CDex and FLAC

This guide acts as a quick and painless way to make a lossless-backup with CDex and FLAC. It does not go into detail about configuring cdparanoia.

Software needed

Note: CDex has native FLAC support; no need to download anything else

• CDex 1.70 (Beta 4 2009)

Installation

Note: Guides assumes your output directory for your files has already been configured if not click on Options menu then click Settings and select Filenames tab

• Install libFLAC.dll to the root CDex directory on your computer (default: cdex_170_beta2)
• See Configuring CDex and CD-ROM Drives

Configuration

Basic

• Open CDex and insert a CD into the drive
• Click the Options menu then click Settings and select Encoder tab
• Change Encoder drop down menu to FLAC Encoder DLL
• Change the box so that On the fly Encoding is checked off
• Change the appropriate compression setting level (default: -compression-level 5 |

best: --compression-level 8 )

• Click OK
• Highlight selected tracks you want to extract and click toolbar button second from the top (Extract CD track(s) to Compressed Audio File(s))
• By default cdparanoia will open up and begin extracting tracks from your default CD-ROM drive to the appropriate folders
  

Advanced command-line

• To use FLAC as external command-line encoder change Encoder to External Encoder and specify flac.exe or your path to appropriate executable. Parameter string:

"-5 -V -o %2 -T "artist=%a" -T "title=%t" -T "album=%b" -T "date=%y" -T "tracknumber=%tn/%tt" -T "genre=%g" -"

Note: the number in green can be substituted for appopriate compression level. The default is -5 the best is -8.

Screenshot

FLAC configured with CDex on the fly

CDex and CUE Sheets

• CDex has limited support for creating CUE sheets in current beta release

See also

• CDex
• cdparanoia

External links

• DAE Drive Database