I'm trying to rip a scratched RHCP CD. I've had good results in the past with CueTools repair but somewhere along the way the bad rip got added to the CTDB database. So it doesn't even try to repair them since they're "accurate".
What are my options here? Is there a way to force repair or remove the bad rip from the CTDB database?
Partial repair log:
[CTDB TOCID: AGzsMPHRHI87x0rOIct7YrGQOTM-] found.
Track | CTDB Status
1 | (31/59) Accurately ripped
2 | ( 1/59) Accurately ripped
3 | (32/59) Accurately ripped
4 | (31/59) Accurately ripped
5 | (31/59) Accurately ripped
6 | (31/59) Accurately ripped
7 | (31/59) Accurately ripped
8 | (31/59) Accurately ripped
9 | (31/59) Accurately ripped
10 | (32/59) Accurately ripped
11 | (28/59) Accurately ripped
12 | (28/59) Accurately ripped
13 | (29/59) Accurately ripped
14 | (31/59) Accurately ripped
15 | ( 1/59) Accurately ripped
16 | (25/59) Accurately ripped
17 | (28/59) Accurately ripped
[AccurateRip ID: 002d6cde-0241b26d-fd115311] found.
Track [ CRC | V2 ] Status
01 [2ad4f230|455fa7f4] (046+017/1125) Accurately ripped
02 [ad19274c|1095b9a7] (000+000/1122) No match
03 [02d6043a|8b285bfa] (047+018/1137) Accurately ripped
04 [7245902d|6b1f2a84] (045+018/1131) Accurately ripped
05 [3c37718b|9ab9e719] (047+018/1138) Accurately ripped
06 [821b7845|d52f2833] (047+018/1129) Accurately ripped
07 [4462ae27|92c0c9f1] (045+017/1124) Accurately ripped
08 [086fa1b3|7494c44c] (046+016/1124) Accurately ripped
09 [21b4d3aa|d77d3aa8] (047+015/1123) Accurately ripped
10 [e6db5849|d27b0875] (045+017/1116) Accurately ripped
11 [26a24824|0a4db84d] (047+017/1117) Accurately ripped
12 [2a5cf30f|d0de2550] (045+017/1115) Accurately ripped
13 [7e093555|3db9bc11] (046+017/1116) Accurately ripped
14 [53d94d91|0578cfc8] (046+017/1105) Accurately ripped
15 [7fbd9a36|a60c3e27] (000+000/1095) No match
16 [e75f8d0c|20aac284] (045+017/1054) Accurately ripped
17 [c560c648|e6b142ca] (045+017/1098) Accurately ripped
Partial EAC log for the bad tracks:
Track 2
Filename D:\JB-PC\Music\Red Hot Chili Peppers\1991 - Blood Sugar Sex Magik\02. If You Have to Ask.wav
Suspicious position 0:03:06 - 0:03:12
Peak level 97.7 %
Track quality 90.5 %
Copy CRC 941CF5AA
Cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 1122) [AD19274C], AccurateRip returned [AA60FB74]
Copy OK
Track 15
Filename D:\JB-PC\Music\Red Hot Chili Peppers\1991 - Blood Sugar Sex Magik\15. My Lovely Man.wav
Suspicious position 0:01:51 - 0:01:58
Suspicious position 0:02:02 - 0:02:04
Suspicious position 0:02:07
Suspicious position 0:02:09 - 0:02:17
Suspicious position 0:02:27 - 0:02:41
Peak level 98.9 %
Track quality 87.3 %
Copy CRC DD115446
Cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 1095) [7FBD9A36], AccurateRip returned [5CDC37D4]
Copy OK
That bad rip you are matching in CUETools is probably your own submitted by the EAC plugin.
There is a limit to how many samples can be different and still perform a repair. Positions of those samples can also reduce the amount that can be repaired. Your rip has too many samples that differ or they are in unlucky positions.
You could try to clean the CD a bit more or try a different drive and re-rip the bad tracks.
That bad rip you are matching in CUETools is probably your own submitted by the EAC plugin.
There is a limit to how many samples can be different and still perform a repair. Positions of those samples can also reduce the amount that can be repaired. Your rip has too many samples that differ or they are in unlucky positions.
You could try to clean the CD a bit more or try a different drive and re-rip the bad tracks.
I suspected it might have been an EAC plugin. Seems kind of silly that it uploaded the results of an obviously horrendous rip. I know CT recovery is limited but I'd like to at least try it and see if the track is listenable without nasty pops and clicks. This is the only one of 6 nasty cd's I haven't been able to repair into an accurate rip.
I'm sure I could "find" replacements for the bad tracks but then again I have a lot of hard to find scratched cd's that would need a combination of EAC and CT to get the best results.
The cd is squeaky clean. Its those nasty scuffs and scratches on the underside that are the problem. Tried on a different drive as well as vaseline. I was hoping for a solution that wouldn't involve abrasives...
If I understand the problem correctly, CueTools does not even give you the option to repair (the prompt that should come up, to select which correct rip it should use) because of that one submission?
In that case, I'd try opening one of the tracks in Audacity, making a teeny tiny edit which makes the rip inaccurate again, and then run CueTools repair, which at that point should give you the prompt to select the 31 confidence rip to use as repair template and it should then repair all the tracks according to that submission, not the 1 confidence.
However, looking at that log it looks pretty bad and I think it will be unrepairable anyway.
but I'd like to at least try it and see if the track is listenable without nasty pops and clicks. This is the only one of 6 nasty cd's I haven't been able to repair into an accurate rip.
If the clicks & pops are short-enough in duration, you can probably remove them with
software made for cleaning-up digitzed vinyl (http://www.delback.co.uk/lp-cdr.htm#clean_pops).
Audacity has a "Click Repair" effect. I use an application called Wave Repair ($30 USD) for vinyl clean-up and occasionally I've used it on a "digital glitch". Or, sometimes you can just manually "re-draw" the waveform with an audio editor. If the defect is only in one channel, sometimes you can copy the good-channel audio over the defect, and you don't notice that it goes "mono" for a millisecond or so. (You do have to be careful with this because if the waveforms don't "line up" you'll create new glitches where the audio is "spliced").
Of course any kind of "waveform repair" won't be digitally perfect, but it can often be audibly perfect, especially if the defect is short in duration.
I was hoping for a solution that wouldn't involve abrasives...
Yeah... There are polishing techniques, and polishing services where you send-in the disc. There is a discussion (or two) somewhere here on HydrogenAudio if you want to search for it. I have a little polishing machine that looks like a portable CD player, but I never had much luck with it so I haven't used it in a long time.
One of the problems is that the data layer is on the top (label side) and the CD is read through the full thickness of the polycarbonate. If the CD is scratched from the top and the data layer is damaged, polishing won't help.
In that case, I'd try opening one of the tracks in Audacity, making a teeny tiny edit which makes the rip inaccurate again, and then run CueTools repair, which at that point should give you the prompt to select the 31 confidence rip to use as repair template and it should then repair all the tracks according to that submission, not the 1 confidence.
This is interesting. So for track 2 (CRC AD19274C) what if I:
-replace the file with an entirely different one,
-fire up CT repair,
-get the CT repair prompt, and then
-change back to the CRC AD19274C track that needs repairing
Would it repair the track in question? Or does it calculate required values beforehand?
Of course any kind of "waveform repair" won't be digitally perfect, but it can often be audibly perfect, especially if the defect is short in duration.
I've had little success with audacity's click removal. Probably because I don't know enough about sound to configure it right. Despite the EAC log showing nearly a minute of suspicious positions, there're only a handful of extremely short but audible clicks. Fairly certain that CueTools could repair it if I could trick it into trying.
The data layer is in mint condition. No pinholes, etc. If it comes down to it , I'll probably have a go at the scratchy side with some 2000 grit sandpaper and meguiars plastx polish.
You're not going to trick CUETools into trying the repair and you can't just repair one track and not repair the other. The recovery record is for the entire CD excluding a few sectors at the start of track 1 and a few sectors at the end of the last track. If the non-matching areas for the entire CD exceed what can be repaired by a recovery record, CUETools repair cannot use that recovery record.