Single flac file + cue sheet - possible to select tracks?

[AV_Spyder]

Hi All

I've tried to search the forums to see if xlobby can handle image + cue sheets and give a track listing but haven't found anything so far. Apologies if this has already been asked/answered.

I'm fairly new to xlobby and think it is brilliant, but I can't find a way to playback my music collection which has been ripped (using EAC) as a single file and cue sheet.

I know foobar's internal database can handle cue sheets and you get a listing of the individual tracks associated with an album. Is there a way to get xlobby to do the same?

Happy to provide more explanation if it will help.

Thanks

- AV Spyder

[Hiller]

Welcome to XLobby!

To answer your question...I have no idea! Now that I haven't helped you at all I would check out the foobar plugin that Steven has made and see if that might serve your purposes. You might have to play around with a skin a bit to get it to do what you want but that might be your best bet if Winamp can't play those files. If you haven't seen it already check out the Announcements section and give the plugin a try.

I can't say much about the plugin because I haven't used it yet but others have had success with it.

Good luck,
Steve

[jmv]

Don't know about single file and cue sheets...but I would guess not...or maybe not yet since Steve is so good at adding new features...

I can tell you that in the current pre-releases, Steve added FLAC compatibility with recognition for OGG/VORBIS standard FLAC tags on standard multiple file rips via EAC.

Thanks steve!

mv

[AV_Spyder]

Thanks for the replies.

I've got xlobby working with foobar (I prefer foobar to winamp as it lets me do format conversion fairly easily and handles cue sheets properly).

So far, no problems with playback, skipping tracks (or in my case albums), pausing etc. I'm going to try out the multizone options to see if it works with foobar like it does with winamp.
xlobby looks really good - it's so much better being able to browse the album covers.

Not sure if I should post something in the "Feature request" forum instead of here, but:
Steven: if you're reading this post, is there any possibility to have xlobby read in cue sheets into the database. It should be fairly simple as the cuesheet structure is well defined and provides you with info such as album name, album artist, track name and track artist, image filename.

I guess the only complexity would be around sending the actual files to winamp/foobar. I'll look into the way monkeys audio handled tracks from a single file (uses apl files which contain a pointer to the track within the single file rip - I think). From what I've heard, foobar can create(?) / handle "apl" files for flac and monkeys audio. If it can do this, then xlobby will just need to be able to read in the apl file info. Probably much easier than implementing full cue sheet handling...

- AV Spyder

[stevenhanna6]

I have to ask a stupid question, why did you rip to one file? why not multiple files like everyone else....I've never heard of ripping a cd to a single file for playback.

Off the top of my head I wont be able to get this to work without alot of work, my program depends one file per track. If I didnt have 2 full pages of requests I would find a way to make it work but I cant see myself working on this kind of feature for a long time if ever.

[AV_Spyder]

Certainly not a stupid question as I've seen lots of debate about ripping to one file or individual tracks on forums such as hydrogen audio. Things ilke EAC, monkeys audio, foobar have support for single file rips, so there must be a few people out there using that functionality.

The reason I went for one file is that when I first started ripping from CD, gapless playback was a bit of a problem with individual track rips (expecially on mix CDs), and if I wanted a CD for my discman (with the original safely tucked away at home), it was easier to write a single file and get it playing back correctly without gaps or timing issues.

I guess I was always a bit paranoid, and wanted to rip as close to an exact copy of the CD as possible.
If you have CDs with pre-gaps (e.g. when your CD player counts for say 2 seconds before starting playback), or when music has been hidden in the pre-gap, ripping individual tracks will miss this. The example album I can think of is David Gray's "White Ladder" where there is a hidden track before track 1.

The whole tagging thing is also less of an issue with a single file rip (IMHO) . I can't remember ever tagging my music, as the cue sheet has all the info I need (ie it can cope with album and track artists being different)

Things have moved on with gapless playback so that isn't an issue anymore, but I find it easier dealing with a smaller number of files - using a single file and cuesheet, I have a total of about 1500 files. If I'd ripped as individual tracks, the figure would be much closer to 15000 files. I don't think there is anything wrong with having so many files, so that argument isn't based on sound logic, it just feels neater.

Thanks for the honesty about being unlikely to work on this. At the end of the day, it is better to develop features that the majority of the user base will find useful, and from what I've seen so far, you are far more responsive than most developers.

I think there may be a solution using .apl files (as I mentioned earlier). I'll look into it and report back here if it looks like an easy way to handle single file rips.

- AV Spyder

[Roscoe62]

HI AV_Spyder,

I originally tried to get a single "whole album" .ape file with .apl tags to work - at the time I also had an issue with gapless playback and I saw that as a way of overcoming that issue. However, in order to achieve gapless playback I had to use a specific output plugin with winamp to get it to work instead of my usual kernel streaming output plugin. The plugin I tried worked very well at eliminating the gaps but I noticed the reduction in sound quality straight away. I ended up ditching the idea and going back to using the ks_out plugin. I thought that by using a single .ape file and the .apl files I'd be able to achieve gapless playback but it didn't work.

I've ended up just ripping to individual .ape files now, and I still suffer gaps on those albums that move straight into the next track.

I remember someone saying that an ASIO plugin would retain the high quality but eliminate the gaps but my soundcard, a M-Audio Revo, doesn't support ASIO over spdif.

Just FWIW.

Cheers
Ross

[FixB]

Reading this thread, it seems as if there is no way to manage correct gaps with xlobby+foobar.
Is this still true ? Or are there other solutions to this problem ??

Thanks