I’ve always been a fan of physical media, be it movies, music, or games. I’m also old enough that I grew up in a time when it’s all we had; there was no Spotify or Netflix.
Slowly I’m working through it all to create digital copies for both archival purposes and convenience since there are plenty of situations where it’s not practical to put a disc in a machine and consume its content.
Right now I’m working through a vast stack of CDs acquired from the days when cars had CD players, not just screens connected to your phone or directly to streaming services. But I quickly found that the app I’ve used for this process in the past, the stock Windows 11 Media Player, nowadays isn’t up to scratch.
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It will still rip CDs, but it’s no good for the metadata anymore. Microsoft turned off the online tool that you could use to grab it, but even then, I figured I could just enter it manually, right?
Seems that doesn’t work all the time, either. Even on the few CDs I have that actually have the metadata on them already. It took ripping a few discs for me to realize that information wasn’t being applied to some or all tracks, and the artwork wasn’t sticking, either. So I needed a replacement, and frankly, I should have just gone for this out of the gate.
Enter Exact Audio Copy (EAC). A free app that is absurdly powerful and does the job right the first time.
Admittedly, it’s been a while since I last digitized a stack of CDs, and it had completely passed me by that Microsoft had turned off the service to get the information online. It’s a pretty poor experience for a stock app, even if it’s a feature that’s increasingly used by fewer people.
A better solution would have been to update the app, allowing its users to find an alternative source of this information. There are options out there, such as MusicBrainz, a free and open-source database of metadata. Maybe I’m asking too much; after all, Microsoft didn’t even update the app to remove the option to check for metadata.
It’s still there; it just gives you an error if you try and use it. I actually quite like the stock Media Player app, and still use it to play music. It’s simple and mostly nice to use. If it’s not going to work properly, though, just remove it altogether.
Exact Audio Copy is the perfect solution
Fortunately there is always an alternative, and in this case, it’s called Exact Audio Copy (EAC). There will be folks out there that have known of this app for years and are screaming at my incompetence for not going straight to it.
But I didn’t know it existed. I’m glad I do now.
This isn’t a full tutorial on how to use the app, mostly because I’m doing one specific thing, but it is really powerful. There are plenty of better tutorials out there, such as this one.
All I want is an accurate rip in FLAC, a standardized filename structure, metadata, and album artwork applied. The good news is that if you just want the same thing every time, EAC will run you through a setup wizard when you first use it. From there, you shouldn’t need to touch your settings again.
The only thing I did need to change was the metadata provider. The default option is only free for 10 rips, but you can change it within the app to MusicBrainz, which is completely free.
I now know I should have used this all along. AccurateRip will check your CD against a database of other exact rips to ensure yours is as perfect as it can possibly be. It can deal with scratched discs (of which I sadly own several), and it communicates directly with the hardware.
I may be underselling it, but I’m as far from an expert as there is on this stuff. There are plenty of more knowledgeable folks out there, like this post on Flemming’s blog that is an excellent resource for getting set up properly.
EAC isn’t the only alternative to using Media Player, but it’s the one I tried first, and I’m happy. I may try and get in the weeds at some point, but for now it’s doing what I need. Archiving my CDs accurately, with good quality, and all the necessary metadata.
If you’ve any tips or tricks to share on this process, or even an alternative worth trying, be sure to drop them in the comments below.
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