The boys at Exact Audio Copy have been putting in some OT and there’s now a new version that does cover art available! Actually, it’s been available for quite a while but I haven’t updated because I was being lazy.

In my last article, I spent a lot of time talking about what options I had changed and all of that. In this case, most of my setup options upgraded correctly from my old options so I’m not exactly sure what I’ve changed from the defaults anymore. I’ve taken a screenshot of the relevant dialogs for comparison though. Keep in mind that I run a “Insert, Rip, and Eject” setup so I’ve got everything wired to be pretty much automatic.

Here are the dialogs for the general options. The external compression options that I use have changed quite a bit since the 1.0b2 release, so I’ll go into those more shortly.

And now on to the good stuff… the encoder options. EAC 1.0b2 changed all of the tag formats, fortunately it converted all of mine when I upgraded so I didn’t have to go figure them all out again. (Thanks to the EAC developers on that, it would have SUCKED) Here’s a screenshot of the configuration dialog.

Here are my settings for this dialog so you can copy/paste.

Use external program for compression : Checked
Parameter passing scheme : User Defined Encoder
Use file extension : .m4a
Program, including path, used for compression : C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe
Additional command-line options : /E:ON /C C:\Tools\aacencode.cmd %source% %dest% “%artist%” “%albumtitle%” “%title%” “%year%” “%tracknr%” “%numtracks%” “%genre%” “%comment%” “%cddbid%” “%coverfile%”
Delete WAV after compression : Checked
Use CRC check : Checked
Add ID3 tag : Unchecked
Check for external programs return code : Unchecked

And now for the script that you need to make it work. I keep mine in “C:\Tools\”. If you put yours somewhere else, adjust the paths above accordingly.

@echo off
REM Use with cmd.exe and the command line of
REM /E:ON /C C:\Tools\aacencode.cmd %source% %dest% "%artist%" "%albumtitle%" "%title%" "%year%" "%tracknr%" "%numtracks%" "%genre%" "%comment%" "%cddbid%" "%coverfile%"
 
SET SOURCEFILE=%1
SET DESTFILE=%2
SET ARTIST=%3
SET ALBUMTITLE=%4
SET TRACKTITLE=%5
SET YEAR=%6
SET TRACKNUMBER=%7
SET TOTALTRACKS=%8
SET GENRE=%9
SHIFT
SHIFT
SHIFT
SET COMMENT=%7
SET ISRC=%8
SET COVER=%9
 
C:\Tools\min.exe
C:\Tools\NeroAAC\Win32\neroaacenc.exe -q 1.0 -if %SOURCEFILE% -of %DESTFILE% 
C:\Tools\NeroAAC\Win32\Neroaactag.exe %DESTFILE% -meta:artist=%ARTIST% -meta:album=%ALBUMTITLE% -meta:track=%TRACKNUMBER% -meta:title=%TRACKTITLE% -meta:genre=%GENRE% -meta:year=%YEAR% -meta:isrc=%ISRC% -meta:totaltracks=%TOTALTRACKS% -meta:comment=%COMMENT%
C:\Tools\NeroAAC\Win32\Neroaactag.exe %DESTFILE% -add-cover:front:%COVER%

Here’s the zip archive of my scripts and tools to make all of this work. You’ll still need to download the Nero AAC Encoder yourself. Check the script to see where I put mine and adjust paths accordingly. I have also included a utility called “min.exe” that goes in C:\Tools. This utility minimizes the window so you don’t have to start at the Nero encoder window. Remove it if you don’t like that and you’re rather see the Nero AAC encoder do it’s thing.

AAC Encoder wrapper script

Once you’ve got all of this in place, pop in a CD and EAC should automatically go out and get the track information from FreeDB or GD3. If you’re using GD3, it’ll get the cover art too. If you’re using FreeDB, you’ll have an option to search for cover art and you’ll have to go select your own. (I also find cover art on Amazon’s CD store if the EAC search doesn’t get it) Now that your album information is loaded and ready, press F4 to do a gap scan, then press SHIFT-F5 to fire off the rip and compress process.