Audiofile encoding advice needed

[The Chameleon]

So I'm going digital with all my music.

In doing so I intend to go a s high quality as possible.

I'm ripping everything using exact audio copy with variable bit rate.

The second part of the equasion in encoding. I don't want to go MP3, to lossy even at the best quality.

I want to go SHN or FLAC, with all of it.

Can anyone recommend a good encoder? I can only find MP3 ones or those that decode shn to Wave but not the other way around..

Info appriciated.

[Phunk_Nugget]

http://etree.org/software.html

there's probably something in there you can use. Mac or PC?

[canadianphan]

Here's some info on encoding: Old Rips: May they rest in Peace

I'm encoding in the OGG format but ripping to FLAC and other formats is outlined here: The Digital Audiophiles Toolbox

I followed this tutorial with great sucess: The Coaster Factory

Hope this helps...

[TheGoodRev]

There might be a quicker way to do it, but to rip CDs to FLAC, I use EAC to rip to WAV first and then feed the WAVs right into the standard FLAC frontend: http://flac.sourceforge.net/download.html

Good luck!

[secondtube]

thats what i do...if there's a quicker way, i'd love to learn it.

[canadianphan]

The article I referenced above automates the process, EAC generates WAV, then automatically runs desired codec (FLAC, OGG, Monkey), rips the file and deletes the WAV, all the while generating a consistent naming structure.

I set this up just last week in under an hour, and now I'm digitizing my entire collection.

[headygouda]

I've converted most of my collection to FLAC for archive and ogg for convenience of having it all accessible to listen to at my finger tips. I used EAC to rip, Foobar to add metadata & tags as well as converting. Foobar2000 has a script called 'tradersfriend' that knows how to read most text files that come with shows you download.

When I have a hard drive full of FLACs, I use my buddy's flac transcoder script to encode the whole drive to ogg (which will take a day or more)..

http://www.simplefuels.com/tapergeek/flac-transcoder.htm

You can also use etree's flacify to automate the tagging process, but you need to ensure that the text files are in a particular format. There's nothing worse that having untagged FLACs/Oggs, thats the one bottle neck of the entire conversion procses IMHO.

For commercial CDs though, I've used mp3tag with great success since the freedb database is quite comoprehensive.

http://www.mp3tag.de/en/

Remember to back everything up (flac or ogg) on DVD in case the HD dies unexpectedly! You can use a program called 'disclib' to read the directories/files on each archived DVD so that I can simply number the dvds without having to burn them in any particular order, it makes an image and creates a sortable/searchable database that can output a text-delimited file, really convenient.

http://www.lyrasoftware.com/modules/news/index.php?storytopic=2

BTW, Go FLAC...screw shn. For playback of FLAC/ogg/mp3/wav on a home network, get slim devices squeezebox.

http://www.slimdevices.com/

Hope that helps...its a never ending process ;o)

[The Chameleon]

Thanks for all the good info guys. I'm almost there. I got EAC working and tonight when I get hoem I'm gonna get the FLAC conversion thing on the go.

Agreed FLAC is the way to go. But don't you need a plug in for winamp to play them, without converting? And does the average I-Pod or similar device read FLAC?

Edited February 15, 2006 by Guest

[Esau]

Heady my friend, thank you. You made my life easier. I'm going be in touch via PM for some brief tutoring if ya dont mind, basics really.

Agreed FLAC is the way to go. But don't you need a plug in for winamp to play them, without converting?

FLAC plugin for winamp.

Cant help with the ipod stuff though, sorry.

[SolarGarlic]

ipod will not play a flac file...My Rio Karma plays them nicely though! There is one other player (to my knowledge) that plays flac as well.

[headygouda]

The easiest thing for FLAC is to get the FLAC installer. It will install everything you need to encode/decode and playback (plugins for foobar, winamp). Get it here:

http://mikewren.com/page.php?2

For portable flac playback, the karma is great, its what I've been using for a couple years. But there is now a way to playback FLACs on ipods, irivers or archos jukeboxes (only some models). You can install Rockbox, an open-source firmware replacement for the above mentioned devices that will allow you to do waaayyy more with it:

http://www.rockbox.org/

Esau..I'd gladly help where I can.

[SmoothedShredder]