AudioCatalyst 2.1 problem on Windows XP

[BassPig]

I have been using AudioCatalyst 2.1 for the past couple of years to author MP3 format files on Windows 2000 platforms.

Recently, I was forced to assemble a Windows XP platform (Adobe Premiere Pro requires XP) and have migrated all applications to XP.

I am having a not-so-obvious problem with one particular application--AudioCatalyst 2.1.
It still works. It still writes MP3 files. However, it's writing invalid timecode data to the files it creates under XP, causing some players, including our radio jukebox system to malfunction.
The duration of all MP3 files written since the conversion to XP is 0:00. Even though the actual file plays for five minutes.

I have tried Windows XP's Application Compatibility Wizard, setting it to emulate Windows 2000, even Windows 95---all to no avail. AudioCatalyst continues to write invalid timecode to its MP3 files.

On a longshot, I even tried installing the Adaptec ASPI layer, but that didn't work, of course, because I'm not ripping from CD, I'm dragging WAV files to AudioCatalyst and converting them to MP3.

Has anyone found a way to get AudioCatalyst working properly on XP?

We have tried other conversion apps, but they all write incompatible header information that our jukebox system doesn't like. AudioCatalyst has been the only app that writes MP3s that the jukebox will accept.

[pacohaas]

the generally accepted method of ripping audio cd's to mp3 is using either EAC or CDEX as the ripper with LAME configured as an external ripper from within either of those programs. The quality of the rip and encode with these programs will be better than other combinations.

that said, it does sound like an ASPI issue and you may try forceASPI from doom9's downloads, but installing CDEX or EAC might fix the problem just as easily.

http://www.exactaudiocopy.de
http://www.cdex.n3.net/

[BassPig]

I have tried ForceASPI as a desparate attempt to find the problem. It made no difference.

I am not using AudioCatalyst to rip, only to convert, as other converters/rippers write a format the our jukebox/automation system chokes on, including ExactAudioCopy and many others we tried. Even SoundForge can't write a proper MP3 that works with proper timecode. AudioCatalyst is the only one that can write an MP3 that's acceptable to the system. As such, I'm looking for any answers as to how this app can be made to function correctly on Win XP.

Thanks for trying.

[gircobain]

Sounds like your jukebox has some sort of problem...

[pacohaas]

i highly suggest figuring out exactly what makes audiocatalyst mp3's "work" with your jukebox and using LAME to produce the same results. Audiocatalyst has been known for it's incorrect implementation of joint stereo, as are many mp3 encoders, resulting in worse quality, higher file sizes, or both. What is the jukebox called, maybe you can point us in the direction of some documentation.

[brute]

I would use audiograbber http://www.audiograbber.com-us.net/

This grabber has the same gui as Audiocatalyst, but is much newer and is perfect for Lame! Only copy your favourite lame.dll into installation-dir. This Prog is freeware.

[BassPig]

Thanks for the info about Audio Grabber. Did Xing sell their UI to these folks? It's exactly identical.

HOWEVER... very serious problem!

Audio Grabber deletes our master WAV file recordings!! And we can't get them back, as they don't even go to the Recycle Bin!

I tried write protecting the WAV files before converting, and Audio Grabber complains that it can't open it because it's write protected. Who would write a program that deletes the master source materials?

The program is also glacially slow on my Athlon XP2600, compared to Audio Catalyst. I'd say about a 4:1 speed penalty.

I trashed three recordings doing drag n drop conversions to MP3 and it wasn't until I tried to do multiple conversions of the same file that I realized I could not find the file anymore--it had been deleted! What kind of malware is this?


Edit:

I did some digging in the .ini file and found that the defaults for delete dropped wave=true. What a terrible choice of default behavior! Software authors should always use the safest default behavior, lest they do a lot of damage to one's library. As a result of this fiasco, I have lost several master files with no way to recover them. I've fixed the problem by manually editing the INI file, but this should NOT have been necessary.

At least the timecode seems to be right and our jukebox system is reading the files.

[brute]

strange, working with this prog since 1 year and never had such problems! Even the speed depends on Lame, not on Audio Grabber, or what encoder do you use?

EDIT

Looked into the INI and saw that my defaults are in FALSE. Don't know what you did, or may be this was a conflict with previous AudioCatalyst installations, but the settings are well...

[BassPig]

AudioCatalyst doesn't even have a setting for deleting files. It certainly never deleted any files when dragging & dropping. The defaults after installation were True for deletions.

I'm using the latest LAME encoder DLL file, as recommended on the Audio Grabber site. It is almost glacially slow. AudioCatalyst can encode a full 5-minute WAV to MP3 in less time than LAME requires just to encode a 30-second excerpt. I guess this was written for Intel processors only. It doesn't run well on AMD chips--seems like it's running in some sort of emulation mode.

On the positive side, the quality of the encoding seems to be excellent. I have to do a more critical listen, but I found that I was able to go down to some fairly low VBR settings and still come out with a decent-sounding MP3 that was hard to distinguish from the original WAV file. More testing to come...

[brute]

you shouldn't globalize your problems, as nobody has such default settings! Don't know why, but the fact is, that you found the problems. Hm, never thought about the speed, but it may really be slow. But I don't think that it depends of what you said. I Have an Intel and an AMD System, both are pretty close in encoding speed...

[Mr Sweden]

I used to have problems too with AudioCatalyst 2.1 and WinXP, it's a program developed before XP and I think it simply has incompabilities with XP. I use Lame now to convert .wav to .mp3, you need only two files (lame.exe and lame_enc.dll) and you can run it from a command prompt e.g. like this:

lame.exe --alt-preset 192 input.wav output.mp3

If you want to have a shell I guess BeSweet is the program to use.

Just my $0.02, hope it helps.

[JReiginsei]

Real bought Xing, so you can still get the encoder. It cost 20 bucks though. I don't know if they did anything to the encoder.

http://www.real.com/accessories/?prod=xingmp3encoder

[BassPig]

Thanks to all who replied with various suggestions.

I think what I'll do is maintain the AudioGrabber program and try some different CODEC plugins to see which has the speed and quality of AudioCatalyst, as LAME is really too darned slow to do any serious production work. Any installations will have to have the .INI file edited manually to prevent deletion of original source .WAV files before use. Just one of the caveates that makes doing system rebuilds more work.

[pacohaas]

sorry for the late reply, but did you try the lame fast presets?

[BassPig]

No, I haven't and frankly, I have no clue of how to access them. I'm using "NEW" from under the Method dropdown selector. This is with the LAME internal encoder.

I just found out the Fraunhaufer encoder on this thing only goes to 22KHz, making it effectively useless. The other choices are non-MP3 formats.