How to embed CUE sheet into Flac file with EAC?

2004-02-21 17:53:41

I am using EAC (Exact Audio Copy) with FLAC to produce single file rips of my CDs in one hit  (with CUE sheets).
I use this string in the EAC compression options:

--best --replay-gain -V -T "title=%t" -T "artist=%a" -T "album=%g" -T "date=%y" -T "tracknumber=%n" -T "genre=%m" %s

This gives me very good results (I tend to go for quality and small files in preference over speed of encoding):

* highest compression (--best)
* replaygain info in the tag (--replay-gain)
* verifies that Flak is definitely lossless and all correct (-V)
* completes all tags for me (-T etc etc)

(I've never worked out what the %s means!)

EAC creates the CUE sheet for me which enables me to play individual tracks in all good audio players and the wonderful SlimDevices Squeezebox (www.slimp3.com).

However I'd really like to embed the CUE information into the Flac file using the --cuesheet FILENAME setting as i feel this will future-proof my Flac files. So I need to get Flac's --cuesheet command to refer to the CUE sheet created by EAC. This CUE sheet is created in the same directory as the WAV and FLAC file and has exactly the same name.

i.e. Biosphere - Substrata (remastered) [Touch 2001].flac and
Biosphere - Substrata (remastered) [Touch 2001].cue.

I have tried this:
--best --replay-gain --cuesheet="%~d1%~p1%~n1.cue" -V -T "title=%t" -T "artist=%a" -T "album=%g" -T "date=%y" -T "tracknumber=%n" -T "genre=%m" %s

but it bombs out as soon as the encoding starts. Can anyone give me the correct string I need to achieve what i want (assuming it is possible)?

Any help greatly appreciated.

MC

How to embed CUE sheet into Flac file with EAC?

Reply #1 – 2004-02-21 20:26:38

Go here for some info, though there is no batch solution yet.  You have to take multiple steps.  http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....0&&#entry161685

How to embed CUE sheet into Flac file with EAC?

Reply #2 – 2004-02-21 22:23:31

Actually, I have come up with a way to do this now.  It works very well, and only has a few restrictions.  Here are the flags.

-8 -T "ALBUM ARTIST=%a" -T "ALBUM=%g" -T "DATE=%y" -T "GENRE=%m" --cuesheet="G:\CD Rips FLAC\CDimage.flac.cue" --replay-gain --delete-input-file -o "G:\CD Rips FLAC\%a - %y - %g.flac" -V %s

Make sure you have the delete WAV file after encoding option deselected, because for this line to work, FLAC needs to delete the file after encoding to get around the renaming bug in EAC mentioned here that I have worked around.

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....=0&#entry186615


Basically, you can encode all of your albums with this line one after the next.  Because EAC writes over same-named cuesheets with the "Copy Image & Create Cuesheet" option without prompting the user, all you will have to do after enocding all your albums is delete the one CDimage.flac.cue file in the directory where you outputted it.  I am sure you could use one of the commandline extender programs for EAC (like     MAREO) to delete this CUE each time, but that would be practically pointless, as with EAC writing over it each time, you will only have one file to delete at the very end.

BTW, with the -o flag, you can name the flac file with whatever EAC placeholders you want , I just chose Artist - Year -Album because it seemed appropriate.  You can also choose whatever directory you want.

The only problems with this so far is that it can't tag the subsong index info with the track names, so you will have to go into foobar2000 and tag each yourself.  You can use foobar2000 after the fact along with the foo_freedb plugin to tag the track names though.

Note:  The Replay Gaining with these flags only does album gain (and also puts the album gain value in the track gain spot.)  If this bugs you, use foobar2000 to Replay Gain afterwards.

How to embed CUE sheet into Flac file with EAC?

Reply #3 – 2004-02-21 23:06:08

I have found one issue with these FLACs with embedded cues and ReplayGaining with foobar2000.  foobar2000 gives me a "WARNING (CORE) : Verboten!" message for each subsong when replaygaining.  The replaygaining still works, but supposedly what we are doing is "forbidden". 

How to embed CUE sheet into Flac file with EAC?

Reply #4 – 2004-02-21 23:30:05

Editting Soren's method to use what I have above, here are the new steps:

1. Copy Image & Create Cue with EAC for all your albums using the above setup
2. open the flac album files in foobar2000
3. Make a FreeDB request with the foo_freedb plugin  to tag you flac albums files with their track names. (right-click->freedb->Get tags multiple albums).
4. Go to the bathroom, make a coffee, return to your pc and tada, you are good to go!
5.  Oh, and don't forget to delete CDimage.flac.cue.

How to embed CUE sheet into Flac file with EAC?

Reply #5 – 2004-02-21 23:51:57

Does anyone know how FLAC deals with the data track information in the embedded cuesheets?  Does it skip this info or what?  Thanks

How to embed CUE sheet into Flac file with EAC?

Reply #6 – 2004-02-22 02:43:14

Thanks for good work, mmortal03! 
This is working as it should at my place, except on one count; I'm getting track gain values that are  identical with albumgain value on all tracks on album when using --replay-gain in EAC command line. When using fb2k "scan selection as album" afterwards instead I get correct track gain as well as album gain values....
(I've got XP sp1, EAC 0.95pb4, FLAC 1.1.0 (John33 compile), fb2k 0.8b10)

Still it simplifies the process a lot, maybe I'll switch to flac for lossless. The operation are now reduced to two main steps; rip/encode with EAC, tag/replaygain with fb2k.

How to embed CUE sheet into Flac file with EAC?

Reply #7 – 2004-02-22 03:07:10

You cannot reduce it less unless EAC has a new feature: call another procedure when ripping is complete. AFAIK Albumgain could not be made to work with this scheme. Replaygaining with albumgain is only possible after complete extraction.

Edit: Oops you're already doing complete extraction. The problem is you cannot do replaygain for individual tracks now because the entire album is regarded as a single track hence all tracks have the same albumgain/replaygain value.

How to embed CUE sheet into Flac file with EAC?

Reply #8 – 2004-02-22 10:06:25

Edit:  Just double-checked again with a clean rip and can confirm your results.  I am tired and I must have looked at the wrong tracks...well, I doubt there is any batch solution here that we can do to fix this by playing with EAC commandlines, but I guess it wouldn't be that far of stretch to have foobar2k do your track gain calculations when you also do the track naming.  At least we have batched the cuesheet integration process, and for a lot of people, the track gain info is of no use anyway.

How to embed CUE sheet into Flac file with EAC?

Reply #9 – 2004-02-23 08:08:26

Thanks for your work on this mmortal03.
As I really want to rip and encode each of my Cds in *one hit* using EAC and Flac, and because I have discovered that my Squeezebox (www.slimp3.com) does not support single file cds in Flac format (due to bug in Flac: http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?f...78&atid=113478) I have decided to rip and encode my CDs as individual tracks and include a cue file. If i do this it will be a simple matter to change my whole collection (in one go) to a single file for each CD.
I will do this once the single file bug in Flac is fixed.

Again, thanks.