Cover art in FLAC

[Janne]

Hi!

 

Just in the midst of ripping my cd-collection to Aiff (playing with iMac).

In the future I'll probably switch to a dedicated digital streamer.

 

Problem is, these seem to prefer Flac. Now, I can't use Flac at the moment because I'm in an all Mac household, including iPods/Phones. Might be able to use both formats in the future, however.

 

I can rip into two different formats with XLD, and even get them into different folders. But where is the Flac cover art?

 

XLD usually finds the covers, no prob. But it doesn't seem to embed them into the Flac files I'm making.

 

Will I be able to easily add the cover art in the future if I convert my whole Aiff library into Flac?

 

thanks!

 

[Brovig]

FLAC is perfectly capable of containing tags for cover art. I'm not familiar with XLD but it sounds like it is the issue. Rippers like dBpoweramp and Easy CD-DA have no problem handling cover art for FLAC.

 

[damien78]

I use XLD for ripping my CDs, and the album art is embedded in the FLAC file without any issue. (It displays fine in Audirvana during playback.)

There is no separate folder.jpg as the image is bundled in the FLAC file (or AIFF, or ALAC, ...)

 

XLD also gives you the possibility to edit metadata (including embedding album art) when you ask for a format conversion.

 

Damien

 

[Janne]

Ok, thanks!

 

When I open a Flac file in Audirvana I can see the artwork on the screen but cannot see artwork by the filename in Finder, as I can with other soundfiles or pictures. Just a "blank page".

 

But I suppose the artwork is embedded so it won't be a problem with other players in the future?

 

Great if I'll be able to convert my whole library into Flac in one go with XLD and keep all artwork and metadata. Would be blood, sweat 'n tears otherwise.

 

ps. Damien, I still have a crackling and popping Audirvana and can't use it. Should I buy Fidelia for now or do you have an idea for a fix? Would be cool if it worked.

 

 

 

[damien78]

OSX doesn't handle FLAC files, that's the reason you don't see the album art in the finder.

 

For the crackling and popping, there is a known Apple bug with non recent mac and usb dacs, maybe that's your case.

Then try to disable Integer mode, or even hog mode in the user prefs.

The workaround for getting integer mode back is to connect the dac to a powered usb hub.

 

Also, how much RAM do you have ? 2GB is the minimum, and in this case, decrease strongly the allocated memory to the audio buffers to avoid the swapping issues.

 

You can send me by PM the debug info (Audirvana menu) when playing, for my info.

 

Damien

 

[Janne]

It seems I still have to open 'each folder as disc' to get any data or artwork. If I just set XLD to convert everything it starts making copies by unknown artist, unknown album etc. Bummer.

 

It seems as though Naim are starting to include AIFF support and I really hope one of their streamers is in my future

Maybe I won't have to convert everything after all.

 

I got your email on the popping and crackling, Damien. Have to try some of the things you suggested.

 

Thanks!

 

 

[goldsdad]

Yes, unfortunately XLD doesn't read tags and artwork from AIFF, currently. From FLAC and ALAC, it does, but that's Sod's Law for you. You could ask the developer to implement reading AIFF metadata - the program is very frequently updated.

 

Luckily, Max will do what you want - convert nested folders of AIFFs to FLACs and preserve most tags and artwork. It will drop Album Artist and Grouping tags, for example, but otherwise seems good for the task. Be careful - I don't know how well it will cope with thousands of files in one batch.

 

 

[Janne]

Great, thanks for the tip!

 

Conversion seems to work well with Max. What's a good compression setting for Flac? Haven't dared try converting all in one go yet. Too bad that one app can't do it all, this is starting to feel like back in the days of Win98.

 

BTW, how do I configure Max to drop different file formats in different folders like XLD does?

 

 

[goldsdad]

FLAC Level 5 is usually considered a good compromise between speed and compactness. Higher levels are considerably slower for little reduction in space consumption.

 

 

In Max>Preferences>Output, the default custom output filename specifier is:

{albumArtist}/{albumTitle}/{trackNumber} {trackTitle}

 

So I tried inserting "{fileFormat}/" to represent a folder for each format:

{albumArtist}/{albumTitle}/{fileFormat}/{trackNumber} {trackTitle}

 

But there seems to be a bug. No additional folder levels were created. Instead, the format name was appended to each filename. For example, converting AIFF to both FLAC and ALAC:

 

01 Tell Me Why.aiff

02 After The Gold Rush.aiff

 

resulted in:

 

Neil Young

After The Gold Rush

01 Tell Me WhyFLAC.flac

02 After The Gold RushFLAC.flac

01 Tell Me WhyApple MPEG-4 Audio (Apple Lossless).m4a

02 After The Gold RushApple MPEG-4 Audio (Apple Lossless).m4a

 

 

Next I tried:

{fileFormat}/{albumArtist}/{albumTitle}/{trackNumber} {trackTitle}

 

This (wrongly) gave the result I had intended with my first attempt above:

 

Neil Young

After The Gold Rush

Apple MPEG-4 Audio (Apple Lossless)

01 Tell Me Why.m4a

02 After The Gold Rush.m4a

03 Only Love Can Break Your Heart.m4a

FLAC

01 Tell Me Why.flac

02 After The Gold Rush.flac

03 Only Love Can Break Your Heart.flac

 

In each case, the filename specifier seems to have been interpreted as if my insertion was two positions further to the right.

 

 

P.S. I recommend you use XLD for ripping - it can do an AccurateRip check. If you are going to be always keeping AIFF and FLAC versions of rips, do them simultaneously with XLD to avoid having to use Max.

 

 

[Janne]

Actually I haven't been doing double format rips because I'd have to start over and I'm just a third into my collection. But if I need to convert to Flac I now know Max can do it.

 

Bit on the fence with formats. Aiff still seems most logical uncompressed and as OSx isn't Flac friendly it's easier. Just waiting for the hardware manufacturers to confirm that Aiff is futureproof in the world of hifi.. fingers crossed.

 

 

 

[funkle]

To get your cover art when converting from flac to aiff:

Go to the Metadata page of XLD preferences, select 'embed cover art'

In the 'load following files' dialog, you'll see a list of names that will be recognized.

I name the artwork 'cover.jpg' and put it in the same folder as the flacs.

Then drag the folder to xld. If there us a .cue file, drag this to XLD, rather than the folder.

I have it set to automatically add to iTunes.

 

It can be a kittle extra work, making sure the artwork is there, and properly named, but I prefer XLD to the other apps I've tried...

 

[goldsdad]

Last month, I said, "unfortunately XLD doesn't read tags and artwork from AIFF, currently."

 

Shortly afterward, XLD was updated to read tags and artwork from AIFF.