain text) instead of .rtf (rich)
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goto textedit prefs and you can change it to save as .txt (plain text) instead of .rtf (rich)
i have done this, but it still doesn't fix the line return issue...
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goto textedit prefs and you can change it to save as .txt (plain text) instead of .rtf (rich)
Good to know, thanks!
goto textedit prefs and you can change it to save as .txt (plain text) instead of .rtf (rich)
i have done this, but it still doesn't fix the line return issue...
My workaround should still work though. It actually makes life a little easier in a way, since I don't have to recreate the overall layout or source and lineage info. Just open one that you know uses correct returns, and that LMA recognizes for importing the metadata and edit.
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I get it, and thanks. And I have done this in the past. this issue affects the checksums made by xact, too (which is why I mentioned it in this thread). i wish there was a setting somewhere in osx to properly rectify this in both this program and textedit, but I guess there isn't. Thx for the suggested workaround-I will implement it more frequently, as it seems to be the only option atm.
+t
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thx again for the program-it makes what we do very easy on the apple platform...
three requests, if i may be so bold...
1-can you make it so the checksums can be done recursively..? tlh does this, for example. I ask because when doing four channels with the r-44, the machine names ch1-2 wav "1" and ch 3-4 wav "2" and then puts these into directories; every time the wav splits at 2gigs, the r-44 creates a new directory, and drops the 1.wav and 2.wav files in. when recording two sets at 24/96, this makes at least four directories. so I then have to make st5 files four+ times from the card on the r-44, and then check each one seperately from the hard drive. if the checksums were made recursively, I could make one checksum (dragging all pjt dirs in at once), save it to the parent dir on the hd, and the just run that same checksum once to check the transfer went correctly. I tried doing this, but all the checksums showed the same, so I think it just ran the first set of wavs four times...
2-is there a way to add replaygain for 24 bit files? I get an error when I try to add replaygain to those files now...
3-is there a way to view tags, and subsequently add/edit them..?
thanks so much for reading. like I said, the program is an indespensible tool for the apple platform.
now, if I can just find a way to make my txt files format line returns properly, without having to open them on windows wordpad and then saving, i would be done with windows forever...
1 - are you saying have files from multiple directories in 1 md5/stf/flac fingerprint? Is that "standard?" I've never seen directory names in these files, but maybe I'm totally wrong about this
2- flac documentation:
--replay-gain Calculate ReplayGain values and store them as FLAC tags, similar to VorbisGain. Title gains/peaks will be computed for each input file, and an album gain/peak will be computed for all files. All input files must have the same resolution, sample rate, and number of channels. Only mono and stereo files are allowed, and the sample rate must be one of 8, 11.025, 12, 16, 22.05, 24, 32, 44.1, or 48 kHz. Also note that this option may leave a few extra bytes in a PADDING block as the exact size of the tags is not known until all files are processed.
Note that this option cannot be used when encoding to standard output (stdout).
3 - Page covered this
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now, if I can just find a way to make my txt files format line returns properly, without having to open them on windows wordpad and then saving, i would be done with windows forever...
In my experience, if you do Shift+Return as opposed to just Return for linebreaks, you get the "Windows-linebreak" on a Mac. It's how I do most of my .txt files for shows because otherwise there are no linebreaks in the info fields if I upload to torrent sites like Dime.
Otherwise, as I think I recommended in another topic before (at least I planned on doing so), there is the editor Smultron which is freeware up until version 3.5.1, it let's you chose your standard linebreak (Unix LF, Mac CR, Windows CRLF).
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Xact 2.23
Am I missing the setting to decide what format CDs are extracted to..? Is there a way to set it to rip a cd to mp3, and specify the encoding setting..?
Thx
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it's just wav. I would love to remove the cd ripping code from xACT, but it's probably too late. I put it in years ago when there wasn't another cdparanoia alternative for OS X. It was always a horrible hack but it worked for basic extraction.
But even I don't use it. I use XLD for extraction since he uses the latest paranoia libraries and even wrote his own paranoia/eac like extraction
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I use XLD for extraction since he uses the latest paranoia libraries and even wrote his own paranoia/eac like extraction
qft
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Thanks for the info. I am a relative Mac OS n00b-either of you have a link to the developer site..? Thanks, in advance.
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Thanks for the info. I am a relative Mac OS n00b-either of you have a link to the developer site..? Thanks, in advance.
download link:
https://code.google.com/p/xld/
left hand side of that is a link to their homepage;
http://tmkk.undo.jp/xld/index_e.html
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+t
Thanks so much. I have a stack of discs to rip, including a few double disc sets, so I will get cracking with this new (to me) program this weekend. I appreciate the help, and i am sorry to have bombed your xact thread, scb.
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Me again.
Any chance we can implement a write with replay gain output, specifically track gain..? Used to do this with Fb2k, but I have been mac only for years...
Trying to make a mix and to be able to load a track in to the window and have the output be a wav file with replaygain- track gain applied.
Many thanks.
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Me again.
Any chance we can implement a write with replay gain output, specifically track gain..? Used to do this with Fb2k, but I have been mac only for years...
Trying to make a mix and to be able to load a track in to the window and have the output be a wav file with replaygain- track gain applied.
Many thanks.
Does the "add flac replay gain" in the util tab not do what you need?
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Thanks for getting back to me. No, it does not because it simply adds the info to the metadata, which is what we want in most cases...
But to make a mix of various sources, I would like to add track gain, and then write a wav file with the gain applied, not simply write a flag with the metadata included...
Thanks.
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so you want the files processed with actual gain increases? i guess i could add that to the list
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so you want the files processed with actual gain increases? i guess i could add that to the list
A linear calculation to raise levels to a selectable threshold would be cool. Maybe I want to max at -0.0, maybe -0.1, maybe -0.2!?? This could replace the "normalize" step in some folks' workflow. It could also be useful when converting older filesets to a favorite jukebox filetype. (e.g. convert to aac128 and set max levels at -0.2!?)
I <3 xACT!
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so you want the files processed with actual gain increases? i guess i could add that to the list
yes. With the track gain, not album gain...
Thanks so much!
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so you want the files processed with actual gain increases? i guess i could add that to the list
yes. With the track gain, not album gain...
Thanks so much!
Bump.
I actually just used home brew to install flac and i can do this from the terminal window / command line using the "apply replay gain which is not lossless" command.
Sorry to have bothered you, and Again, thank you very much.
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Hello Scott! I would like to bump this topic because I have a feature request.
Could you please implement something like rsync so that I can use xACT to securely move files from my sd card, with verification?
Thanks for all the great work! For reference, I'm currently on xACT v2.44, under Yosemite, or perhaps I'll try my High Sierra install if I have to.
This is why I have started making MD5 checksums on the original files on the SD cards. If a FLAC operation could go wrong, so could a file transfer (copy).
You know, those files on your hard drive are COPIES of the masters, unless you are saving the SD cards or something!?
To be truly paranoid, I would want to run the checksum operation twice on the original to be sure that THOSE are the same.
My reasoning ,no matter how perfect it is (flac) I’d prefer the wav vs flac. Flac is compression ,and things *can go wrong* would you rather have a dat master Or a dat clone? They are identical but most people would choose the master I think.
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Hello Scott! I would like to bump this topic because I have a feature request.
Could you please implement something like rsync so that I can use xACT to securely move files from my sd card, with verification?
Thanks for all the great work! For reference, I'm currently on xACT v2.44, under Yosemite, or perhaps I'll try my High Sierra install if I have to.
This is why I have started making MD5 checksums on the original files on the SD cards. If a FLAC operation could go wrong, so could a file transfer (copy).
You know, those files on your hard drive are COPIES of the masters, unless you are saving the SD cards or something!?
To be truly paranoid, I would want to run the checksum operation twice on the original to be sure that THOSE are the same.
My reasoning ,no matter how perfect it is (flac) I’d prefer the wav vs flac. Flac is compression ,and things *can go wrong* would you rather have a dat master Or a dat clone? They are identical but most people would choose the master I think.
You basically want an rsync wrapper to choose a file or files to read and a location to copy to?
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Nothing to add, except thank you.
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Nothing to add, except thank you.
yup. I use it every day.
+t
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I use it almost every day and I am so glad it exists. On my blog I always link to the download page.
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You basically want an rsync wrapper to choose a file or files to read and a location to copy to?
Yes, please!
"rsync" would probably be it's own new tab, and have radio button check box options for the user to control a few of the key flags? (recursion, delete original, etc)
The main thing I'd be looking for is some sort of verification feature, but the rsync manual page seems to indicate that rsync does what I would want as a matter of course!
"rsync always verifies that each transferred file was correctly reconstructed on the receiving side by checking a whole-file checksum that is generated as the file is transferred"
I guess it would be cool to spit out the stats in a new window, in case the user wanted to copy them down or save them.
xACT is already indispensible, but this would be a very handy feature for me. Thanks!!
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Crucial app.
Adding my appreciation.
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Nothing to add, except thank you.
yup. I use it every day.
+t
+1
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You basically want an rsync wrapper to choose a file or files to read and a location to copy to?
Yes, please!
"rsync" would probably be it's own new tab, and have radio button check box options for the user to control a few of the key flags? (recursion, delete original, etc)
The main thing I'd be looking for is some sort of verification feature, but the rsync manual page seems to indicate that rsync does what I would want as a matter of course!
"rsync always verifies that each transferred file was correctly reconstructed on the receiving side by checking a whole-file checksum that is generated as the file is transferred"
I guess it would be cool to spit out the stats in a new window, in case the user wanted to copy them down or save them.
xACT is already indispensible, but this would be a very handy feature for me. Thanks!!
Ok, I'll look into how much work it would be.
I have a *lot* less time to work on it these days, and often when I do get some time, I'd rather relax and do nothing. That's what 4 kids does I guess.
But I should get some time in a few weeks when I'm home alone for a week to try to fix some old stuff and put some new stuff in. I may even go tape a show then!
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I may even go tape a show then!
Oh, I can make random requests all day. I would MUCH rather you went and taped a show and had some relaxing fun and let me copy my own dang files! I can tweeze rsync if I really don't trust Mac OS to copy some files!?
So, speaking of random requests, how weird would it be to have a preference option to allow the user to choose upper or lower case file extensions?
PS thanks for v2.45, with the staying in the background thing! That's a nice help.
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One thing that always annoys me a bit is that when tagging, xAct can't remember the "previous tags" between program restarts. Every time I start the program, I have to re-enter everything. Scott, can't you make it persist the last tag?
Other than that, I love xAct!
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So, speaking of random requests, how weird would it be to have a preference option to allow the user to choose upper or lower case file extensions?
you want to globally choose to output lower or upper? That sounds easy. Do people really want upper case extensions?
One thing that always annoys me a bit is that when tagging, xAct can't remember the "previous tags" between program restarts. Every time I start the program, I have to re-enter everything. Scott, can't you make it persist the last tag?
Other than that, I love xAct!
I can look into that.
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So, speaking of random requests, how weird would it be to have a preference option to allow the user to choose upper or lower case file extensions?
you want to globally choose to output lower or upper? That sounds easy. Do people really want upper case extensions?
I do. My recorders use upper case and it never occurred to me to use lower!?