Log+Cue: How To Rip A CD Into FLAC Format

How many of you have been in the process of replacing all your CD's with MP3's over the past few years? And how many of you have been in the process of replacing all your CD's and cassettes with MP3's over the past several years? Or for that matter, replacing CD's, cassettes, and vinyl with MP3's? I know some of you have got rid of old CDs once you have an MP3 copy of it on your computer or your iPod. Good idea? I think not. Little do you realize how low the quality is of those MP3's you are rocking on your laptop speakers or the earbuds on your iPod. It seems to sound great to you, but you have probably reached the limitation for the speakers you are using. Which is why to you, whether you are listening to a 320k MP3 or a 192k MP3, it all sounds the same to you. Well what happens when you get older and can actually afford to buy yourself a nice sound system, a good hi-fi, or maybe a rockin system for your ride. What good are those MP3's then? They sound horrid on good stereo equipment not to mention their bad quality and addition of digital artifacting can actually cause damage to good stereo equipment. ENTER...FLAC, the Free Lossless Audio Codec.

So what is FLAC? FLAC stands for Free Lossless Audio Codec, and it is an audio compression format like MP3, but while MP3 uses a "lossy" compression, which basically discards audio information that humans can't hear, FLAC uses a lossless compression, which will not change the quality of the compressed audio. This means that if you rip an Audio CD track to a FLAC file, that file will retain the same quality of the original (CD quality), like a WAV file, but it will take less space (usually about one third of the corresponding Wav file). An MP3 file would take a lot less space (about one tenth of the corresponding Wav file) but to get this compression rate MP3 (like other lossy compression algorithms, such like Ogg Vorbis or WMA), throws away part of the sound information. Of course lossy compression algorithms try to discard info that an average human can't hear, but if your ears are sensible and well trained, you will appreciate the high quality of FLAC lossless compression. I don't want to hear any crying about the lack of MP3's here. FLAC only, trust me, in the next ten years you will appreciate me for making you listen to FLAC rather than MP3's.

Monday, August 8, 2011

How To Rip A CD Into FLAC Format

There are quite a few programs that can be used for ripping FLAC. I do not intend to make a complete listing of programs that can be used, but just a few Windows programs that will do the job.

Winamp - has had the ability to rip FLAC since version 5.31 (FREE)
dbPoweramp - works well for ripping FLACs, is easy to use and the converter is great too. This is worth the price for the ease of use dbPoweramp Music Converter. ($38)
J. River Media Center - Has the ability to rip FLAC. I have never used this program, but if other programs will do this same thing free of charge, why pay? ($49.98)
CDex - An open source program which also performs FLAC rips. (FREE)
FreeRIP - Another free ripping program that can rip FLACs. I have no experience with this program. Use at your own risk. (FREE)
EAC - Exact Audio Copy. Experts generally prefer to use this program as it has the most accurate bit-for-bit ripping process which does what it says, makes EXACT Audio copies. This is the only program that I use for ripping CDs and is the preferred method of ripping. (FREE)

I will post a guide showing you how to properly install Exact Audio Copy on your Windows computer. I will also post a guide for making flawless FLAC rips from your CDs. Sometimes you may have scratched CDs which will not rip accurately using such a method which at that point, you can then at least use one of the other methods to get a FLAC rip, it just will not have the guarantee of being 100% accurate. Of course there are a few tried and true methods you can use to fix a scratched CD which we will go over as well.

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