New here and a Mac user. Where to start?

[dirt]

Greetings. Glad I stumbled into this place.

Back in the late 90's early 00's I did a lot of CD-R trading for hip hop concerts. For the most part, the quality is decent but not always soundboard. Is this acceptable? And most of the discs were one track, do I need to identify the individual songs and break the recording into tracks?.

As I have no way of knowing the original source, how should I label these?

Finally, as a Mac user, what program do people use for converting to FLAC?

Any tips or advice would be greatly appreciated.

And yes, I have read though the FAQ's.

[AAR.oner]

welcome dirt!



For the most part, the quality is decent but not always soundboard. Is this acceptable?

yes -- so long as the files used to burn the CDRs were from lossless files [wavs], and not from mp3 or other lossy files


And most of the discs were one track, do I need to identify the individual songs and break the recording into tracks?.
i would...will cover how below

As I have no way of knowing the original source, how should I label these?
unknown source > CDR(x) > ..........


Finally, as a Mac user, what program do people use for converting to FLAC?
i use xACT for extracting, converting to flac, creating schecksums, etcetc
http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/14246/xact


i'll give you step by step in the morning, gotta run right now :wave:

[co9ol]

i use xACT for extracting, converting to flac, creating schecksums, etcetc


Thumbs up for xACT! :thumbsup

[AAR.oner]

alright, here's a quick run through to go from CDR to flac...you'll use xACT (http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/14246/xact) for everything, except splitting a single track show into multiple tracks, you'll needAudacity (http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/mac)


1) extract track(s) from CDR [xACT]: "util" tab > "CD Extraction" > drag track(s) from CDR to the window > click "Execute"...you now have a set of wavs on yer harddrive


2) if its just a single track and needs splitting, open the wav file in Audacity and follow these steps here:
http://www.thetradersden.org/forums/showpost.php?p=1208635&postcount=8


3) encode to flac [xACT]: "encode" tab > select FLAC/Smallest 8/verify/generate ffp > drag your wavs to the window > click "Encode"

you've now got a set of flac files, and an ffp checksum...your lineage for the info text would be:
Source: unknown source > CDR(x) > xACT > flac [add in "Audacity [track splits]" between xACT and flac if you split into tracks]

[dirt]

alright, here's a quick run through to go from CDR to flac...you'll use xACT (http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/14246/xact) for everything, except splitting a single track show into multiple tracks, you'll needAudacity (http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/mac)


1) extract track(s) from CDR [xACT]: "util" tab > "CD Extraction" > drag track(s) from CDR to the window > click "Execute"...you now have a set of wavs on yer harddrive


2) if its just a single track and needs splitting, open the wav file in Audacity and follow these steps here:
http://www.thetradersden.org/forums/showpost.php?p=1208635&postcount=8


3) encode to flac [xACT]: "encode" tab > select FLAC/Smallest 8/verify/generate ffp > drag your wavs to the window > click "Encode"

you've now got a set of flac files, and an ffp checksum...your lineage for the info text would be:
Source: unknown source > CDR(x) > xACT > flac [add in "Audacity [track splits]" between xACT and flac if you split into tracks]

This is perfect! Thanks for your help. I'll start adding my torrents soon.

[AAR.oner]

no problem at all! any other questions along the way, just let us know

[scb]

I'd recommend XLD over xACT for cd extraction.