To better clarify the question; How would I best be able to rip music from a CD in a lossless quality? Or is my standard method of ripping CDs into WMA via Windows Media Player considered if not lossless, less to be lost than that from an MP3?

I ask this because it is my hope to rip the 4-Disc Soundtrack of Guild Wars 2, which I am expecting it's delivery to arrive soon (EDIT: It has now arrived safely and in beautiful condition), and provide it's incredibly beautiful music to listeners who can no longer purchase it due to no digital distribution existing for it & the CD now a collector's item.

My concern of course is that if I were to simply rip the WMAs from the CD using Windows Media Player and upload them as such with a conversion to MP3 using Audacity or Sony Vegas, I would feel as if I wasn't giving something in it's full potential or even in a more unique form than what was commercially available (Even though at this point, just the music itself is no longer commercially available to the best of my research & knowledge). Plus, this knowledge would be useful regarding ripping CDs I have, particularly those with music that have no digital availability as Jon & Vangelis' Page of Life or Runaway Train's Soundtrack

My research has turned up EAC (Exact Audio Copy) (http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/), which I think has been previously mentioned in topics regarding Video Game Music & Soundtrack.

Any clarification would be deeply appreciated!

EAC is a good software for "lossless-rips", here's a tutorial which you might want to read, if you want to set it up correctly: Thread 91868

EAC is a good software for "lossless-rips", here's a tutorial which you might want to read, if you want to set it up correctly: Thread 91868

:this:

Also I don't think WMP's WMA format is lossless. In my memories, it was a lossy format, roughly the same quality as mp3. Of course, I may be wrong.

EAC is a good software for "lossless-rips", here's a tutorial which you might want to read, if you want to set it up correctly: Thread 91868

This will be extremely useful, especially when that 4-Disc CD album arrives! Thank you very much!




I don't think WMP's WMA format is lossless. In my memories, it was a lossy format, roughly the same quality as mp3. Of course, I may be wrong.

I didn't think it was lossless either, but wasn't sure if it had any superiority compared to commercial MP3 standards. But now I have all the info I need, I can just go straight to FLAC and the go from there.

You can choose between FLAC or Apple Lossless. As an Apple and iTunes user, I would find Apple Lossless more accessible and more supported, but if you do not use iTunes then they are about the same from an access point of view.

Both will reduce a songs size by about half compared to CD-Audio (Redbook) ~1400kb/s to ~500kb/s. It is compression, but no waveform structure is lost.

WMA does have a lossless option but it's basically obsolete and has been for many years. WMA was touted as theoretically superior to MP3 at equivalent bitrates, but times move on... As far as I can remember, the last time WMA outperformed MP3 was about ten years ago. To Microsoft's credit it was a good bit of technology with some novel ideas... the only problem was that competitors were doing just as well, were better established, and they open-sourced their code. WMA development stagnated and it was completely outclassed - not just in terms of sound quality but device support as well - by everything by about 2007.

FLAC, which is open source and supported by pretty much every device in existence, is the gold standard.

Well, the 4-Disc Album arrived safe & sound, and I have conducted some successful tests with Exact Audio Copy on such things as my CDs for Halo, Gears of War & Kill.Switch. But whilst performing a rip via Windows Media Player to double check the tags, I discovered something I really should've discovered years ago; I have the option to change what format I rip the CD's music to, varying from WMA to MP3 320 to WAV Lossless.

I've cross checked ripping WAV Lossless with both Windows Media Player & Exact Audio Copy, and based on size & available data, they're an exact match. So right now, I'm currently querying if perhaps ripping WAV Lossless via Windows Media Player, then converting to FLAC via Audacity is a better option, especially as I can manually input tags that need correcting or additional information based on CD credits (Ex. C Paul Johnson is credited for composing & producing numerous pieces in the Halo 3 soundtrack alongside Martin O'Donnell & Michael Salvatori in the CD credits, but never in the tag data). Albeit, EAC does the album cover, m3u data & .cue with no hassle.

What are your thoughts before I start giving the Guild Wars 2 Official Game Soundtrack CD a good rippin'? Let EAC do all the work, or go for the more manual approach with WAV Lossless converting?

Personally? I'd say go for whatever fits your standards/needs best, don't give a crap about others. I guess you're ripping for yourself, first and foremost. Beggars can't be choosers on how they get their free mushitz; don't forget that if they aren't happy with it, they can convert+edit tags themselves.

What are your thoughts before I start giving the Guild Wars 2 Official Game Soundtrack CD a good rippin'? Let EAC do all the work

THIS!! .. I want that GW2 OST :D Would be appreciated if you use the guide to exact step by step. I can verify the rip after its done if there is something you missed, either in your settings or maybe you did improperly (that's if you do fuck it up lol)

Personally? I'd say go for whatever fits your standards/needs best, don't give a crap about others. I guess you're ripping for yourself, first and foremost. Beggars can't be choosers on how they get their free mushitz; don't forget that if they aren't happy with it, they can convert+edit tags themselves.

That they can do. But if I'm going to share with people something I have, I'd like to know I'm doing so in a way that people of various hardware & software can enjoy it as much as myself. Besides, with the very limited availability of the likes of Guild Wars 2's initial music release, there isn't exactly much, if any opportunity for others to give it a try either, so it's nice to cover your bases & future-proof the music as much as possible (Well, unless DirectSong actually wishes to improve upon their unacceptable inability to deliver their products & services or ArenaNet decides to make that particular collection of music available themselves).

Thanks for the thoughts!


THIS!! .. I want that GW2 OST :D Would be appreciated if you use the guide to exact step by step. I can verify the rip after its done if there is something you missed, either in your settings or maybe you did improperly (that's if you do fuck it up lol)

Each & every rip I've performed for practice has infact been performed per your instructions (And for some good news; the logs have reported zero errors). I do intend to include the logs, as well as considering providing WAV, FLAC & MP3 320kbps (I am aware a select few tracks of the Guild Wars 2 OGST are available on iTunes, but if it's anything like my Amazon MP3 collection, they won't be unanimously at 320kbps), so you're more than welcome to a "Pre-release review".

EDIT: Being rather keen to make this a singular album rather than separated by discs, I'm starting to like the idea of WAV Lossless ripping via Windows Media Player than just doing the FLAC conversions manually, as I'm not familiar with .cue files nor how to edit the data of each Disc's .cue & .m3u data to make them whole. Plus, I can get very specific with the tags with Audacity's metadata editor (Plus change it with utmost ease & convenience). I'll keep working at it, but I do need to allocate my time towards other audio related tasks.