Zup wrote on 2023-05-06, 06:58:
1.- No cddb info for most games. I wanted my mp3 to have tags with titles... but it seems that info is not in (default) cddb database. Does anyone knows where can I get that info?
Type them in yourself and then upload to freedb 😜
(Or even "better", they're actually complementary IMO though this one is far more flexible, MusicBrainz)
Zup wrote on 2023-05-06, 06:58:
2.- Using CUE/BIN files. Some of my games are in this format (games from GoG). I guess the audio is an exact copy from the original, and better than their own mp3 files, so I'd like to rip from the CUE/BIN combo... but fre:ac can not open the cue file. Is there anything I'm missing? Or have anyone a suggestion of a non-invasive (=no permanent loaded drivers) virtual CD that could be used with fre:ac?
The best/only ripper I know to accept a raw disc image is XLD, a Mac exclusive... but since an audio track is a raw PCM/16bit/stereo/44100 kHz stream, it's probably easier to not use a ripper in the first place (the actual ripping was already done!*), convert to split-track format, and from there to your codec of choice (most, including LAME, have a raw input mode)
* = Caveat - read the second point on this page I wrote: https://consolemods.org/wiki/PS1:Creating_Game_Backups (or maybe just the cdparanoia manpage? 😜), then you'll understand why a general purpose data CD image may not be very accurate, though for the purpose of simply enjoying the music it may all be irrelevant
Zup wrote on 2023-05-06, 06:58:
Most GoG images have only the audio tracks and the needed things to run the game, so there are not equal to the real discs. Could this be an issue (I know that cddb detection would fail)? Did they changed the audio or is a straight dump from the real discs?
Dunno, but (as also hinted to in that page 😀 ) a standard CDRWIN cuesheet supports only 4 audio formats/containers (raw, wave, mp3, another one maybe aiff), but in practice you almost always see the raw type (BINARY) or the WAVE abused with files in any format, if it's the former you can do as I suggested in (2), for the latter you can't but you'll probably already have an usable audio file 😀
(Oh, another tangential hint - if, as I think given your initial request, you're on an Unix-like system, the "file" program is very useful to identify stuff!)
Zup wrote on 2023-05-06, 06:58:
Haven't used it in ages but Easytag should be able to do it, at least the Windows-exclusive MP3TAG which is much similar can (you load a folder with the source tracks, sort by name - hopefully they start with track number! or just rename them first which you can also do with these programs, export, load the destination folder, sort, import)
...if it fails and the format is the same, there's almost certainly a command line program that can do the same depending on how much time you want to put in labor VS in automating that labor 😜
...actually, Picard (the main MusicBrainz GUI client) probably can bulk copy/paste tags too?
Zup wrote on 2023-05-06, 06:58:
5.- Subcodes? I've also dumped some games (TFX) to use them in DOSbox. I guess that some of them (Pro Pinball Timeshock!) may be using the subcode thing to play the music. How can I know which games need to be dumped as "raw" and which ones not?
In a standard CDDA (not CD+G and no or basic CD-Text), including the audio part of a Mixed Mode CD, the subcode is all metadata mostly unrelated to the actual song (current position on disc and track, a redundant track change marker, the SPDIF copy protection flag, ...) - the only one which audibly matters is the preemphasis (which I strongly doubt any for-computer disc uses, though certainly possible) and the only one which I think may me in play in the scenario you described is the INDEX (sub-track divisions);
fortunately, a cue sheet already mostly provides for high-level subcode data (with, yup, TRACK/INDEX/FLAGS/CATALOG/ISRC commands, and even basic CD-Text with TITLE/PERFORMER), so unless you also want an accurate/playable backup of a DRM'd software you don't need an actual copy of the subcode (not that you'd have many options - CloneCD-compatible IMG+CCD+SUB is the only remotely popular format, AFAIK) 😀
Getting one raw or converted sound file per index, if that's what you really want, isn't very different than splitting a disc into tracks (but, like indexes themselves as a concept, suffers from much lower compatibility - you could roll your own cuesheet converting indexes to individual tracks if you have to; I think the most practical software for index-splitting this is Exact Audio Copy on Windows and even then it's limited);
Ditto if you need to apply preemphasis since pretty much nothing famous supports it, especially outside the CD format (can easily be done with SOX if you look up the appropriate filters to apply)
Good luck and don't feel bad if you didn't understand this immediately, if I added an explaination of the lead-in, lead-out and the TOC (plus CD-Text and CD+G extensions) it would pretty much be the entire Red Book 😜
