Contents:

I.	The software you will need
II.	The Key to it all - configuring EAC
III.	Extracting and Encoding - the fun part
IV.	You've now been highly qualified.
V.	Appendix
VI.	Links

I.     The software you will need (all freeware):

1. Exact Audio Copy (EAC), either ver. 0.9Beta4 or ver. 0.95PreBeta3
2. MPC encoder (ver. 1.14) and decoder (ver. 1.95e)
3. The EAC profile: for EAC 0.9Beta4 or for EAC 0.95PreBeta3
4. ReplayGain
5. MPC Batch Encoder frontend
6. MPCscan (or MPCscan Frontend)
7. WinAmp 2 and Winamp MPC Plugin (ver. 0.98b); or better foobar, an excellent new player. Get Case's preconfigured built foobar2000 v0.8.
8. Easy MD5 Creator
9. Other software you will probably need sooner or later:
1. Case's Tag and Speek's Tag frontend, used to add/modify APE2 tags on your files
2. Sweep - again by case, a handy utility used sometimes with Tag, MPCscan, ReplayGain or par2
3. Mpeg Audio Collection (MAC), a music database/organizing program, here MAC ver. 2.92 installer or here MAC 2.93.1 (incl. Wavpack 4 support)
4. Par2 : QuickPar for creating recovery files, if archive medium like HD, CD-R or DVD+-R got corrupted, e.g. scratched. Here guide & commandline versions, which work together with sweep tool.

Software Installation: create the directory C:\Musepack and unzip mppenc, mppdec, mpcbatch and replaygain into it. You can also put mpcscan, sweep, tag and tag frontend into this directory. The other titles have installers and are probably best put in their own directories.

1. The Wizard

During the installation of EAC a configuration wizard will pop up (if it doesn't or you have already installed EAC, go to: 'EAC' > 'configuration wizard'). What the wizard does is very important: it detects your drives features and capabilities. Even if you already installed EAC, go all the way through the wizard.



SELECT	"I prefer accurate results"
SELECT	"I don't trust these values, detect the features for my drive"
UNCHECK	"install and configure the external LAME.EXE compressor
INSERT	an e-mail address
CHECK	"I am an expert, let me use the full potential of EAC"


Read here for more installation details


2. The Profile

Now to set up the MPC compressor. Unzip the EAC Profile into your 'ExactAudioCopy\Profiles' directory. (Be careful to use EAC0.9beta4profile.zip for EAC 0.9b4 or EAC0.95PreBeta3profile.zip for EAC 0.95pb3.) This will save a lot of work. (Note that this profile will reset your previous settings if you already had EAC installed - such as offset correction (good if correct) and normalizing (bad!)).
Restart EAC. At the bottom bar of the window, you will see "no profile selected". Just select the EAC Profile and that's it. (If you can't see it, move the EAC window up a bit).


3. Drive Options

Go to the EAC menu at the top of the window. 'EAC Options' and 'Compression Options' are already OK - having been set by the Profile - but EAC>'Drive Options' should be verified:



Tab	Setting
Extraction Method	"Secure mode" must be CHECKED
"	"Drive is capable of retrieving C2 error info" must be UNCHECKED
Drive	"Autodetect Read Command Now" - do it a couple times to be sure
Offset/Speed	(optional)
Gap Detection	(optional)



4. Customizing



1. Default extraction/compression directory
2. Default album/song naming
3. The MPC command line



5. Selected screenshots with comments

III.     Extracting and Encoding - the fun part

1. Preparations

Start EAC and insert an original (not a CD-r, period) in your drive. In most cases, EAC will fill in all the album information automatically if you are connected to the internet. If not, you will have to fill in this data manually (CD title, artist, year issued, song titles, genre-if you use it). (Press F12 and press 'get active server list' to configure this option. From now on, EAC will always try to connect to freedb.org, an album database on the 'Net. Often that info is incomplete or not 100% correct, so confirm the song titles and watch for spelling mistakes! If you need to correct a title, choose 'Edit' > 'Rename Track'. Everything you need can be found on your CD. For even more info check out allmusic.com. It is important to get everything correct up front as all of this data will be written to the APE2 tag for each song - even the year of issue (which is on the CD if not at freedb) and the genre (beware, these can be highly variable). We'll review the tag in detail later (see the appendix). Review these recommendations and tips for album/song/file naming. Don't forget to make sure you have enough space on your hard drive.


2. Creating a Cue Sheet:  (optional)



3. Extracting and Compressing the Audio


Action > Test & Copy Selected Tracks > Compressed

A window will pop up while the process is running. It will take a while (20-40 minutes or more, depending on your drive speed and the quality of the original CD). So take a break and get some Pizza or scan the cover & booklet. A DOS window will pop up every now and then. This is the external MPC compressor (mppenc.exe) processing each track individually. DON'T close it, just let it run. If you find the DOS windows annoying you can configure EAC to hide them.


4. Check for Errors



1. EAC will beep after extraction is completed (press 'OK') and a new window will appear - 'Status and Error Messages'. The bottom lines should say 'no errors occurred'. In rare cases it will say 'there were errors', which means that a perfect copy was not made - usually because of a badly scratched CD. Often you will get a good extraction (matching crc checksum and 'no errors occurred') with a second try. If not, you will need to try and repair the CD and then try again, or accept that you cannot create an exact high quality copy of this CD. (note: if you get a sync error on the first or last track of a CD, flip the "Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out" setting)



2. Check the 10th column in the main EAC window. This is the CRC Check column. The column should say 'OK' for all tracks. Note: if there are #'s, EAC may still say 'no errors occurred', but there were in fact errors. Most of the time, you can extract that track again and get a good CRC match. The example shown was a CD with moderate scratches, run in "burst" mode. It extracts flawlessly in "secure" mode - that is why one uses "secure" and "Test & Copy". Also, this CD had one track that secure mode could NOT copy before cleaning with toothpaste-but it cleaned up quite easily in 5 minutes.



3. Now, where have your new MPC albums gone? The entire album folder is stored in C:\Musepack\process if you used the EAC profile. If you wish, you can change your default directory. You can close EAC once the external compressor has finished running and the DOS window has quit running. EAC is then all done - but you've got a bit more to do.





5. Replaygaining the Album

Tired of always reaching for the volume control whenever a new CD starts playing ? Problem solved. Replaygain stores overall volume information in the .mpc file to allow an improved listening experience. If you'd like to know more about Replaygain, check the appendix below and the Replaygain homepage.


1. You've already downloaded Replaygain.exe and the great front-end MPC Batch Encoder. Extract them into your C:\Musepack directory. Open MPC Batch Encoder - if you get an error message this page will help. MPC Batch Encoder has three tabs, 'Encoder', 'Decoder', and 'Replaygain'. You guessed it - hit the Replaygain tab. Verify options were set automatically ("--auto" and "output to text file").


2. 'Directory'- browse to the album folder you want to replaygain and hit 'GO'. A blank DOS window (named stdin) will pop up. It looks like nothing is happening, but all the screen output is being redirected to a log file, Replaygain --auto.txt. In a few minutes, the DOS window will say 'finished' at the top (when it sorta blinks, it's going to the next song within the album). That's it ! To check that everything was done, open the log file that's now in your album folder. Note: If you have several albums to replaygain, do each one of them separately - the results are not the same. If you really must do a whole directory at a time, use Sweep and get the correct process from the links below.


3. The log file you get will be named Replaygain --auto.txt. To avoid confusion, rename it to "AlbumFolder" -replaygain.txt"


6. The Final Touches


1. Your EAC 'AlbumTitle.log' file will have been put by EAC into the same directory as your album folder, so move it into the album folder. Consider renaming it. Same with the .cue sheet if you made one.


2. Have a look at the APE2 tags to make sure they have the correct titles, etc. and that any comment you wanted is there and correct.


3. Install Easy MD5 Creator. Start it up and create an .md5 file from the folder of your new archived album. This file will allow you to check the integrity of your files should you copy them to CD-r from archive, move them to another directory or HD, etc. (you may want to keep a separate directory with all your .md5 files in it - if your CD-r goes bad over time, it doesn't help to have the md5 file get corrupted also!) The .md5 file must be done after everything else has been completed.

IV.     You've now been highly qualified.

Sit back and listen to some High Quality music on your new PC jukebox while you read some more from the Appendix and the links below.

V.     Appendix

More Appendix: click here

Filenaming recommendations

Benefit from Replaygain ! To do so, configure the Winamp Plugin.

It is a very good idea to use MPCscan (by Case) or MPCscan Frontend to make sure the encoding process was not interrupted somehow.

What is a Tag ? Show me how to see my own tags !

So I have made a CUE sheet. But what is it used for ?

Changing the filenaming scheme if you are not satisfied with the current one.

Tips, tricks & troubleshooting

CD repair

A concise overview of common CD types.

Par2 : Recovery data for archives - Guide for beginners & experts : Add safety against data corruption to your backup media, HD, DVD+-R, CD-R

VI.     Links

MP3 Radified: Page for beginners - background info on all the different lossy and lossless audio compression codecs. Needs updating, but a overview for starting.
Case's Page (Foobar2000, Musepack, Winamp plugins), fortunately it is online again. Many thanks to him for his great developments !
Rarewares - interesting Audio compression related pages, MPC & other formats, like Lossless
Frank Klemm's page (developer of MPC, Official Musepack Homepage) : Mr. Klemm ist da Man !
HydrogenAudio : The best forum for MPC - or all other lossy & lossless codecs like mp3, Lame, Ogg Vorbis, AAC, FLAC, WavePack (Hybrid), Monkey's Ape, Optimfrog etc. Its search function is a great tool if you want to learn something... The developers are discussing here.
Recommended MPC settings for users - from Hydrogen Audio. Important tips and links for MPC
The Official EAC homepage : André Wiethoff ist da Man !
SATCP's EAC Guide : Very complete tutorial for EAC.
kdo's mpc page - brief intro to MPC and a good collection of links, unfortunately offline ?