EAC and AAC (qaac)

Exact Audio Copy guides
Configuration
EAC configuration EAC Options EAC Drive Options EAC Compression Options EAC Metadata Options EAC WAV Editor Options EAC Configuration Wizard
Compression
EAC and AAC (neroAac)‎ EAC and AAC (qaac)‎ EAC and ALAC (FFmpeg)‎ EAC and ALAC (qaac)‎ EAC and ALAC (refalac)‎‎‎ EAC and FLAC EAC and LAME EAC and LossyWAV EAC and Monkey's Audio EAC and Musepack EAC and Ogg Vorbis EAC and Opus EAC and TAK EAC and WavPack
Other
EAC Gap Settings EAC and Cue Sheets EAC Lossless Backup

Important note

This guide is in need of an update, because in EAC 1.0 beta 2, the replacement strings changed. For example:

"%s" is now "%source%"
"%d" is now "%dest%"
"%a" is now "%artist%"

See the full list in the EAC FAQ or in the EAC Compression Options guide.

Software Needed

Note: This guide has now been amended to reflect changes made to QAAC as of 2.18.

refalac's command line usage

refalac usage

qaac's command line usage

Command Line Options

Installation

Note: This guide assumes that EAC has been configured for secure ripping, if not please follow this guide.

Download newest CLI QuickTime AAC/ALAC encoder, Then unzip the chosen QAAC version (include qaac.exe and refalac.exe) into the same directory as EAC.

General Configuration for Encode ALAC

Open EAC and insert a CD into the drive.
Click the EAC menu and select Compression Options.
Click the External Compression Tab, and put a tick in the box for use external program for compression.
Change Parameter Passing Scheme to User Defined Encoder.
Change Use file extension to .m4a if not already that.
Click the Browse button and locate the refalac.exe that you unzipped earlier.
Remove the ticks from Use CRC check and Add ID3 tag.
Tick Check for external programs return code.
If you are using EAC 1.0b2 or newer, then in the Additional command line options box, copy and paste the following string:

--title "%title%" --artist "%artist%" --band "%albumartist%" --album "%albumtitle%" --composer "%composer%" --comment "%comment%" --genre "%genre%" --date "%year%" --track "%tracknr1%/%numtracks%" --disk "%cdnumber%/%totalcds%" %haslyrics%--lyrics "%lyricsfile%"%haslyrics% %hascover%--artwork "%coverfile%"%hascover% %source% -o %dest%

Note: Remember that you cannot change the compression level.

General Configuration for Encode AAC

Open EAC and insert a CD into the drive.
Click the EAC menu and select Compression Options.
Click the External Compression Tab, and put a tick in the box for use external program for compression.
Change Parameter Passing Scheme to User Defined Encoder.
Change Use file extension to .m4a if not already that.
Click the Browse button and locate the qaac.exe that you unzipped earlier.
Remove the ticks from Use CRC check and Add ID3 tag.
Tick Check for external programs return code.
If you are using EAC 1.0b2 or newer, then in the Additional command line options box, copy and paste the following string:

--title "%title%" --artist "%artist%" --band "%albumartist%" --album "%albumtitle%" --composer "%composer%" --comment "%comment%" --genre "%genre%" --date "%year%" --track "%tracknr1%/%numtracks%" --disk "%cdnumber%/%totalcds%" %haslyrics%--lyrics "%lyricsfile%"%haslyrics% %hascover%--artwork "%coverfile%"%hascover% %islow%-a %bitrate%%islow% %ishigh%-v %bitrate%%ishigh% %source% -o %dest%

High quality in EAC = Constrained VBR mode = VBR on in iTunes.
Low quality in EAC = ABR mode = VBR off in iTunes.
Note: for other encoding modes (such as CBR, True VBR, HE-AAC, etc.), edit the parameters between the %islow% and/or %ishigh% tags. See Command Line Options.