Minim not passing through embedded artwork?

[windbag]

(08-08-2024 13:17)simoncn Wrote:  Thanks for this information. I am trying to reproduce what you are doing when you use EAC to embed an image in a .mp3 file. I have installed EAC and I don't see any option to open a file and embed an image. Does the file need to be ripped from a CD or can it be an existing file on my computer?

I've just written an answer, but it is rather long !
It has reminded me that it took ages to get EAC to automate music file extraction just as I wanted it, with the minimum of intervention from me each time.

If you have a CD drive, it expects an audio CD in that to start, with the aim of generating a folder artist/album title with your extracted music files - either wav, flac or mp3 or any combination you set.
It then looks it up on a database - CUEtools or MusicBrainz - I have no idea about these databases.
It usually finds the CD and populates the CD title, Artist, Year fields etc at the top, and the tracks in the main table. It also tries to find artwork for the square on the right.
There are often many such, of differing sizes, but rarely one I think is small enough.
In that instance I may save it somewhere, edit it down, then right-click+Remove cover image to make it blank, then drag my reduced file into that square instead - where it reports the new file size. I aim for 30 kB.

I then almost exclusively then use the "CMP" button on the far left, which is the 'Compress' option.
The WAV button gives .wav files (which are intermediates anyway), the other two are if you are trying to dupe the CD.
The wav extraction is determined by the setup under the tab 'EAC/EAC options', which gives a new window with six tabs.
These have a whole load of options on how to name the extracted files, special characters to change, which directory for the files.
wav files are always generated for passing to compression programs.

What CMP does it set under 'EAC/Compression options'.
I make a FLAC and mp3 for each track, deleting the wav after.
Under External Compression, I have set up the options from lengthy study of the forums some while ago, when two compression options became possible
The first one, for FLAC files, is by setting external program as 'User Defined Encoder" and telling it to use file extension of '.flac'

for me the program path is set as:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Exact Audio Copy\FLAC\FLAC.EXE
I either downloaded it at the time or it was part of the EAC install.

The additional command-line options are set as:
-6 -V -T "ARTIST=%artist%" -T "TITLE=%title%" -T "ALBUM=%albumtitle%" -T "DATE=%year%" -T "TRACKNUMBER=%tracknr%" -T "GENRE=%genre%" -T "COMMENT=%comment%" -T "BAND=%albuminterpret%" -T "ALBUMARTIST=%albuminterpret%" -T "COMPOSER=%composer%" %haslyrics%--tag-from-file=LYRICS="%lyricsfile%"%haslyrics% -T "DISCNUMBER=%cdnumber%" -T "TOTALDISCS=%totalcds%" -T "TOTALTRACKS=%numtracks%" %hascover%--picture="%coverfile%"%hascover% %source% -o %dest%

That line was deduced from a post on the internet forums many moons ago.

I also tick the flag to delete the .wav file after compression.

My second compression is for mp3 files under Additional External compression, by setting external program as 'User Defined Encoder" and telling it to use file extension of '.mp3'

with program path set as:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Exact Audio Copy\LAME\Lame_v3.99.3\lame.exe

which I do remember I had to download.

Again, with additional command-line options set as:

-V2 --ta "%artist%" --tt "%title%" --tg "%genre%" --tl "%albumtitle%" --ty "%year%" --tn "%tracknr%/%numtracks%" %source% %dest%

also deduced from a post on the internet forums many moons ago.

There are a heap of other settings that I think were defaults, but cannot swear to that. In particular, I'm looking at the ID3 tag tab, which has all but one ticked. I wouldn't have had any sense of whether that is wise or stupid, I'm afraid.

The upshot of all that is that it generates a FLAC folder containing all the flac files, mp3 files for each track in the base folder - all of which have the displayed artwork embedded in them. It also writes a log file showing if the wav extraction was OK and an artwork file titled Artist - Album title.jpg. Finally deleting the wav files after.

Does that get you far enough for your tests ?