EAC and 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 EAC and ALAC 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 QAAC 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

• Exact Audio Copy
• iTunes
• QAAC

Note: This guide has now been amended to reflect changes made to QAAC as of 2.82.

qaac's command line usage

• Command Line Options

refalac's command line usage

• refalac usage

Installation

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

1. Install 7-zip.
2. Download iTunes64Setup.exe (64-bit) or iTunesSetup.exe (32-bit) into a directory.
3. Download the latest version of QAAC, Then unzip the chosen QAAC version (include qaac.exe and refalac.exe for 32-bit, include qaac64.exe and refalac64.exe for 64-bit) into same directory.
4. Download makeportable2.cmd into same directory.
5. Double-click on the file makeportable.cmd.
6. After that there are one folder created. QTfiles64 or QTfiles.
7. Open a command prompt window. Change to that directory (cd command). Enter `qaac64.exe --check` (64-bit) or `qaac.exe --check` (32-bit) to see if the version number is displayed.

General Configuration for Encode Apple Lossless Audio Codec (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 .mp4 if not already that.
• Click the Browse button and locate the refalac.exe or refalac64.exe that you unzipped earlier.
• Uncheck Use CRC check and Add ID3 tag.
• Check 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:

 -A --title "%title%" --artist "%artist%" --band "%albumartist%" --album "%albumtitle%" --genre "%genre%" --date "%year%" --track "%tracknr%/%numtracks%" %source% -o %dest% 

QAAC configured with ALAC (Apple Lossless Audio Codec), in an newer version of EAC

• Note: Remember that you cannot change the compression level.

General Configuration for Encode Apple 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 .mp4 if not already that.
• Click the Browse button and locate the qaac.exe or qaac64.exe that you unzipped earlier.
• Uncheck Use CRC check and Add ID3 tag.
• Check 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%" --genre "%genre%" --date "%year%" --track "%tracknr%/%numtracks%" %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.