Bayu Aditya’s Blog

This tutorial was taken from my previous blog which is inactive now. Okay, I’m pretty sure a lot of us likes high quality mp3, right? This tutorial will tell you how to make it. Credit goes to Mr. Isra.

Ripping from a CD to a mp3 file is the best way to get the highest quality mp3, because when it’s still in a CD, the file is still pure, unless the quality of the CD itself is bad. But, if you have a good quality audio CD and you rip it with no technique or with normal ripper like windows meda player (very basic), you’ll loose the high quality mp3.

The software that will be used are free software, either encoder and the decoder. It’s Exact Audio Copy (EAC) and LAME. Okay, let’s start.

Step1: Download and install EAC V0.9 beta 4 (the one that I’m using) or you also can download the latest version of EAC in their official website or click here. If the configuration wizard pops up, close it.

Step2: Download some adapters that you will need later.

Step3: Copy the adapter that suit your profile to C:\Program Files\Exact Audio Copy\Profiles directory (see picture below for some explanation).

You can see that the suitable adapter and id for it is Adp:0, ID:0. Open adapters file that you downloaded in step 2 and choose [Adapter0 - ID0]-by-redchamber.CFG and copy to C:\Program Files\Exact Audio Copy\Profiles.

(For WindowsXP and Win2k Users Only) Download the Nero ASPI Layer DLL. You must place this DLL file in the directory you installed EAC (Usually C:\Program Files\Exact Audio Copy).
Windows 95/98/ME already has an ASPI layer built in.

Step4: Download LAME 3.90.3(by Dibrom) and Save this lame.exe file to your EAC directory (Usually C:\Program Files\Exact Audio Copy).

Step5: Put the audio CD to your CD ROM and open EAC Make sure the profile that u select is correct (see step 3).

Step6: For those of you creating mp3s, you’ll now need to go to the EAC -> Compression Options -> External Compression tab. Click on the “browse” button and point to the lame.exe file that you downloaded in Step 4.
Important: Make sure that “Parameter passing scheme” is set to LAME mp3 Encoder. Press “ok”.

Step7: Last step. Highlight some tracks and hit the mp3 button. EAC will ask you where you want to save your extracted files. Choose a directory and make a note of it, so you can play these files later. Click Save. EAC is now extracting the audio from your CD. Once the first track is complete, a black DOS window should open (that’s your mp3 being created), don’t close it, it will do that automatically once it’s done.

After extraction is complete, open the .LOG file it creates in your album directory (use a text editor), and verify that it was extracted in “secure mode”. If it says “burst mode” the .CFG file wasn’t loaded properly, try re-loading the .CFG file again. If you plan on using a different CD-ROM drive later on, you will need to load the [Adapter:X - ID:X]-by-redchamber.CFG file again (re-check step 3).

WARNING!: Please note that the whole point of using EAC is to use it’s “secure mode”. For some users, this .CFG file will load all the options correctly with the exception of putting EAC in “secure mode”. (Which is why I have you look at the .log file to make sure).

And it’s done! That wasn’t so hard after all was it? Now you know how to Create the highest quality mp3. Cheers!