4 abcde is a frontend command-line utility (actually, a shell script) that
5 grabs tracks off a CD or a singletrack flac file with an embeded cuesheet,
6 encodes them to Ogg/Vorbis, MP3, FLAC, Ogg/Speex, M4A, Opus, WavPack,
7 Monkey's Audio (ape) and/or MPP/MP+(Musepack) format, and tags them, all
10 Your finished Ogg/MP3/FLAC/Speex/M4A/Opus,WavPack/Ape/MPP's are, by default,
11 stored in a subdirectory of the current directory (named after the artist)
12 with a filename based on the track title. Spaces are replaced by underscores,
13 and apostrophes and control codes are filtered out. Colons are replaced with
14 an underscore and a hyphen. The end result usually looks like:
15 Our_Lady_Peace/01.Supermans_Dead.ogg. This filename munging is customizable,
16 edit the mungefilename function in your abcde.conf to change it.
18 Many of the questions related of problems executing abcde have been moved to the
19 FAQ, which should be distributed along with this package. Refer to that file
26 * Support for output to the Matroska container (mka).
27 * Add id3tag mp3 tagger as this is the tagger available to
29 * Several bug fixes. See the changelog for more details.
32 * Rewrite and improvement of the abcde Makefile.
33 * Support added for True Audio encoding.
34 * Support added for encoding to MPEG-1 Audio Layer II (mp2) with either
36 * Support added for encoding to WavPack with FFmpeg.
37 * Support added for encoding to m4a with either FFmpeg or avconv. This
38 allows usage of the FFmpeg / avconv native alac encoder.
39 * Support added for AAC encoding with fhgaacenc via Wine.
40 * Support added for AAC encoding with qaac via Wine. (Also alac encoding
41 with the open source refalac).
42 * Several bug fixes. See the changelog for more details.
45 * Rewrite of the mungefilename function.
46 * Support added for downloading album art.
47 * Support added for ripping with libcdio (cd-paranoia).
48 * Some error checking and a small help file added to abcde-musicbrainz-tool.
49 * Substantial renovations of m4a encoding with a choice now between encoding
50 with faac, NeroAacEnc and fdkaac.
51 * Fixes to USEPIPES with the addition of several new encoders and rippers.
52 Details on USEPIPES now available in the abcde FAQ doc.
53 * Support added for encoding with Monkey's Audio (ape), tagging is with
55 * Support added for encoding with WavPack.
56 * mp3 tagging renovated with version sniffing differentiating between eyeD3
57 versions. Tagging formalised with options now for id3, id3v2 and eyeD3.
58 * Many, many bug fixes. See the changelog for more details.
64 * Added working support for Musicbrainz using a perl helper script.
67 * Read TOC entries from the CD. The default uses cdrdao. The program mkcue is
69 * Possibility to use CDDBCHOICE1,CDDBCHOICE2 (i.e., 1,3) to get a diff of two
71 * Added SHOWCDDBFIELDS to define whether to show the YEAR and GENRE fields from
73 * Added the possibility of embeding a cuesheet on a singletrack flac file. A
74 single BACKUP flag is most likely needed to use all the needed flags:
75 "abcde -1 -o flac -a default,cue"
76 * Added the possibility of using a singletrack flac file with an embeded
77 cuesheet as a source to extract tracks from (use -X to specify an external
78 CUE2DISCID implementation; check under examples in the distributed source
80 * Added replaygain for Ogg/Vorbis and Ogg/FLAC.
82 * Uses the default found $CDROMREADER instead of forcing cdparanoia when
83 cdda2wav is installed.
84 * BATCH mode has been split into two options: BATCHNORM and NOGAP.
85 * Added -U option for non-UNICODE (non UTF-8) tag encoding.
87 * Added -f to force the removal of left files.
88 * CUE support has changed from a flag (-M) to an action (cue).
91 * Support for mkcue, to create a CUE sheet of the CD structure. It can be used
92 with "-1" to create a backup, so that later the original CD can be recreated.
93 * New -o <output(1)>:<options(1)>,... way of passing specific options to an
94 output. Now we can pass specific options without having to modify a config
95 file. This feature was already present in the last versions of the 2.2 cycle.
96 * Unix PIPEs, as a second way to encode files with a low disc space.
97 * Option to erase the "encoded" entries from the status file. Allows one to
98 encode the wav files (in case they were not erased) into another format. This
99 is needed until status information is stored for each format.
100 * The "ogg" output mode will be substituted for "vorbis" in the near future.
101 This release adds a compatibility layer so that both entries work.
102 * The FLAC encoder forces the files to be overwritten, in case they previously
103 exists. This avoids a half-through abcde run to continue without errors in
104 case it was cancelled during the FLAC encoding.
105 * Added a post_read() function so that we can do things with the CD before we
110 * Support for MPP/MP+(Musepack) format. It can be downloaded from
111 corecodecs.org. It is supposed to be Free (not only free), and released under
113 * New "-t <number>" option for starting the numbering of the output files at a
114 given starting number. Ideal for albums with more than one CD.
115 * New "-T <number>" option, similar to "-t" but also modifies the tag entries
116 on the files themselves.
117 * New "-w <COMMENT>" to add a comment to the tracks of a given CD rip. Use
119 * New "-W <number>" option to combine both a comment with "CD #number" and a
120 starting number for both the tracks and the tags with "#01" (that is, 101 for
121 the 1st CD, 201 for the second...)
122 * Support for keeping an existing playlist (and not add new entries to it),
123 erase the existing one (overwrite) or append new entries to the existing
125 * Under ./examples you will find a very basic way to make abcde run in the
126 background and start a non-interactive rip of a CD, if it can find an
127 audio CD in the tray.
128 The abcded script depends on eject and cdparanoia being installed in your
130 * New mungegenre function to switch off (or modify) the default behaviour of
131 transforming uppercase characters to lowercase.
132 * cdparanoia permits performing a query to the CD drive and obtain a list of
133 valid audio tracks. So, now we perform such query and process the results.
134 * Support for "None of the above" has been added with the "0" selection. A
135 template is created, and the selection to edit it is defaulted to "y".
137 New options in 2.1.19:
139 * ONETRACK mode has been introduced. Setting the flag "-1" will create a
140 single file with all the tracks from the CD.
144 * CDSPEED option defaults to eject. However, since cdparanoia has a built-in
145 option to set the speed, we use it. There is not way (right now) to force the
146 use of eject, but it will be introduced in a future release. Also one can use
147 the pre_read function to set the speed with other program.
149 New options in 2.1.16:
151 * -S, CDSPEED and CDSPEEDOPTS for setting the speed of the CDROM. One can set
152 the options in abcde.conf and pass the value on the command line. This option
153 can be used with "eject -x <speed>", "setcd -x <speed>" or the built-in
154 cdparanoia option "-S <speed>", if the CD reader supports it.
155 * Added a pre-read function. Modify it at your pleasure in abcde.conf
156 One can use it to close the CD drive.
157 * -m option, to modify the playlist to include CRLF in every line. Some players
158 insist on having those to work properly with playlists.
160 New options in 2.1.15:
162 * -V can be used to obtain some more information about the CDDB queries.
163 * -v shows the version, basic help, and exits.
165 New options from 2.1.10 to 2.1.13:
167 * CDROMID has been introduced for cdda2wav use with SCSI devices.
168 * Use -L to retrieve the CDDB entries from a local repository (also one can
169 set CDDBUSELOCAL in the config file).
170 * If CDDBCOPYLOCAL is set to "y" we store copies of the CDDB entries, under
171 CDDBLOCALDIR (defaults to "~/.cddb).
173 Modifications from 2.1.9 to 2.1.10:
175 * Initial (still incomplete) MacOSX support is on the works.
176 * A new tool (curl) has been added for MacOSX compatibility, as HTTPGET
179 Options modified from 2.1.8 to 2.1.9:
181 * KEEPWAVS option now sets the clean to "no".
183 Options added/modified from 2.1.3 to 2.1.5:
185 * Ogg/Speex added. Use "-o spx" to rip your audiobooks, for instance.
187 Options added/modified from 2.1.1 to 2.1.3:
189 * WGET has been substituted by HTTPGET. Now we support fetch as retrieval
191 * KEEPWAVS has been introduced. Set it to "y" and the wav tracks will be
193 * CDDBPROTO is used to specify the protocol level in the CDDB retrieval.
194 * DAGRAB has been introduced as a cd ripper.
196 Options added/modified from 2.0.3 to 2.1.x:
198 * -b use batch processing. It uses normalize-audio to adjust the volume of
199 the songs, and a -g gapless option from lame to remove gaps. Only available
200 for mp3+lame combination.
201 * a new "normalize" option has been added to -a, to normalize the volume.
202 * -o works now with a combination of the different outputs: ogg, mp3, flac.
203 Combine them separated by ",". Example: "-o ogg,flac".
204 * OUTPUTTYPE is no longer used for the output file type. From version 2.1 abcde
205 implements multiple-output and the file type is always appended at the end of
206 the file. The OUTPUT variable can be used in the PLAYLISTFORMAT and
207 OUTPUTFORMAT to create different directory structures and playlist names for
208 each of the output formats selected.
210 * DYEAR can be used as DiskYear value in CDDB data. If the data is not supplied
211 by the CDDB server, it can be added.
213 Other options that changed from 1.x to 2.x:
215 * -e doesn't exist anymore, abcde now presents you with all of the cddb data
216 and asks you if you want to edit it. If you don't want to be asked,
217 use -N or INTERACTIVE=n
218 * The output type defaults to Ogg/Vorbis. Specify -o mp3 or OUTPUTTYPE=mp3
219 if you still want to output mp3's.
220 * -l 2 is now just -l, LOWDISK=2 should now be LOWDISK=y
221 * -V and -v are gone, abcde will now prompt you if you'd like to use Various
222 Artists handling, after showing you the cddb data.
223 * -P is now '-a playlist,clean', PLAYLISTONLY=y is now
224 ACTIONS=playlist,clean
225 * -p is now '-a playlist,move,clean', PLAYLIST=y is now
226 ACTIONS=playlist,move,clean
227 * cddb-tool has been cleaned up a little bit. 'get' is now 'query' and
228 'read', and the tempfile handling has been removed.
229 * ID3COMMENT is now COMMENT.
230 * FreeDB is now the default CDDB database.
236 abcde requires the following backend tools to work:
238 * An Ogg/Vorbis encoder (oggenc, the default, or vorbize) or:
239 * An MP3 encoder (lame, gogo, bladeenc, l3enc, etc) or:
240 * A FLAC encoder (flac) or:
241 * An Ogg/Speex encoder (speexenc) or:
242 * An MPP/MP+(Musepack) encoder (mpcenc) or:
243 * An AAC encoder (faac, NeroAacEnc, fdkaac) or:
244 * An Opus encoder )opusenc) or:
245 * A Monkey's Ausio encoder (mac) or:
246 * A WavPack encoder (wavpack)
247 * normalize-audio for volume normalization.
248 * CD Paranoia, an audio CD reading utility or:
249 * icedax/cdda2wav, the audio CD reading utility cdparanoia was born from or:
250 * cd-paranoia, an audio cd reading utility, courtesy of GNU libcdio or:
251 * dagrab, another audio CD reading utility.
252 * cd-discid, a CDDB DiscID reading program. Formerly bundled with abcde.
253 It's available in Debian or http://linukz.org/cd-discid.shtml
254 * An HTTP retrieval program: wget, fetch (FreeBSD) or curl (MacOSX)
255 * id3, an id3 tagging program. Available at: http://lly.org/~rcw/id3/
256 * eyeD3, an id3 version 2.0 tagger. http://eyed3.nicfit.net/
257 * (optional) distmp3, a client/server for distributed mp3 encoding.
258 You can get distmp3 at http://wlug.westbo.se/medlprog/medlprog.html
260 Abcde's new mailing list is abcde-users@lists.einval.com. Visit
262 https://lists.einval.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/abcde-users
264 to subscribe. Posts from non-subscribers are moderated to prevent
267 Abcde's current page is at https://abcde.einval.com/ and the latest
268 upstream code is in git at https://git.einval.com/cgi-bin/gitweb.cgi?p=abcde.git
271 Steve McIntyre <93sam@debian.org>
272 Andrew Strong <andrew.david.strong@gmail.com>
274 abcde was originally created by Robert Woodcock <rcw@debian.org>