FLAC In Hell's Hellhole

The ripping "rules" / process

2006-02-27T21:34:00.000-03:00

If anyone spots an issue with this, then please comment on it. Requires some good knowledge of EAC to understand what I'm talking about. Here's what happens:

CD gaps are detected (securely)

CD TOC is read.

Pregap is analysed (pregap is usually silence or possibly hidden audio before track 1). If pregap is silent then this is noted.

If Pregap contains audio then it will be ripped later and recorded as "00 - Pregap.wav".

No pregaps are inserted at the start of "01 - Track1.wav", they are either discared as silence (and noted for writing a cue later using PREGAP xx:xx:xx) or they are saved as "00 - Pregap.wav" as above.

CD is then tested with a range rip from block 0 to the end.

Blocks that could not be ripped (had errors) are recorded.

If errors were detected user can eject CD to clean it, and re-insert where it will attempt to test blocks that errored (avoids having to re-rip too much).

Once complete with 0 errors then CRC of the entire test is recorded.

Process then begins again ripping all blocks. During this ripping stage errors cannot occur - they should have been picked up and cleaned during testing. Rationale if errors start occuring again then this is really a flakey CD/drive so any rip is suspect. At the end the CRC's are compared and should match.

Rip is complete, now we go into post-rip mode. This will be highly configurable but at this stage the tracks will be split the same as EAC's Append Gaps To Previous Track (Default) method.

Notes:

Unless overread into leadin/leadout is specifically turned off it will ALWAYS try to overread. This is because some drives can/cannot overread sometimes depending on the media. If it fails due to what is likely a overread synch error then it will fall back and rip without the overread on the first/last blocks that are causing the error. If going out of the overread into lead in, or going into the overread of the lead-out there was not digital silence after the leadin/before the leadout then the rip will fail as accuracy of start/end cannot be determined without a drive that supports overreading as maybe some noise was chopped off?

It's anticipated some badly mastered CD's could have issues with this - it would specifically be down to individual case-by-case investigation where future versions of the ripping routine could have some exceptions hardcoded for specific CD's.

Overread can be turned off if this causes problems such as drive hanging/EAC crashing.

An update

2006-02-26T21:31:00.000-03:00

Well, as you may know I've been busy blogging somewhere else ;)

However these past few days I've pulled my finger out and have started piecing together/redefining/rewriting some old routines.

I've been converting them to threaded classes so can be ran in the background whilst eventually providing feedback in the GUI whilst running.

Right now, everything is being based around a console-app for mainly my benefit. It's quick to right/test the classes (if you don't know what classes are consider them as independent routines).

Then once it gets to a mature stage these classes can then be simply plugged into a GUI.

I know people are wanting this, are waiting for it or maybe even stopped waiting for it. I've had my energies in other things, which has been a shame for FURIAA.

Anyhow - I'll end this post with a brief screenshot and will continue with more over the next few days. I've already selected a few people to start testing and this will happen soon - best to catch bugs at this stage.

Old Brothostates

2006-01-06T19:14:00.000-03:00

Here's something some of you might enjoy whilst waiting for me to pull my finger out. A reminder that some music formats can actually be fun - that's right - MOD files ;)

Get them into your fave tracker now... and when I say tracker I am not talking about bit-torrent :D Or alternatively just play them in WinAmp or something.

http://vermaak.blogspot.com/2006/01/old-brothomstates.html

Anyone who has had a listen to any of the work by Brothomstates is probably wondering what he has been up to over the past 3 years. With no new work surfacing at all and Warp keeping very very quite about it all.

Well it's nothing new but you might not know that he (Lassi Nikko) was very prolific in the demo scene before he released work under the Brothomstates moniker. His work back then was mostly under the name "Dune" and you can download over 40 songs he made by popping over here.

These tracks are in the following file formats .MOD .S3M and .XM If you have the latest version of Winamp you will be able to listen to them fine!

Enjoy people!

F.U.R.I.A.A.

2005-12-28T22:45:00.000-03:00

If anyone has any better naming ideas mail me. The provisional name is:

F.U.R.I.A.A.

Before anyone from the you-know-who Recording Ass complains it actually stands for Frontend Utility for Ripping with Integral Audio Authenticity, so f**k you :P

I had an email asking why I was making this....you want the truth?

We are well aware of a certain site where the "powers" over there consider themselves "experts" in the field of making lossless rips. They love to look down on other sites where there are less stricter rules and people are posting "lossless" rips made with iTunes, made with incorrect drive offsets, without log/cue files and all manner of other things.

In some respects they're right but many people think that this site is the only true place for "real verified lossless music". It's almost like there's lossless music only available from this site and then "maybe-lossless" from everywhere else, like they are in a world of their own, up high on the highest pedestal.

Now I'm not happy in this "power" of what is/isn't lossless being in the hands of a few, where powers are misued, where music like hip-hop is banned, where they make the job of somebody ripping a CD (a VIP) sound so much more impressive than it really is. There's nothing hard about being a VIP at all, even scanning is easy but just a long mundane affair. VIP's, sorry uploaders, should be applauded for their efforts, their time, their bandwidth, their taste and their work - but not treated as some sort of demi-god. I'd rather see a 13 year old kid or a 80 year old grandmother being able to make a perfect lossless rip every day, than the same 47 year old guy who wears his sweatshirt tucked inside his jeans making the same boring obscure rips every other week.

The aim of this tool is to completely make their "job" and "skills" of verifying what is/isn't lossless redundant, to take the control of what is acceptable music and what isn't back into the hands of the people who love music of all types, and away from people who don't listen to anything other than Prog-Rock and Classical music.

In truth there is nothing difficult about making a perfect lossless rip, if you have good intentions and are from an original disc with a reasonably modern drive. Yes, you can make mistakes but I still remember that people are human. Rather than inventing a million checklists, a million rules, a million FAQS, having a million debates about what is the right cuesheet format etc.. etc.. I want this tool to eliminate these actions, to be able to train a monkey to be able to rip a lossless CD perfectly.

On the other hand I don't want to force this upon anybody, if people on non-compatible systems or those who cannot be bothered still want to use other programs, still want to use EAC as-is with easily tamperable logs/cuesheets etc... then fine, do that. But only if you use F.U.R.I.A.A. will you be able to stick a sticker on your release saying "100% F.U.R.I.A.A. Certified".

Complete Control of EAC

2005-12-28T11:57:00.000-03:00

Somebody once said:
'What FIH is trying to say: he likes to have the "DNA" of a wav file. I am however unsure what good it will do.'
'one long an boring shoutpage in 1 sentence'

I say: We'll see....

I'm writing a utility to automate EAC rips, to ensure that **ONLY** secure rips can be done in the correct way and to make things as simple as possible. Imagine it as a front-end to EAC (you won't even see EAC) with everything a lossless file sharer could possibly need and with all the EAC pointless and complicated options (in the lossless/secure world) completely invisible. That's right, the emphasis will be on lossless and sharing - not on ripping personal copies for personal use which is pretty much what EAC is designed for.

Quick feature list....

Protection from tampering from all but the most determined - this means that other than in the realms of disassembling the program, lamers armed even with a hex-editor will not be able to fake stuff.
Protected embedded cuesheets/logiles/tags (encoded to avoid tampering by phoney-rippers). From the encoded version these can be generated into XML/txt format and it's anticipated these "extracted" versions would be distributed alongside the original for human-readable information.
Start the rip & then tag/name files whilst it's ripping (you're bored, right? Isn't this the logical time to do it)
Generate a EAC-style logfile and any type of cuesheet you want at any time - it's anticipated generating EAC style logfiles will soon become redundant.
Discs organised into collections.
Quick generation of Image WAV or split back into track-based WAVs. Also perform this process on lossless encoded files (FLAC/WV/APE)
Detection of stereo/mono.
Intelligent handling of pregap tracks/bonus tracks/blank tracks/tracks with long gaps in the middle (e.g. last track on Nirvana's Nevermind). Pointless digital (e.g. total) silence "they" put on CD's can be taken out of lossless, as long as it is held somewhere and as long as somebody who wants to burn an exact-duplicate CD can put it back - why not have a standard way of "fixing it"?
More details logged such as CD Drive firmware version, specific ASAPI adaptor used etc..
Fingerprint analysed before the WAV is even encoded
Fingerprint of noise-only (trimming leading/trailing silence) - very useful to detect a incorrect drive offset of your or their rip.
Replaygain analysis (a useful audio signature if nothing else)
Silence analysis
Frequency analysis
Waveform preview
Encoding into FLAC (of course), but to be followed by WAVPack support and APE support if anyone's still using it.
Audio analysis/offset correction information - by way of audio 'DNA' - a custom spec I've drawn up which makes a fingerprint seem like a blood type. Fingerprint...DNA...get it ;) ?
Shit loads more...

OK, people will still be able to "fake it" by ripping from a CDR, but trying to rip from images etc.. will proove difficult (I won't go into the technical details) and at least if you own the original and suspect a rip to be faulty there will be a wealth of information at your disposal.

Low priority features that maybe someday will be added...

Secondary encoding option - for lossy etc... (very low priority)
Automatic creation of torrent files
Automatic posting of torrents to your favourite site (e.g. Oink)
Automatic HTML/PHPBB style tracklist formatting etc... (for presentation pages)
Messaging/Emails etc.. when rip complete

I expect to have a alpha* version out in a few days so stay tuned.
*which to not dissapoint will largely be proof-of-concept/bug-busting excercise I will distribute to a few EAC-heads for testing.

FAQ
Q) Why am I not writing my own ripping tool?
A) Because I'm lazy. Also because it's f**king hard work. And also because EAC is a great and well-trusted proven program.

Q) Have I not heard of Accurip?
A) Yes, but Accurip is again designed for personal use - not for ripping CD's and distributing them, not for my Mother or anyone else who can still make mistakes with EAC configuration - at best the mistakes get spotted, at worst they never do.

Q) Is this legal?
A) I will not be distributing the code with EAC - you will download EAC. It is not a derirative work of EAC (merely a front-end) and in fact it pays nothing but homage to EAC. Also of course the music you rip/distribute should only be your own or where you have copyright permission ;)

Q) Will this be available on Mac/Linux?
A) The ripping/encoding routines will work on any platform the only trusted lossless ripper (EAC) can run on :P

Q) But what about if a Mac/Linux user recieved the files and cannot do anything with them?
A) In terms of a torrent file, the individual track-based FLAC files will still be distributed as normal - for instant playing. Once it's past beta stage on the Windows format I'll be welcome to talk to Mac/Linux heads about writing some tools on their side.

Q) Is it vaporware?
A) Yes and no. I've written a EAC Class. It's a messy affair right now all driven from a console/command prompt. This Class does a few naughty things such as spy on EAC and it's internal memory. These things are all possible and all working now. I can see all EAC options as they are changed. I can read a cuesheet before EAC even generates one. I can modify any EAC setting directly. I can find out/report more about drives than EAC does - such as firmware version etc... I can see exactly what ASPI layer and version of ASPI layer you are using. I can read the test/rip CRC32's, read errors, track quality etc... as and when they are being generated - you will not have time to change them. I can produce a EAC logfile before EAC does.

Q)How can I help?
A)Support me, just say "Sounds good" if nothing else. If you want to go a bit further then please post any features you'd like to see, or any questions and I will update this post as necessary.