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

Just run the installer. If additional Windows redistributable components are needed, they will be downloaded during install.

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
Confirm that On the fly Encoding is checked off
Change the appropriate compression setting level (default: -compression-level 5 |

best: --compression-level 8 )

Click OK
On toolbar at right, click button second from the top (Extract CD track(s) to Compressed Audio File(s))
CDex will begin extracting tracks from your default CD-ROM drive to the Folder and Filename as set below

General > Directories & files

Set Filename Format the way you want it; e.g. %1\%2\%7 - %4 gives ARTIST\ALBUM\01 - TRACK
Set the two directories for output files where you want them

Ripping > CD Drive settings

Encoding > Tags

CD Database > Remote freedb

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.