If we are music lovers, surely we have at home a good collection of CDs adorning our bookshelf, since its use has plummeted in recent years in favor of the digital format, given its versatility and compatibility with other devices. This evolution has also allowed the appearance of programs with which it is possible to transfer all our music from CD to the computer to enjoy it with the best quality.
Many users may think that if they transfer their audio CDs to the computer, quality is lost, and this is true if the format we choose for is MP3, which is the best known and used today. But in case we want to transfer our music with the best quality to the computer, we must choose the FLAC format .
What is the FLAC format and how is it different from MP3
The FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) format is a sound codec that reduces file size without loss of quality, making it a great option if you want to store music, but without losing the original quality. An audio file can be compressed in FLAC reducing between 50 and 60% of its original size, but keeping an identical copy of the original audio data, so that nothing of quality is lost.
This is the main difference of FLAC with respect to other audio compression formats such as MP3, which decreases the quality of the sound the more the file is compressed. In addition, FLAC is a free and free format, so we will have no problem using it since it is also compatible with a large number of music players.
Use Exact Audio Copy to convert your CDs into FLAC files
To transfer our audio CDs to the FLAC format we will use a program called Exact Audio Copy , which will allow us to extract the audio track from our CD easily and without loss of quality. In addition, the program is capable of detecting all kinds of reading errors, as well as loss of synchronization, managing to repair them whenever possible.
To start, the first thing we must do is download Exact Audio Copy from its website. This program is free as long as it is for personal use and is not used for commercial purposes. Once downloaded we will proceed to its installation, which is fast, simple and does not attempt to install any third-party software.
An assistant will guide us during the start of the application
Once installed, we start it and a screen will appear with a wizard, which will guide you through the configuration of the program, being able to choose the CD player and the quality of the audio quality. Since we are going to need the best quality, we must choose the FLAC format to continue.
We can also use our email to register in the Freedb song database with which we can attach file metadata automatically and free of charge. Finally, we can choose in which format we want the files to be ordered, having many possible combinations. Finally, we chose “we are an expert user and I want to be able to use the full potential of EAC”.
The list of songs on the CD that we have entered and selected should appear in the main menu of the application. Now we will go to get the metadata so that the files have all the available information. To achieve this we must click on “Database” at the top, then on “Obtain information from CD From” and finally select “Remote Metadata Prov.”
Once we have the metadata we will start to pass the data from the CD to the computer. As we already have the parameters and songs selected configured, all we have to do is press the “Action” button . Later we click on “Copy selected tracks” and finally on “Compressed” , in this way all the songs will go to our computer in FLAC format. Finally, we will select the folder where the files will be stored and we will wait for the process to finish to have all our files on the CD on the computer with the highest quality.
