THE best way to rip and edit lossless files (for Macintosh users)

After reading the guide to lossless ripping in the great big thread in the videogame section, I knew I need to make this one.

I have used XLD for 2 years before abandoning it altogether. Each new version produced slightly different results, so I asked why, on a forum I trust. Apparently, the program does not extract the file from the disc perfectly, but converts instead of copying. Turns oout, lossless conversion, despite the namesake, does not always produce perfect copies.

To explain why, let’s compare sound to video. I could make a copy of a movie file without compressing it, but if the editing program is just not good, it can always get the colors or lighting wrong. Same with audio.

In other words, XLD does not produce perfect copies. It reads the discs correctly, and and can identify defective areas, but the files you will end up with will not be perfect copies and they will not sound identical.

So, how to get perfect copies?

The answer is deceptively simple. All you need to do is insert the disc into a drive. It will show up in Finder. Select it, and you will be shown all the tracks as .AIFF files (as they should be). Drag the tracks off the disc into a folder of your choice (for me it’s Documents). It will take a few seconds for each track (depending on the size), and in the end you will have 100% exact copies of what is on the disc. After that, you need to name/tag your files. Then, use xACT (and ONLY xACT) to convert/compress it onto a format of your choice (FLAC, ALAC, Monkey Audio, AAC, etc.). I am recommending this particular program, because it is the only one I ever tried that produces 100% identically sounding copies when you convert into lossless. xACT can also rip traditionally into .WAV using CDParanoia. However, I got burned on the whole ripping thing, so I’ll just stick with copying.

There is a difference between a defective and damaged areas on a CD:

Compact Disc Digital Audio technology is designed in a way that each building block of a 44.100 kHz 16bit audio track is represented by several zeros and ones. That is done to allow playback even if the machine that prints discs malfunctions, or the surface gets badly scratched. If the numbers do not exactly add up, a program built in every CD player will try to correct the error, and in most cases, it does. A defective area is not damaged, it’s just a little wrong. But that can result in click errors. Ripping in secure mode corrects the errors (in most cases), but, you already know what I think of ripping: it heavily depends on the program, and not a single one I tried did it right. All in all, I would recommend always using a ripping program with a secure more to test a CD, just to check if it’s defective. If it isn’t, just copy the files directly through Finder.

A damaged area is exactly what it sounds like. If you try to drag+copy a file from a damaged area in Finder, you will get an error. Normally, a relatively new CD will not be damaged unless someone did the damage to it by not handling it carefully.

To summarize:
Use ripping software in secure mode to check a CD for errors. Extract the files with Finder for 100% accurately sounding copies. Convert/compress with xACT. Edit with Audacity.

P.S. A defective area on a disc will not always produce sound artifacts.

Somehwat unrelated but I read that a program called Fission allows you to do simple audio editing of files with no loss of quality on mac. Only drawback is it’s not free

Maybe outsource to a friend with Windows ?

If you’re crafty, try virtualize Windows on Mac to use EAC.

I don’t know much about Mac but Lyedecker seems to present something I’ve seen elsewhere.

There aren’t usually any good freeware apps for Mac.

they’re harder and harder to find these days. everyone wants to make it a free trial where you get limited features. occasionally there’s some good open source apps. i’m about to try another "free" app that lets you edit mp3/aac/etc without any degredation in quality. i’m really curious how that’s possible. do you know sparky? or is it a bullshit gimmick?

No, it’s possible.
if it’s going to cut/split tracks, it’s possible.

i think there are some software out there that can apply audio/loudness gain to audio without loss.

i haven’t tested it out but something for Windows like MP3gain has a lot of popularity.
but development stopped back in 2010.

i found one geared towards editing audiobook files into longer files. i think i can use this to merge score tracks. i want to do this so i can listen to them in shuffle mode on my ipod. ya know, if a part of a score is broken into multiple tracks… sometimes it is nicer to have them as one track. also to have, say, "we will rock you" and "we are the champions" as one track, since they are usually played back to back on the radio. that’s how i’m used to hearing them and that’s how i goddamn want them on my ipod. 1st world problems ~

———- Post added at 08:01 PM ———- Previous post was at 07:59 PM ———-

a little bit of quality loss doesn’t really bother me, since i will still have the original source files unaltered. i’m just being anal :laugh:

then yes, there is lossless processing for that type of editing.

cross-fade might be another story, but if you just want to append one track to another, there are programs that can do that.
they just copy data one after another.

that’s all i really need for now. was listening to indy and the last crusade and thinking how some of the tracks seem to end too abruptly. the music played during the tank scene is broken into 3 separate tracks. i want that shit as one long, glorious behemoth.

that doesn’t seem so bad.

Ultimate Edition of The Phantom Menace seems more like a challenge.
Separation would be the key point to winning this week’s immunity (http://youtu.be/NkO9-4U_oqQ).

I don’t have Mac, but a little curiosity about what the problem with the wrong encoding of the application XLD could be. For a given source, the sound encoded to any lossless format must be identical, as identical as "collection.pdf" when extracted from a .zip , a .rar , an .ace or a 7z archive. While all of these being different, and possibly different across versions of the compressor, the same source file can be reconstructed from any of them.

With sound files this is more tricky to verify because what must be compared in all cases is the real sound, the end "raw" audio stream, rather than the files themselves, which either compressed or extracted (if we think on extracting a .wav from a .flac), can have differences in the metadata, the headers or other, while still being the same exact audio. So, lossless compression must produce, by definition, files with identical sound in every case, even though we don’t see it at file level with a simple byte-by-byte comparison of the usual files. To accomplish that we’d need to convert them to raw, headerless format and then we’d see the match.

What I’m curious about is the explanation they gave to you. It should be not a problem that XLD converted on the fly to a lossless format, like ALAC-m4a or FLAC instead of writing intermediate uncompressed files, as long as it ripped the exact same tracks as the other apps rip. Probably what they meant is that lossless conversion can produce files that are not identical, and that’s ok; but an implied paradox that lossless was not lossless would break my universe in pieces. 😀

I don’t have Mac, but a little curiosity about what the problem with the wrong encoding of the application XLD could be. For a given source, the sound encoded to any lossless format must be identical, as identical as "collection.pdf" when extracted from a .zip , a .rar , an .ace or a 7z archive. While all of these being different, and possibly different across versions of the compressor, the same source file can be reconstructed from any of them.

With sound files this is more tricky to verify because what must be compared in all cases is the real sound, the end "raw" audio stream, rather than the files themselves, which either compressed or extracted (if we think on extracting a .wav from a .flac), can have differences in the metadata, the headers or other, while still being the same exact audio. So, lossless compression must produce, by definition, files with identical sound in every case, even though we don’t see it at file level with a simple byte-by-byte comparison of the usual files. To accomplish that we’d need to convert them to raw, headerless format and then we’d see the match.

What I’m curious about is the explanation they gave to you. It should be not a problem that XLD converted on the fly to a lossless format, like ALAC-m4a or FLAC instead of writing intermediate uncompressed files, as long as it ripped the exact same tracks as the other apps rip. Probably what they meant is that lossless conversion can produce files that are not identical, and that’s ok; but an implied paradox that lossless was not lossless would break my universe in pieces. 😀

Converts incorrectly instead of copying. Inaccurate sound duplication. xACT does however do a correct job. Again, for 100% accurate copies that sound exactly like your disc, use my method described in OP. For lossless format conversion, use xACT.

And all this talk of free sound editing programs is silly when you have Audacity.

This wasn’t supposed to be a discussion thread, but rather me warning people not to use XLD.

OK, then it was some bug in the process of extraction or perhaps a faulty encoding to the lossless format, but not any kind of allowed lossless-degradation. Thanks for the warning.

Hey, Klark! Sorry for offtopic, but can you adding me in Skype? login is Mostcus
I wanna talk you about Stewart
Sorry for my English, i did my best

This wasn’t supposed to be a discussion thread.

WELCOME TO THE INTERNET!

"Hey, Klark! Sorry for offtopic, but can you adding me in Skype? login is Mostcus
I wanna talk you about Stewart
Sorry for my English, i did my best "
Don’t contact me on YouTube. Or anywhere, really.

———- Post added at 02:26 AM ———- Previous post was at 02:22 AM ———-

WELCOME TO THE INTERNET!

Why, thank you!

"Don’t contact me on YouTube. Or anywhere, really."

I wanna tell you send me your tracks from Tyler (links in not work). Can your please? And i want another tracks with quality. You my only hope. Cant find Klark Kent and other Stewart’s works 🙁

"Don’t contact me on YouTube. Or anywhere, really."

I wanna tell you send me your tracks from Tyler (links in not work). Can your please? And i want another tracks with quality. You my only hope. Cant find Klark Kent and other Stewart’s works 🙁

That’s much better. Just got tired of random strangers trying to become "Internet friends" with me.

I tell you what: send me a PM, so it’s be there as a reminder. I lost a stupid bet, and cannot use my CD collection until the end of Autumn.

That’s much better. Just got tired of random strangers trying to become "Internet friends" with me.

I’ll be your internet friend. 😉
Just need your credit card info to validate your age and a copy of your handwritten signature to ensure that it is you. 🙂
Also, if you can tell me who your favorite aunt is, the maiden name of your mother, name of your first pet, street you grew up on, name of your best friend and your top 5 favorite numbers.

thar be a super old one called MacFlac but I don’t know about error handling in it’s FLAC coding. I’ve been using xACT for a long time and it’s tops. The developer doesn’t seem to need to update/update/update. Guess he got it right the first time. 😀

Updates aren’t always "fixing what’s not broken".

FLAC has been taken over by Xiph.org and are working on newer versions.
People will want to see udpates for some bugs known to FLAC.

If you read the mailing list of bugs/requests, you’ll see the world of limitations to FLAC currently.

Useless to most here, since everyone here is doing the simple conversions of stereo/16bit audio.

There’s actually a lot that goes into development for software that we don’t know about it.
And usually when there’s no udpates or no new versions, it could be the developer saw no immediate concern for udpates for many reasons: no actual feedback (from technical standpoints), no one wanting to donate to keep project alive, distraction from other projects, or others we cannot fathom.

But if you go to xACT’s website, you’ll see there are a lot of udpates. Most recent one just this past April.
xact.scottcbrown.org (http://xact.scottcbrown.org/)

MacFlac seems dead. The sourceforge page shows Flac builds consistent with the official Flac site (which is also dead; ie, no longer developed and since taken over by Xiph.org).

MacFlac/Flac no longer being updated has nothing to do with "getting it right the first time".
the mailing list for official FLAC library is extremely huge with concerns, bugs and requests.
Why it was abandoned? :itsamystery:

But I’m glad that Xiph.org has taken over and seeing new development in the library.
MacFlac should be getting udpated soon or someone else taking over that; or even creating something similar.

ATTENTION!

Please disregard this entire thread. I have discovered that I have been a fool. The best way to rip 100% identical error-free copies on a Mac is by using DBPoweramp (still in beta but will be released very soon) or xACT (although I forgot how, you have to contact the developer on this one) which has CDParanoiia.

If anyone has the power to make this thread insignificant, please do so.