Configuring EAC pt1

Running the Configuration Wizard

To start EAC simply double click on the EAC.exe file (you may not see the extension due to your folder view settings). This is the file that looks like this within the EAC folder we created in the Down-loading And Installing EAC And LAME page.

When EAC is started for the first time the configuration wizard will auto run. Read the information provided and then click next.

On the next screen EAC will display a list of available drives. It's best to leave the tick boxes on for all known available drives. The Generic DVD-Rom shown in the picture is a virtual drive on my machine (if you don't know what a virtual drive is, don't worry, it's not important for this guide) so I've left this un-ticked. Click next.

If you have a drive whose reading properties are stored in EACs drive feature database you'll be presented with a screen listing these features. You have the option to select Use these values to configure this drive or I don't trust these values, detect the features for my drive. Select I don't trust these values ... and click next.

The current screen should now be titled EAC will now configure the drive. Below this text EAC will list the first drive it will use for testing. If it isn't already selected press the radio button that has the text I prefer to have accurate results adjacent to it. Click next.

You should now see the text EAC will now auto-detect the drive features for your drive. For this test you need a clean and unscratched (not blank!) CD in your CD drive. Below this text EAC lists the drive it's about to test. Make sure you put a clean CD into the relevant drive and click next.

Special Note
For some machines EAC won't be able to see the CD that is inserted into your drive. If this is the case for you, please see the page about installing an ASPI Layer.

The next window should show the text EAC has found these drive features for your drive. If you are an experienced user and think these values .... Make a note of the reported settings. We do this since running this test just once isn't always reliable.
For my drive, a Plextor PX-708A EAC reported the following:

Click back and then next so that the test runs again. When you've done this a few times and you're happy that the results are consistent, click next to proceed.

If you have more than one drive you'll need to repeat the drive settings detection process. Otherwise, click next on the Congratulations screen to goto the MP3 configuration within EAC. Ensure the tick box that says Install and configure the external LAME.EXE compressor is ticked and click next.

EAC will now probably start cycling through the directories on your hard drive looking for the lame.exe file. At the beginning of this guide we put this file in the EAC folder so this is where EAC should find the file. Make sure your window looks like this (if you have placed lame.exe elsewhere it will of course differ):

Whilst EAC may say Use recommended settings (from r3mix forum), EAC will actually use the recommended settings from the HydrogenAudio forums which came about after a lot of testing from the forums members. This is the command line -V2 used by EAC with LAME. This will produce variable bit-rate MP3s averaging 190kbps (this is dependant on the type of music). You can ofcourse use your own settings. Click next.

The next window will require you to enter an email address for freedb access. Without this access you can't get the cd and track information for the CD, this saves you from having to type this information manually. Click next and proceed to Configuring EAC pt2.