Revision history

Version 5.2

• Added support for writing embedded cover art image meta data. It can write this to ID3v2-tags (.AIFF, .FLAC, .MP2, .MP3, .WAV), APE-tags (.APE, .WV), as well as format specific picture meta data (.FLAC, .OGG, .WMA).
• The output options page has a new "Album cover art" section, where you can add an image file (.jpg, .png or .gif). Either select one from disk, or drag and drop a file here, or drag an image from your web browser onto the ACDR window. There's also an option to write a Cover.jpg file in the output folder.
• When writing to BWF .WAV format and enabling EBU R.128 normalization, a loudness range value is calculated and added to the BWF chunk (in addition to the loudness value; c.f. EBU tech note 3342).
• Added an "Apply capitilization rules" command to the context menu of the input files list. This changes the first letter of every word of the track names to upper-case, except for the following, which are lower-cased: a, an, the, of, to, on, from, in, by, and, or, nor, for, but (unless it is the first word, or following a colon).
• The program and the installer executables are now digitally signed for improved security.

Version 5.1

• ACDR is now available in both 64-bit native and 32-bit versions.
• The UI now supports high-DPI displays (without blurry upscaling).
• The defunct freedb service has been replaced by gnudb.org.
• Supported file formats are now: AIFF, APE, FLAC, MP2, MP3, OGG, OPUS, WAV, WMA, WV.
• Audio tracks recorded with emphasis filter now has a red check-box in the input list.
• A few usability improvements.
  
  

Version 5.0

• ACDR is now "donationware" for non-commercial use. This is a type of freeware. There's no fee to use it, no nag boxes, no advertising, no time limit, no reg-codes, no crippled features. However we do make this plea, that if you like it and use it, you can/should make a voluntary donation - both as a "thank you", and to support the continued development of ACDR.
  
  To make a donation, please go here.
  
  
• Added support for EBU R 128 volume normalization.
• The "Find covert art..." button now works again with albumart.org.
  
• The ripping progress is now also shown in the taskbar (Windows 7 / 8 only).
• The output file format list is now formatted so that you can type in the first letter of the file extension to search in the list.
• Removed support for less commonly used file formats.

Version 4.3

• Added a "Find cover art..." button to the "Reading and Converting" page, providing a quick way to search at www.albumart.org.
• It now uses less CPU-power (and may be slightly faster) when the output format is PCM 16-bit stereo and no processing is done (i.e. resampling et c). This is due to support for a new "Direct Stream Copy" path in the underlying awC++ library.
• Resampling speed has been improved - changing the sample rate is now up to 9x faster than before.
• Added support for writing to unmapped network shares using UNC names (paths like "\\server\share").
• Added support for writing Apples Core Audio Format (.CAF files).
• Writing Monkeys Audio files (.APE) now requires MACDLL.dll (included in the codec pack).
• Updated the codec add-on pack (now v1.7) with the latest versions of various external DLLs.
• Minor cosmetic improvements.

Version 4.2

• Added Unicode support for text meta data (for file formats that support it). When saving to meta data formats (e.g. ID3v2-tags) that supports multiple character encodings, the program will automatically select the most compact one (Latin-1, UTF-8 or UTF-16) that can encode the text losslessly.
• For the freedb album data-base, "protocol level 6" is now supported, which means that this too now supports Unicode.
• Added Unicode support for file names.
• Added support for writing ID3v2 meta data tags to .MP3 files (in addition to ID3v1).
• The "Genre" selection has been split into two fields; first a "category" with a fixed set of choices (required for submitting to the freedb database), second an optional free-form genre text field.
• Added support for writing Musepack SV8 (.MPC) compressed files.
• Added support for writing files with Shorten (.SHN) lossless compression.
• Added a "Pattern rename..." option to the input track lists context menu.
• Added a new "Replay Gain 'ISO 226:2003'" normalization option. This uses a fairly accurate filter implementation based on the "75-phon equal loudness contour" from the "new" research standardized as ISO 226:2003. It is an alternative to, and improvement from, the "Replay Gain 'Standard'" hearing filter (which is an approximation of the "80-dB F-weight curve", based on research as old as 1933!). Also fixed a conformance problem with the standard Replay Gain normalization calculations.

Version 4.1

• Added support for writing WavPack (.WV) lossless compressed files. NB; to use this you need to install the free WavPack codec add-on (wavpackdll.dll).
• Added support for using libFLAC.dll versions later than v1.1.2.
• Added a new 'Normalize' option: "Adjust volume by selected amount", which simply allows you to select by how many dB to change the volume of the input.

Version 4.0

• Added support for writing to several new file formats:
  • MPEG-2/MPEG-4 Advanced Audio Coding (.AAC files).
  • MPEG-4 base media file format (.MP4 files).
  • Apple QuickTime movie format (.MOV files).
  • iTunes MPEG-4 audio format (.M4A files).
  • 3GPP file format (.3GP files).
  • 3GPP 'project 2' file format (.3G2 files).
  Note: These formats use 'AAC' and/or 'AMR' compression. No encoders for this is included in ACDR - however it can talk to freely available 3rd party encoders to do the compression. For AAC you need 'libfaac.dll' and for AMR you need 'AMR.dll'.
• Improved automatic output file name construction:
  • Added an additional 'separator and name' set.
  • Added two new separator options: ' and "none".
  • The "<track no>" option has been replaced by two new options "<track n>" and "<track nn>" (the latter pads numbers with 0 for two digits, e.g. "01", while the former does not, e.g. "1").
  • The checkbox "Replace space with underscore" has been replaced with a drop down list with the selections "Keep space in file names", "Replace space with underscore", "Replace space with dot" and "Remove space from file names".
• If you are running under Windows XP then buttons and other control will now use the rounder 'XP style' look.
• The program manual is now in 'HTML help' format (it now both looks better and is easier to use than when it was using the older 'WinHelp' format).
• Some improvements to the user interface.

Version 3.5

• Added support for a new 'Raw-Read' interface (for talking to the CD-ROM hardware) that should be compatible with Windows Server 2003, as well as work with some hardware (e.g. USB CD-ROMs) that previously could not be used for ripping audio CDs. It is available on Windows XP and Windows Server 2003.

  Each drive might now be listed multiple times in the drive list - once for each available interface type on your specific Windows version- I.e. you can now select explicitly if you which hardware interface that the program should use. Here is an overview of available interfaces:
  • ASPI - Available under all Windows versions but requires that special 'ASPI32' drivers are installed.
  • SPTI - Available under Windows NT/2000/XP - but you must be logged in as administrator to use it.
  • Raw-Read - Available under Windows XP/Server 2003. Supports USB-devices, but not read speed selection.
• Added a 'right click' menu with commands in the input files list
• Improved accuracy of freedb disc detection.
• Fixed bug with ripping only working from the first CD-drive when running in SPTI mode on systems with more than one drive.

Version 3.4

• Added 'de-emphasis filter' support. Some rare (mostly older) CDs are recorded with a type of treble boosting called 'emphasis' which needs to be reversed before playback for correct sound. Very few audio CD-rippers can do this. ACDR now does it automatically when an audio track with emphasis enabled is detected!
• There are now two categories of FLAC output sub-formats: "Encoder default settings" and "Maximum compression". The latter is what previous versions always did, but this had the side effect of quite long compression times. Using the new "Encoder default settings" gives a bit less compression, but is much faster and should provide equal performance as most other FLAC compression software.
• Added a new normalization type: "Peak value to selected amplitude".
• Added a "Never raise to clipping" option to the normalization function. Enabling this will put a cap on how much the normalization algorithm may raise the volume ensuring that it is never raised so much that clipping occurs.
• Added a "Read command" option with the selections "MMC2-DA" (default), "SCSI2-Data", "Plextor-CDDA 1" and "Plextor-CDDA 2". This allows the program to read audio data also from many non-MMC-2 compliant CD-ROM drives. The option selects what kind of 'read command' is used tell the CD-ROM drive to extract the audio data from the disc. The first option is the standard command that works with most drives. A few drives require proprietary commands and with those you can now try the other selections.
• Added support for writing "Broadcast Wave Format" type of .WAV files (save as "Microsoft Waveform - BWF 'Broadcast' type").
• The "Next >" button before the progress page has been renamed into "Start >".

Version 3.3

• Added two more normalization methods: 'Replay Gain - Modify audio data' and 'Replay Gain - Store meta info in file'. These methods use the excellent 'Replay Gain' algorithm for audio normalization. With these, there's now also an 'Album gain mode' checkbox option - enabling it will calculate the normalization gain over all the input files instead of 'file by file'. For more info on Replay Gain, see http://replaygain.hydrogenaudio.org/. Note that the gain value that can be entered in the options for 'Modify audio data' is the desired deviation from the Replay Gain standard value of 83 dB SPL (typing in 0.0 means that you want it at '83 dB SPL' when played back on movie industry standard listening consoles). When using the 'Store meta info in file', the deviation from 83 dB SPL is stored in file formats that support it (WAV, AIFF, FLAC, APE, OGG, MP3), and the actual playback level is then supposed to be controlled by a Replay Gain compatible player.
• The audio quality of the FIR resampling algorithm has been improved quite a lot by increasing the precision of the filter calculations. The previous two 'FIR (13-tap)' and 'FIR (65-tap)' selections has been replaced with five new: 'FIR (dirty - very fast)', 'FIR (decent - fast)', 'FIR (good - normal)' and 'FIR (super - slow)'. The first two of these approximately corresponds to what was available in previous versions. The last two take quite a lot of CPU power to compute, but also gives very, very good results!
• Added .FLAC format write support. This format provides good loss-less audio compression. To use this you need to download the free libFLAC.dll add-on from our web site and copy it to the directory where you installed the program. For more info (including player plug-ins), see http://flac.sourceforge.net/.
• You can now also create MP3 files with 8000, 11025 or 12000 Hz sample rate (previous versions used 16000 Hz as a minimum sample rate). This requires v3.94 or later of LAME_Enc.dll.
• The buttons in the last screen have been changed to 'Cancel', 'Back', 'Close' and 'New CD'.

Version 3.2

• Added support for writing Monkey Audio losslessly compressed files (.APE). This format is well suited for compressing backups of your CDs without loosing any quality - for more info (including player plug-ins), see http://www.monkeysaudio.com/.
• Added two new audio processing options: 'Normalize' and 'Remove DC offset'. Note that these are 'two pass' algorithms that buffers the data to disk between 'pass one' and 'pass two' and that the 'progress bar' will only move during the first pass.

• An improved (external) MPEG layer II encoder is now: tooLameF.dll replaces tooLame.dll.

  Improvements include:
  • Based on tooLame v0.2l (instead of v0.2i).
  • Some quality optimizations.
  • Fixed several memory leaks.
  The new DLL file is available on our web site in the archive toolamef02l.zip

Version 3.1

• Added support for writing the new Windows Media 9 Format files (this requires the Windows Media 9 runtime to be installed - available from the download page on our web site!). This includes support for 2-pass CBR (constant bit-rate) as well as 1-pass VBR (quality based variable bit-rate) and 2-pass constrained VBR (a.k.a. 'average bit-rate' encoding). You can also use external 'profiles' (.prx files) for things such as MBR (mutual bit-rate exclusion) and other kinds of multi-stream files. The following codecs are supported: Windows Media Audio 9, Windows Windows Media Audio 9 Lossless, Windows Media Audio 9 Voice, and ACELP.net. Plus support for writing the older Windows Media Audio 4 format WMA files!
• Added support for writing MPEG audio layer II (a.k.a. MP2) subformat .WAV files (requires the TooLame.dll add-on).
• Added a 'Fade out' option to the 'trim length' function - which performs a 250ms fade out at the trim point.

Version 3.0

• The program name has changed from 'Awave ACDR' into simply 'ACDR'.
• It now supports SPTI (SCSI Pass Through Drivers) for reading Audio CDs on Windows NT/2K/XP - which means that ASPI32 drivers are no longer needed under those Windows versions (note that you must be logged in with supervisor privileges to use SPTI though).
• Added support for the 'freedb' on-line album database for retrieving album, artist, year, genre and track names. This replaces the earlier CDDB2 support.
• Added support for retrieving album, artist and track names from 'CDPlayer.ini' (if present - this file is used by many 'CD player' apps to hold album info).
• Added Vorbis (.OGG) write support. This requires a free Vorbis DLL add-on, vorbis10.zip, available on our web site.
• Improved support for writing MP3s (using Lame_Enc.dll) - it now not only supports writing 'Constant Bit Rate' .MP3 files, but also 'Average Bit Rate' and 'Variable Bit Rate' files:
  • ABR is really a form of VBR where you specify the total size of the output file (indirectly, since size = length * bit rate). The ABR encoder then 'portions out' the total amount of available bits in variable amounts to different parts of the audio clip in a manner that it thinks will produce the best audio quality.
  • The VBR encoder on the other hand lets you specify a 'quality level' and then varies the bit rate so as to always achieve at least that given quality, without any concerns about what the total file size may end up being. This is the optimal way to compress the audio!
  • Note that not all MP3 decoders supports ABR and VBR files... Also, you need the latest Lame_Enc.dll (version 3.92 or later) to use this (On the ACDR download page, on our web site, there's also a link to where you can download this).
• Added MPEG layer II (.MP2) write support using the free TooLame encoder. This too is available on our web site as a separate add-on.
• All tracks are now selected by default when a new CD is inserted. And it is now enough to single click (instead of double click) to toggle a track. Double-click now lets you edit the track name.
• Added an 'Exit when done' button to the progress page.
• New setup program.
• Various minor fixes and improvements.

Version 2.0

• Added several new output formats: ALAW, F32, IFF, MAT, SB, SW, TXT, UB, ULAW, UW, VOC, VOX.
• Added an 'Add' button that will allow you to add a 'virtual track' for which you yourself enter the start and end times.
• Added an 'Audio playback' window.
• Added a 'cut off after N sec' option - useful if e.g. you want to make short 'previews' of the contents of a CD.
• Added a new F.I.R. filter (65-tap) resampling option for those of you who wont mind using up lots and lots of CPU cycles for a marginally better result than the 13-tap filter.
• Added a 'hide' button to the progress page.
• Added an 'eject when done' option
• Added 'tool tips' that pops up over controls.

Version 1.0

• This is the first version of Awave ACDR.
• However the audio 'streaming and conversion core' used in Awave ACDR is based upon FMJ-Softwares awC++ library, which is also used in our Awave Audio product, as well a offered as an SDK to other software developers.