Problems Ripping

I upgrqded to WinXP. At the same time I bought a new CD drive - a Plextor UltaPlex 40x. I have been using AudioGrabber 1.81 to rip. This works fine on my Win2K laptop, but I am getting BSODed trying to rip on my zoomy new PC (1.5 Ghz, 512 MB RDRAM). It happens about half way through the rip - different place every time. And when I reboot if I have left the CD in the drive it blue screens right away again. Anybody with any experience with this?

Go here: http://www.vob.de/us/Downloads.htm

and download the asapi interface. Install it and try again.

It worked. Thank you so much!! I'm getting 24X read speed and outstanding performance ripping. My faith in PCs is restored!

If you have a minute - I read somewhere that external LAME encoding is a better way to go than having AudioGrabber do it internally. Is there much of a difference, and if so, how is it done? I really appreciate the help. I owe you a beer.

Joe

I have audiograbber and use the lame 3.91 command line encoder. Just download the lame binary file and tell audiograbber where to find it. Then choose from the zillions of command line settings. The most common are --r3mix and --alt preset -standard. Ive been using the r3mix one, im about to try the alt preset one to see if there is any difference.

You can find the binaries here:

http://home.pi.be/~mk442837/


Sean

What kind of SCSI adapter do you have? With the same drive under Win2K I start a CD at about 17x and finish at nearly 40x. Also using AG 1.81

BTW, set your AG up to only rip to WAV and put ID tags in the WAV. Do all your MP3 encoding batch whenever your computer will be free (during the night, during the day while at work/school...) This is about the fastest way to grab all your music. I would rip about 30GB of WAV files and then before leaving for work in the morning, I'd drop them onto AG. This would then create the proper folder structure (according to the rules set in AG), proper ID3 tags as well as delete the original WAV files (this is an option you can disable on the popup window when you start the batch process).

Before using any of the LAME presets, go to the websites responsible for those presets. www.r3mix.net will tell you all about the r3mix VBR preset and show you exactly what lame commands it's made up of. Read the help files to know what each command option does. Then make a few files with different settings for your own listening test.

Do this all before starting your mass-encoding and you'll save yourself a LOT of re-encoding.

Bruno

I have a low end adapter - a SIIG AP 40. What are you using? I didn't think the adapter could possibly make that much difference. I keep getting blue screened too - I am suspecting this adapter big time. I will buy another one tomorrow - what do you recommend?

I am not "recommending" the adapter I am about to mention. Not only for running the Plextor anyway. This way you won't come back to bitch at me if the configuration doesn't work well for you or if you think the card is too expensive.

I have an Adaptec 19160. It's running my Cheetah Ultra160 LVD 18GB drive, the Narrow-SCSI Plextor and externally, my narrow ZIP and MicroTek scanner.

To get everything to work properly I had to update the firmware on the Plextor, the 19160, install ASPI 4.60 and also update to brand new Adaptec drivers. Prior to those upgrades I was only getting up to 8x audio extraction regardless of software settings.

Go look through the Adaptec site and also take a look at SCSI boards from Atto (I've used their stuff in Macs and I met a few people from the company while in San Fran at Macworld and they were great guys).

Bruno

Before buying anything, remove that ASAPI driver and find yourself a copy of FORCEASPI. This will allow you to run Adaptec's ASPI layer on non-adaptec hardware (some versions of their installer will check and won't allow you to install the download from their website).

You should be able to search google for it - or take a look through the message board at the Audiograbber site (it's come up in conversation many times before).

Bruno

Hi Bruno -

Despite your warning I went out and got an Adaptec contoller card today. It's a 29160, essentially the same as your 19160. I installed a while ago, hoping to see improved RIP speed, but it is actually worse. I was getting about 24X with my cheapo card. I spent a couple hundred bucks for this new card and I'm getting 11X best now. I spoke with Adaptec tech support, and he had me bring the sync rate down to 40 Mb from the cards 160 fdefault, but it made no difference. I asked them about your ASPI observations and they told me ASPI is no longer used - in fact it was not used in W2K, Me, or XP (I have XP). So I'm a little confused with your previous post about ASPI 4.6. What OS are you running? Any feedback would be most appreciated.

Joe

ASPI is still usable in Windows ME, 2000, and XP, though they have a built on one that works (put possibly not well). Most programs like AudioGrabber even offer a toggle between the two.

Is there a benefit to using it? I'm pretty confused about getting the best performance out of these two premium pieces of equipment. I had a cheapo adapter and got speeds of 24X, now I have this top line Adaptec and it is less than half. I can return it if I have to, but I have to believe there is a way to get this to work well.

I detailed how I also had issues....

Instead of calling support I filed an online inquiry. Within an hour I had my first reply. Adaptec do 24hour support by using locations around the world. The guy that helped me out was from Australia. Awesome support experience.

First start by updating the firmware on your Plextor to the latest. Go to the BELGIUM Plextor site and grab the latest firmware.

Next, update to the latest Adaptec BIOS for your card.

Next, install ASPI version 4.60 from Adaptec's site. NEVER MIND about their warning that it's not supported under 2K, ME and XP. It works fine. It's just not tested because with Microsoft's direct CD support it's not normally needed (yeah right). If the installer give you a warning, IGNORE it.

This was some suggested Adaptec BIOS changes:

In reply to:

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First of all please enter SCSISelect at boot time, chose Configure/View HBA settings, then press F6 and say yes to load defaults. Then chose advanced and disable domain validation. Go into SCSI Device configuration and disable wide negotiation for all narrow devices (50pin or 25pin). Having done this save changes and exit.

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The following is the driver info I used for Win2K...

In reply to:

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The final step is to upgrade the driver to the latest version which is contained in the file FMS on CD v4.0aSP3.
The driver is in the Win2000\Adf6u160 subfolder. Please make a backup of your registry before doing this, as if this procedure goes wrong the system may become unbootable.

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For me, the driver update is what finally fixed the problem. It was a relatively new update that I hadn't previously noticed on the site.

The link for the driver has now changed, but I have a zip file which I made of the subfolder mentioned above. If you can't find a suitable driver on their page, email me and I'll send you the files.

Bruno

Bruno - first of all thanks for the time. I really appreciate the help.

I had updated the firmware on the drive to 1.05 - the latest on Plextor's site - It was dated 12/01. Why the Belgium Plextor site? I'll check it out though. I got the ASPI 4.6 from
Adaptec, but it won't install - its an ugrade and can't find a previous version. I do have versions of it on the CD that came with the adapter, but they don't install because of the OS version not requiring them (I guess). Should I copy the files to the sysroot and try to upgrade then?

The card I have is a wide card, not narrow. I don't know much about SCSI specs, but the CD Rom has a 68 pin connector, which I thought implied Wide - and the drive is called UltraWide, so I am pretty sure it is wide. I will get the BIOS changes and install for the adapter - I need to make a DOS boot disk - dusting off the DOS cobwebs now...

There are no Adaptec drivers for XP - they are in the OS. Maybe I should just reinstall Win2K? That is a pain in the butt, but its only a couple of hours work. I figured why not XP - I get it for free and it is a nice interface. But not nice enough to rip cd's 3 times slower...

So I'll try the above and let you know. Again - I appreciate the help.

Joe

I've been on the phone with Plextor and they are telling me there is a problem in WinXP with audio extraction and SCSI CD drives. Anybody out there know anything about this? Is anybody using a Plextor UltraPlex with Windows XP?

Ok, disregard the parts about setting up Narrow connections I didn't know you had bought a Wide Plextor.

The files I have for the Adaptec drivers (which are part of a distro CD that is still on their site if you go to the driver's section) will (should) work in XP. They are the same driver files for NT and Win2K. I have the necessary ones for both my 19160 as well as your 29160.

If ASPI from Adaptec's site won't install then you'll have to search for a non-upgrade installer and try that or find FORCEASPI like I mentioned before (it will install regardless). As I mentioned, you're not supposed to need ASPI for ME nor Win2K, but it does work.

Plextor may be right about XP, but I don't know why MS would have broken this. Plus it's not sufficient to say SCSI DAE doesn't work - it would all depend on the adapter being used and drivers.

Go ahead and fill out an online trouble ticket with Adaptec. Mention to them that someone you know (me) has had this very same problem (but with 19160) and Win2K.

Email me and I'll send you the driver file archive (it's much smaller than grabbing the entire package from Adaptec).

Bruno

Hey Bruno - is this getting old yet?

I just wiped out my PC and reloaded back down to Win2K. I will eventually dual boot with XP, but for the time being I want performance ripping. After doing a bunch of things - installing ASPI, upgrading the firmware on the drive and the BIOS on the adapter, getting new drivers for the adapter and installing,and installing ASPI 4.6, I am now getting 24X regularly. I am pretty happy with that, but if you have any suggestions to get me to 40X I'd love to keep trying.

BTW - when you said you would rip without encoding, and then encode a batch of many discs, how did you do that? I have AG organizing everything into sub-folders by artist and album. From what I could tell, LAME won't let you drag a folder onto it, just files. What up?

Thanks again for all of your help. I can't believe how great the people are on this board.

PS - not to look/sound like a complete novice, but how do I email you from here?

Joe

Is 24X the average? The cd drive runs at different speeds on different parts of the disc. Check and see if at the end of the rip its going 40x.

Its the highest it gets. The first track will get to about 18, the 2nd 20, third 22, and then the rest stop at about 24.5 max.

Regarding the batch encoding:

From the audiograbber help docs:

You can drop wav files from Windows Explorer into Audiograbber's main window to
easily normalize / create MP3's (assuming you already have the wav's.)

If you want to record many different cd's and encode them at a later time you
can use the option "Append ID3 info to wav file" under MP3 Settings in combination
with "Use sub directories only for MP3 and WMA" under General Settings. Then all your
ripped wav files will be stored in Audiograbbers base directory. The final filename/destination
and ID3 tag is taken directly from the wav file when it is later encoded.

Juenk,

Thanks for the help. I guess my confusion is in the directory structure. If I rip 20 CD's, and then want to batch encode, can I just drag one master folder onto AG or LAME and have it encode all of the nested sub folders, or do I have to open each folder, i.e main\artist\album\files and then drag the files onto AG or LAME? Of course I could just be trying all of this instead of asking stupid questions, but I just have a feeling I'm missing something obvious. Thanks

Juenk,

I read your reply more carefully and realized what you were saying - that does describe/solve the issue. Thanks. I'll give it a shot when I get home.

Joe

Ok, I'll go in reverse order.

Audiograbber should be set to rip all your WAV files to a single folder and only do the final sorting when encoding to MP3. You set this up by checking the box that says "Use subdirectories only for mp3" on the main settings window.

Next, your rip settings should be set to ONLY rip to WAV and that's it. This is set at the very top of the MP3 settings window. ALSO check the box that says "Append ID3 Tag to WAV..."

Then you can do as many rips as you have space for and then do a mass drag to encode - with internal or external LAME support.

Now, onto your Plextor perplexities...

Did you install the driver I specifically mentioned in one of my previous messages? If not, grab that specific one. I had installed a different "new" driver and didn't have success until that specific one. But then I was limited to 8x max when having the problem.

In some speed tests I've seen on a hardware review site they claimed the Plextor was only getting them 16x. They were testing one of the middle tracks. By the middle of the disc I'm already doing at least 24-30x.

Did you mentioned what kind of computer you have? I'll go back and check it out. In case you didn't, I'm using an 850MHz Athlon with 512MB of RAM - not that it should make that significant a difference for this.

In your Audiograbber settings, choose ASPI (then you can try both ASPI and WIn2k calls - both are about the same for me), make sure your drive is correctly selected, make sure it's ID'd as SCSI-Plextor in the type field, select BUFFERED BURST and try a DAE setting of MAX.

Incidentally, my drive is identified as 1.13 (I can't remember if that's the bios version on it though...)

I didn't expect to get the DAE speeds I'm getting, but I was very pleasantly surprised when I did.

Bruno

Thanks Bruno,

My PC is a P4, 1500 Mhz, 512Mb. I got the latest driver from adaptec - dated 12/01, if that is not the right one let me know. Email me a link or the file if you can...

My drive is 1.5 - and that is the firmware.

When you say "mass drag to encode " are you saying drag all the files into the main AG window? Do they then get put into directories by artist and album by the encoder process? And I choose to normalize, which takes place before the encode. I can't imagine that makes a difference.

If you are ever in Boston I absolutely owe you dinner. Thanks for all your help!

Ah, Boston is one of my favourite US cities. Haven't been there in a few years, but when I'm ready for my next trip down there I'll give you shout. If you like Italian, I quite like Saraceno. We have offices in Marlborough so I may just make a trip down at some point.

I'll try emailing you the files as soon as I finish this message. If that's a no-go for whatever reason, I'll hunt down the page on Adaptec's site and post the link here.

The mass-drag to Audiograbber will cause an encode confirmation window to pop up. In that window you can also turn on/off the normalizing feature. When you press OK it will start the encode and it will then rename your files with the full format you specified and also make all the proper folders (again part of the naming format string you define in the first settings window). If you're using the internal encoder then you see the same progress window with stats. If you chose external then you get a dialog that shows what file is being worked on, its name and how many files are left. You also get a console window (that you can tell AG to minimize) with the LAME command-line program running in it.

It's about the best way I've found to do this stuff. It's great because you can maximise your ripping by not stopping to encode. And then do the encoding when you won't need to be around.

Don't forget, you can also delete or keep the original WAV files. I delete mine unless I'm doing temporary testing.

If you're primarily going to use your MP3 files with the empeg, you may as well skip making ID3v1 tags and go with only ID3v2. I used to do both but then I did a mass remove of all v1 data - now I do v2 only.

I haven't been using AG much lately because I haven't bought any new CDs. I'll be moving soon so I should hold off on buying anything until I find a house and get moved in. Jackie (the guy behind AG) is working on some cool features for the next major rev though - hopefully in time for when I go on another eBay CD-buying spree. Hehe.

Bruno

Bruno
Love to have you down to Beantown - haven't been to Saraceno, but I do love Italian.

I got your email - I will give it a shot soon - work issues are dominating right now. Thanks again for all your help.

BTW - I think every company on earth has an office in Marlborough. For a relatively small town it gets a lot of industry. I deal with several companies with offices there.

Joe

In reply to:

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I have an Adaptec 19160. It's running my Cheetah Ultra160 LVD 18GB drive, the Narrow-SCSI Plextor and externally, my narrow ZIP and MicroTek scanner.

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FWIW: I remember reading an article in Linux Journal . It was about building an ultimate performance box. One of the things they mentioned was that mixing Narrow and Ultra devices on the same bus caused all devices on the bus to degrade to the Narrow performance. Based on that, I suspect your Ultra160 LVD drive isn't performing at its max.

Here's the quote and the link to it.

In reply to:

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by Eric S. Raymond

LVD drives can drive the bus at 40MHz and 80MHz, whereas single-ended cannot. If you mix single-ended and LVD, the bus degrades to single-ended. So a bus with a single-ended device tops out at 20MHz Wide SCSI or 40MB/s, whereas LVD gets you up to 160MB/s.

http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=5420

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Narrow and Ultra are not mutually exclusive terms. Narrow and Wide are; they refer to how many bits are passed in parallel on the SCSI bus (8 vs. 16), which has an impact on bandwidth (wide doubles narrow bandwidth) and number of SCSI IDs (again, 8 vs. 16). Ultra refers solely to the bus speed. Single-ended and LVD (Low Voltage Differential) are something else again, but are definitely not intermixable, though LVD drives are (almost?) always backwards compatible with SE chains. It's possible to intermix wide and narrow devices on the same chain without degrading the wide devices, but you have to make sure that you don't accidentally chop off the wide portion of the bus before it gets to the wide devices while still terminating both the narrow and wide parts of the bus.

All that being said, you're definitely right that the LVD drive is not performing optimally, unless the 19160 has multiple channels, which I'm pretty sure it doesn't. I would also be concerned about the termination that's going on inside that case, but it's possible that it's being done right, especially since the 19160 ships with an LVD cable with integrated terminator. I'd imagine that a 68-50 pin adapter is being used for the CDROM, on that cable, right? That's the right way to do it.

Neither the 19160 nor the 29160 have a problem with running narrow devices externally and internally on the narrow connection, while maintaining a full-speed connection to the LVD drives on its third connection.

So, I'm running all drives at optimal speed.

Bruno

You have three different cables running out of one card? And the card has only one SCSI bus? That so violates the spec.

The 19160 has a 50-pin narrow connection internally. It was a perfect choice for the peripherals I had. Its external connection is also narrow (micro-50 pin).

Everything is terminated properly. I've never had any termination or configuration problems with SCSI devices. I ran a couple of SCSI boards in one or other Amiga, and with x86: NCR 810, Buslogic (the last top-of-the-line desktop/workstation card they made) and now this Adaptec.

BTW, you could NOT do what I'm doing now with the older Adaptec cards like the 2940. Nor the Buslogic I had. They only allowed two connections, which would be the two ends of your chain.

The multichannel is the 39160 I believe, and I can't remember what they call the feature set on the 19160 for the support I mentioned above.

Bruno

Read the datasheets for Adaptec's 19160 and 29160. I'm not introducing a third connection to the middle of what should be a two-ended chain. That would be a termination nightmare.

Bruno

I just did and it doesn't explain it at all. In fact, it only implies that that you can do by not stating that you can't do it, which is what I would have assumed. This blows my mind.

Well, it's in the manual. I didn't know about that possibility until I read the manual. I was getting ready to use one of my other SCSI controllers to run the CDROM when I read the info pretty much telling me I wouldn't have to. Excellent.

Bruno

You have three different cables running out of one card? And the card has only one SCSI bus? That so violates the spec.

The card has a repeater for the narrow bus, which presents only a device load to the wide bus. There's an exciting Adaptec trademarked name for it, but that's basically all that's going on.

Peter