Skip to main content ↑ ↓

Notice

Please note that most of the software linked on this forum is likely to be safe to use. If you are unsure, feel free to ask in the relevant topics, or send a private message to an administrator or moderator. To help curb the problems of false positives, or in the event that you do find actual malware, you can contribute through the article linked here.
Topic: Hello and may I ask for some help? (Read 5207 times) previous topic - next topic
0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Hello and may I ask for some help?

What is available other than .wav that is better than mp3 files ripped at 320kbps? How do you get the software to make the better quality recordings? Any help or pointers will be greatly appreciated.

Thank you in advance

PP '03

Hello and may I ask for some help?

Reply #1 –
any lossless compression such as flac... i think thats what you want, same quality as the CD wav file
Chaintech AV-710

Hello and may I ask for some help?

Reply #2 –
Quote
How do you get the software to make the better quality recordings?

http://rarewares.hydrogenaudio.org -> Lossless

Another option resulting in better quality than 320kbps mp3 (even at bitrates ~ 160 - 180 kbps) would be Musepack (MPC). Here's a guide.

MOD: * no links to ripping group guides please.
Let's suppose that rain washes out a picnic. Who is feeling negative? The rain? Or YOU? What's causing the negative feeling? The rain or your reaction? - Anthony De Mello

Hello and may I ask for some help?

Reply #3 –
Isn't the * slightly out of date?


MOD: * no links or names to ripping group guides please.

Hello and may I ask for some help?

Reply #4 –
.mpc (--standard) at 170kbps on average, are usually better than 320kbps mp3. Beyond .mpc at even more "xtreme" or "insane" settings, lies the lossless realm.

Check this for details.
She is waiting in the air

Hello and may I ask for some help?

Reply #5 –
How do you think .mpc compares to aac?

Hello and may I ask for some help?

Reply #6 –
favourably

Hello and may I ask for some help?

Reply #7 –
Quote
How do you think .mpc compares to aac?

AFAIK about the high-bitrate development of AAC, I think Musepack still has an edge. (Please prove me wrong if I am wrong).

Hello and may I ask for some help?

Reply #8 –
Both are very very competitive at the higher bitrate region... can I request a Photo Finish please? To be honest AAC or MusePack both do high bitrate coding rather well... I have yet to fault any other them on the basis of the amount of tracks I have encoded with both codecs. I ain't super focused on artifacts so don't shoot me if you hear them ok?  As long as the music keeps pumping I am happy.

Regards

AgentMil
-=MusePack... Living Audio Compression=-

Honda - The Power of Dreams

Hello and may I ask for some help?

Reply #9 –
Quote
Quote
How do you think .mpc compares to aac?

AFAIK about the high-bitrate development of AAC, I think Musepack still has an edge. (Please prove me wrong if I am wrong).


I can't prove you wrong, sld, I only just started making aac files, before this I was using mpc and lame encoded mp3. I can safely say though, that I cannot tell any difference at ALL between aac, mpc, mp3 or ogg vorbis using --alt-preset extreme, --quality 6 --xlevel, and so on... they're all fantastic!! Now for me it's all down to which format produces the highest bitrate and smallest filesize, and mpc has me convinced it's the most efficient format for my needs at this time.

I REALLY wish I could decide which format is best, but I just can't. I would love to be able to say "MPC is the best format I can possibly use", or whatever, but somehow I find myself back here every other day to fry my brain once again.

"WHICH F**KING FORMAT IS THE BEST?!!!!"

I wish someone would tell me. But meanwhile I THINK I'll stick with mpc.

Hello and may I ask for some help?

Reply #10 –
Quote
How do you think .mpc compares to aac?

Quality issues asside, aac has THE ONE feature that MPC will probably never have: hardware support.

I don't know about you, but this is very important to me.
I'm the one in the picture, sitting on a giant cabbage in Mexico, circa 1978.
Reseñas de Rock en Español: www.estadogeneral.com

Hello and may I ask for some help?

Reply #11 –
Quote
...which format produces the highest bitrate and smallest filesize...

He he. ;-) You meant highest quality at lowest bitrate, right?

Hello and may I ask for some help?

Reply #12 –
haha..

Like I said "somehow I find myself back here every other day to fry my brain once again" !!



AtaqueEG -- the support issue has been bothering me for a while, yes, so back to what I was saying earlier about not being able to decide which format to settle on... It's probably either gonna be aac or mpc, but I also don't want to overlook vorbis. Mp3 is pretty much out of the picture, I know I can get better results and smaller file sizes from other formats, but at this point I can't comment too well on aac, I'm still new to this, literally a couple of days deep only. 

Of course I could just use various diferent formats for different reasons, say mpc for stuff above 128 kbp/s, mp3 for compatibility (say I wanna burn a CD for a friend who's not even aware there are different audio formats, I'd give them mp3) and so on, but for my own personal listening something is telling me to keep it simple and narrow it all down to one great all-round format and stick with it. Maybe mpc will get more support? I hope so... Maybe aac will just annihilate everything? I think so!

Hello and may I ask for some help?

Reply #13 –
Hello,

Thank you all for your replies. It will probably take me some time to review, digest and understand them all. I have been using Musicmatch Jukebox to rip my cd's and then I use Goldwave to edit the files. I've been using the mp3 format for what feels like 3 years now. I figure it is now time to dive in a bit deeper. Obviously I am a novice in this new field.......if anybody can suggest a link where information is geared to the layman (namely - me) I would appreciate any help. Thank you in advance for your help and thanks again for the replies so far.

PP '03

Hello and may I ask for some help?

Reply #14 –
Quote
Isn't the * slightly out of date?

YES!!

MOD: * no links or names to ripping group guides please.

Hello and may I ask for some help?

Reply #15 –
Quote
Hello,

Thank you all for your replies. It will probably take me some time to review, digest and understand them all. I have been using Musicmatch Jukebox to rip my cd's and then I use Goldwave to edit the files. I've been using the mp3 format for what feels like 3 years now. I figure it is now time to dive in a bit deeper. Obviously I am a novice in this new field.......if anybody can suggest a link where information is geared to the layman (namely - me) I would appreciate any help. Thank you in advance for your help and thanks again for the replies so far.

PP '03


Pablo, I can fully relate to what you're saying, I'm also fairly new to all this stuff and it can all seem very overwhelming at times. Where MPC is concerned, here's what I've found so far -- and I hope this is simple enough for any new users to understand, that's who this post is aimed at:

The first thing I'll mention before we even start on MPC is EAC. In mine and many others opinion the finest way to rip CD's is via EAC - Exact Audio Copy. I personally use the latest version, 0.95 pre beta 3. Find it here:

http://www.exactaudiocopy.de

it's in the downoads section. And ditch MusicMatch Jukebox immediately if you haven't already!

There's enough guides online to get you started with EAC, plus there's a setup wizard within EAC that'll pop up when you first install it. This wizard is also available any time from the options menu's. Spend a little time setting it up as good as you can and EAC will reward you with pretty much perfect results later.


Musepack/MPC/MP+: This audio format is well worth a look into. Head over to RareWares -- http://rarewares.hydrogenaudio.org -- hit the MPC page and and grab these items:

mppenc 1.14 OR 1.15r (I use 1.15r)
mppdec 1.95e
Replay Gain 0.84

You'll need a front-end, a Graphics User Interface -- 'mppenc' & 'mppdec' are command-line tools, just like LAME encoder is to mp3, you'd need something like RazorLame to operate LAME from a 'normal' Windows window.

My choice of front-end for MPC is MPC Batch Encoder v2.2.6 which can be found here:

http://home.wanadoo.nl/~w.speek/batch_encoder.htm

There are alternative's such as MuseDrop, also available from the RareWares MPC page.

Now all you need to do is unzip all these files into the same folder, call the folder something like 'MusePack' and place it wherever you want it on your PC (there's no installation). Now create a shortcut to MPC Batch Encoder in your Start > Programs menu or on your desktop and off you go.

The first thing to do is open up MPC Batch Encoder or whichever front-end you've chosen, tell it where mppenc.exe and mppdec.exe live by pressing the '?' buttons, choose a quality setting, drop your .wav files into the window and press the 'Go' button.

My choice of quality setting is: --quality 6 --xlevel --verbose --verbose

The '--verbose --verbose' switch gives extra info on the screen while it's encoding, but this isn't vital, just incase you're nosey and need to know what's going on, like me!

It's apparently recommended that you try --quality 5 first. After some tests I've settled on 6 which does a great job for me and I don't mind the slightly larger file sizes it produces, they're still smaller than LAME encoded mp3's. If I really REALLY care about the quality of a particular album then I'll go up to --quality 7, but most of the time there's no need, it'd be a waste of space.

So, presuming you have an audio player that can play back MPC files, that's pretty much all there is to the basics. There's other things to consider too, such as Replay Gain for adjusting levels, etc. Again, there's plenty of guides online and on this forum which should tell you anything you might need to know.

If you don't have an audio player which plays back MPC, I would suggest QCD -- http://www.quinnware.com -- because it has lots of plugins to cover pretty much any format. It's a nice quality player and up until a couple of days ago I used it for a long time. Then I switched to the new foobar2000 v0.7... for about 24 hours...

But if you want a very 'stripped-down' player, look at 1by1 -- this is what I'm using now, it uses so little resources I can't NOT use it!! Latest version is v1.39. Find it here:

http://www.rz.uni-frankfurt.de/~pesch

While you're there, it's worth grabbing mp3DirectCut too! (GREAT program!)

I can't think of anything else you might need to now right now, but I'm sure there's probably a few things... and no doubt some clever sod here will correct me on something, but that's the basics of MPC and should point anyone in the right direction if they're wanting to get into this format.

Hello and may I ask for some help?

Reply #16 –
aac has the potential to be optimised such that it will give the same audio quality as a similar mpc file at a lower bitrate. I've read though that the optimisation of aac is pretty laborious due to the nature of the codec. But quite certainly, aac should win out over mpc in 2 very important areas. Sound quality and hardware support. Thing is, most of us still won't hear a difference between aac and mpc at high bitrates. The only advantage of mpc that will always be the case is the fact that mpc uses the least decoding power of all the major lossy codecs out there.

Hello and may I ask for some help?

Reply #17 –
Nobody specifically mentioned Monkey's Audio yet??? Well, I am now.

Hello and may I ask for some help?

Reply #18 –
who's Monkey?

Hello and may I ask for some help?

Reply #19 –
Quote
who's Monkey?

Monkey's Audio

Hello and may I ask for some help?

Reply #20 –
Why should * be out of date ?
Can you point me to something ?
Maybe it could be improved ?
(well, there is indeed an update in work  )


MOD: * no links or names to ripping group guides please.

Hello and may I ask for some help?

Reply #21 –
Quote
"WHICH F**KING FORMAT IS THE BEST?!!!!"

I wish someone would tell me. But meanwhile I THINK I'll stick with mpc.

That's kinda like asking, "Which f*cking vehicle is the best?!!!!"

Well, they're all different.  What are your requirements?  What are your priorities?  Right now there is not one silver bullet codec.  Maybe one day there will be one that clearly gives the best sound quality at all bitrates, and runs on all hardware.  (Oh yeah, and that's natively gapless and DRM-proof.    )  Until that day comes, we'll have the next best solution.  Choices.

To define a scope, consider AAC, MP3, Vorbis and MPC (probably the four "big hitters" around these parts), and then throw in WMA Standard because that's whats being pushed onto the world by that company I can't remember the name of.   

For low bitrates (32kbps-96kbps), HE AAC (topping the 64kbps listening test) and Vorbis.  For mid-bitrates (96kbps-160kbps) MPC (having won a recent 128kbps listening test), AAC and Vorbis running a close second and third, MP3 closing in at around 160kbps (plus or minus), and WMA Standard somewhere in the mix as well.  For high-bitrates (above 160kbps) MPC is the likely king, but again it's close with Vorbis, AAC and MP3 doing well with plenty of bits to work with.  All have solid, well-tested psy-models, with only a few bugs here and there (e.g., high-pitched noise in low-bitrate Vorbis encodings).

My own method for answering this question...

-1- Archival?.  Do I need lossless copies of all my music to be archived for future transcoding to any format I desire?  Or are most/all of my CDs easy enough to replace that I can do with re-ripping and encoding to lossy?  My answer was the latter, so FLAC and all of his friends are not necessary (until HDD space becomes so cheap that many other questions here are eliminated).

-2- Compatibility.  Consider hardware compatibility to narrow the field.  For me that's MP3, Vorbis or WMA-Standard.

-3- Gapless?.  Do I demand gapless playback on all devices?  Yes, so now it's Vorbis or WMA-S.

-4- Capacity.  Determine how many tracks I want to keep on my little 20GB discs, to tell me approximate nominal bitrates to shoot for.  5000 tracks?  OK, ~128-136kbps.  Happy with only 800 tracks?  OK, FLAC (750kbps-850kbps).  Somewhere in between?  Pull out a calculator.  Then, I look at which codecs do well at my target bitrate ranges.  My target was ~5000 tracks in 20GB, so that's still Vorbis or (possibly) WMA-S.

-5- Listen.  If I end up with multiple choices after the fourth step, I pull out WinABX or ABC/HR to compare encodings against source audio for some particularly troublesome tracks from my collection.  At the required bitrate, Vorbis beat WMA-S for me.

So Vorbis is the very best format.  For me, that is.  But everyone will have their own answer to this question.

[span style='font-size:8pt;line-height:100%'](As for the question in the first line of this post: 1995 E36-chassis M3's, bought cheap, restored and race-modified.  Speed on a tight budget...Yeah baby!    )[/span]

Hello and may I ask for some help?

Reply #22 –
Quote
Quality issues asside, aac has THE ONE feature that MPC will probably never have: hardware support.

I don't know about you, but this is very important to me.

Me too.

I narrowed my choices to AAC and MPC for encoding quality/effiency. And I choosed AAC because of hardware support. (I bought my iPod after playing with AAC for a while) 
 

Hello and may I ask for some help?

Reply #23 –
Just to completely confuse the issue, if 320 kbit is your desired bitrate, and direct hardware compatibility is not important to you, there are other options, namely Wavpack lossy, and Optifrog Dualstream. It can be argued that both of these achieve a similar level of transparency to mpc at this bitrate. 

Even better though, if you wish to transcode to a hardware supported codec from time to time, my own experience is that both of these transcode more transparently than any of the other lossy formats. (Before the TOS police    raid my place, I have posted numerous testing threads and samples about this in HA, and no one has replied arguing against my findings in the negative.)

Hopefully there will be a public transcoding listening test coming up soon, which will test all the major formats (including Wavpack lossy) for transcoding into hardware supported formats.  B)