Well, that was a quick failure. My previous idea, which was to use older technology to gain access to some data that seemed out of reach, was ill-informed. Before I even got all the pieces of my $16 project, I figured out how to accomplish what I needed with what I had already.
To start, I was under the impression that my hardware could not read subchannel information from audio CDs. This is false. I just need the right software. And the software was what was causing all of my misconceptions. I use Exact Audio Copy (EAC) for my CD ripping. There is an old version, specifically v .95 prebeta 3, that had a feature that would let EAC do direct reading of the track data, which would include the subchannel information. Because of some legal ramifications of doing so, this feature was removed from prebeta 4 and all future versions of EAC.
I had acquired a copy of prebeta 3 and initially was not able to get it to launch. Then, I was able to get it to start up by running it in administrator mode. But then, it wouldn’t recognize when a CD was inserted in my drive. So, since prebeta 3, code has been improved for things that are essential to its operation on modern operating systems, but code has been taken away for the feature that I needed. In short, EAC is not going to accomplish what I need under any hardware configuration.
There is another, more modern, ripping tool called CUERipper, which is part of the CUETools suite. I tried this tool briefly, but did not like the way it handled the ripped files, for one reason or another. Instead, I kept using EAC. But now, upon another evaluation, CUERipper will read the actual track data in the same way that EAC refuses to do. And it does read the subchannel data, which is what I really needed. That means, CUERipper is the software that I need and all that old hardware is unneeded. All to waste, I guess.
Still, CUERipper is an inelegant tool and it doesn’t do things the way I want. However, it is open-source software, and it is actually programmed in .NET. That means I have the ability to actually change the program to do exactly what I want, how I want it. And so that is the future plan. The next few days I won’t be able to do any work on this, but after that… I’ll be able to make my own custom ripping software. How awesome.
Some small part of me is actually considering re-ripping my entire collection again. Why? Well, over time I have replaced CDs here and there but may or may not have ripped the disc that is actually on the shelf. So I can be sure that my digital collection is out of sync with my physical one. That effort remains a wait-and-see.
Comments are closed.