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[jolo]

  I obviously have some basic misunderstanding of how MC 10 (10.0.153 ) works as far as encoding audio. Here aer some steps for my backup:

1. I will rip a audio CD I have purchased in a .wav file. I have it set to analyse while ripping, whicbh it does. I did a double check.

2. Everything is found perfecty, no need to make change changes in ID3.

3. I then do a file conversion into oog vorbis which it does fine, but MC forgets that I also have a wav file there.

4, So, I inport from the folder which has the oog and the wav files, the wav files only.

5. MC showme tells me that the wav are NOT in the library and takes them as new,

6. I then have to re-analyse them and add the ID3 information back to the wav file.

7. From there I make a .ape file to stay on-line and sometimes burn a CD from the wav.

The question is, why does MC 10 forget about the .wav file ? Do I need to keep everything in differernt folders if the files are of a different codec ?

Thanks in advance.

[kaiynne]

you need to uncheck update library, that way MC will not replace the WAV with the ogg file in its database.  Then after the batch conversion is done you can select the folder that you had MC create the oggs in and import them from there, they should contain all the tag info, and you will have two versions of each file, one ogg one wav.  Same system with ape files.

[jolo]

kaiynne,

Thanks for the easy and direct answer.

[JimH]

I _think_ you could simplify this by ripping directly to APE and then convert to Ogg from APE.  There is no reason to rip to WAV unless you like to.

[Alex B]

That is true. You can burn your CDs from APEs. They will be identical.
APE can contain tag information, WAV not.

[kaiynne]

I do the same thing, rip to wav and then convert to ape and mp3.  My reasoning is that ripping is slightly faster and batch conversion is slightly faster, so if i rip to mp3 first then rip to ape from the wav files later it will be much quicker overall.  In my experience ripping from wav to mp3 is roughly twice as fast as ape to mp3.

Glad I could help you out jsolo

[jolo]

 kaiynne,

Cool Kaiynne !!

I do it for quality reasons. If I rip from a CD to an uncompressed format, then encoding from a pure uncompressed format to .ape and .oog should by encoded, "without the middle man" to possible strip some of the quality away.

I also have to tell you that I have taken some of the .ape filed, then brought them into  "Monkey's Audio" a few  times to "decompress" and put back to .wav. I find that it does this very fast and I cannot make out the slightest quality loss.

Jim and Alex,

I may be doing more work than I need to do, buy not going directly from CD to .ape, but since I am going to do oog as well, I just feel that I always like to encode from the cleanest source I have, which I would believe is uncompressed wav, but I could be very wrong Jim and Alex.

Jon

[paulr]

jolo,  

The APE format is lossless.  There will not be any quality loss when converting from APE to WAV.

If you rip directly to APE, it is exactly as "clean" as if you ripped directly to WAV.  There is no difference other than size and the need to decode.

[jolo]

PaulR,

Thanks so much. I just assumed that since it software compresses the .wav file in some way, before it goes to .ape. Then I assumed, it lose some of the losslessness just like you would have with any type of encoding from one format to another.

Thanks so much for the big time saver !!

Would that be the same if I move the .ape files to burn to a CD ?

Jon

[Alex B]

If you compress a wave file to ape and back to wave you can find that the resulting file is bit-to-bit identical with the original.

When you rip to ape a temporally wave file is saved on your hard drive. MC converts it to ape.

Ape Normal is quite fast with modern P4 or Athlon computers. If ripping is set to secure mode reading CD disks is the slowest part of the process. High and extra high are slower and there is not much gain in compression amount. Insane is really insane, painfully slow and practically not smaller.

There is no difference in the ogg file if you convert from ape instead of wave.

An audio CD, which is burned from ape files is identical with an audio CD from wave files.

[kaiynne]

Yeah I have to agree with all of those quality statements, I have tested ape files from MC and the stand alone monkeys audio program and they are identical, both to my ear and to the programs themselves.

I rip in secure mode, and then batch convert from the wavs into mp3 and then after the mp3s are done I convert to ape.  I have tested the difference between ape to mp3 and wav to mp3 and it is roughly twice as fast to go from wav to mp3 YMMV.

But just to reitterate, it is simply a speed thing not quality.  Because when I am ripping it is usually 20 cds or so at a time so even a slight difference is multiplied over that many cds and when I am asleep the batch convert can take as long as it likes.

[jolo]

kaiynne, Jim and Alex B,

I want to thank you all. This string has not only educated me, but I am so pleased that no one gave the kind of condescending replys that unfortunately I see too much from those who know a tiny little piece of information more than someone else.  I think you know, like sometimes on hydrogenaudio where I do get entertained at times when there is a battle over settings and techniques which the  human ear can't hear anyway. This has been wonderful.  We're hear to help each other and I will pass on what I learn to others.

Kaiynne,

For MP3 conversions, to you ever use one of the newer versions of LAME directly, maybe with a GUI interface. There has been a recent major dump of newer LAME versions that are faster and I believe might pack more quality into their "alt" settings.

For me, I do feel that MP3 sounds rather flat, when compared to .oog Vorbis, but .ape sounds sensational with my Sennheiser HD 497 headphones. BUT, all that listening stuff is so subjective and their is always the quality versus disk space issue.  

I hate when someone says, "this is the best way", or "this is the only way", makes me cringe. I also do lots and lots of video encoding which I would say, after two years, I feel that I have an assortment of tools for every occasion to convert and edit anything to anything with minimal loss and aggravation.
Unlike some people with video, the audio is an essential part for me, while for some people get absolutely anal about the quality of the video and will do two days of encoding to make things as perfect as they can.

The best format is the one that suits each peson the best. There is NO BEST !!

Usually it seems to be human nature that whatever someone uses the most and has the greatest knowledge of  then gets advertised as "THE BEST".

[JimH]

Nice post, Jolo.  Thanks.

[kaiynne]

Jsolo,

Glad to see that you noticed the much more friendly atmosphere around this forum.  I frequent quite a few technology forums, but none of them have the same level of helpfulness as the MC forum, both from users as well as from admin/dev people.

Regarding the compressed audio stuff, unfortunately while ogg and aac both sound better than mp3 to my ear kilobyte for kilobye, I have an Ipod and MC.  Basically I can't use ogg because of lack of support from apple and I don't want to use aac because it is not natively supported in MC.  So I am stuck with mp3 which is not the biggest deal ever because the ipod while great it certainly is not up to the standard of my home theatre.  Also I have mp3s that have not been converted from my music collection and they are a rather mixed bunch so it is easier to just live with 2 formats.

I think that we are lucky to have such a great forum, and as long as people appreciate it for what it is it will most likely stay that way.