3 abcde \- Grab an entire CD and compress it to Ogg/Vorbis, MP3, FLAC, Ogg/Speex, AAC and/or MPP/MP+(Musepack) format.
8 Ordinarily, the process of grabbing the data off a CD and encoding it, then
9 tagging or commenting it, is very involved.
11 is designed to automate this. It will take an entire CD and convert it into
12 a compressed audio format - Ogg/Vorbis, MPEG Audio Layer III, Free Lossless
13 Audio Codec (FLAC), Ogg/Speex, MPP/MP+(Musepack), M4A (AAC) or Opus format(s).
14 With one command, it will:
17 Do a CDDB or Musicbrainz query over the Internet to look up your CD or
18 use a locally stored CDDB entry, or read CD-TEXT from your CD as a
19 fallback for track information
22 Grab an audio track (or all the audio CD tracks) from your CD
25 Normalize the volume of the individual file (or the album as a single unit)
28 Compress to Ogg/Vorbis, MP3, FLAC, Ogg/Speex, MPP/MP+(Musepack), M4A and/or Opus format(s), all in one CD read
31 Comment or ID3/ID3v2 tag
34 Give an intelligible filename
37 Calculate replaygain values for the individual file (or the album as a single unit)
40 Delete the intermediate WAV file (or save it for later use)
47 can also grab a CD and turn it into a single FLAC file with an embedded
48 cuesheet which can be user later on as a source for other formats, and will be
49 treated as if it was the original CD. In a way,
51 can take a compressed backup of your CD collection.
55 Encode the whole CD in a single file. The resulting file uses the CD title
56 for tagging. If the resulting format is a flac file with an embedded cuesheet,
57 the file can be used as a source for creating other formats. Use "\-1 \-o
58 flac \-a default,cue" for obtaining such a file.
61 Comma-delimited list of actions to perform. Can be one or more of: cddb, cue,
62 read, normalize, encode, tag, move, replaygain, playlist, clean. Normalize and
63 encode imply read. Tag implies cddb, read, encode. Move implies cddb, read,
64 encode, tag. Replaygain implies cddb, read, encode, tag and move. Playlist
65 implies cddb. The default is to do all actions except cue, normalize,
66 replaygain and playlist.
69 Enable batch mode normalization. See the BATCHNORM configuration variable.
72 Specifies an additional configuration file to parse. Configuration options
73 in this file override those in \fI/etc/abcde.conf\fR or \fI$HOME/.abcde.conf\fR.
76 Allows you to resume a session for
78 when you no longer have the CD available (\fBabcde\fR will automatically resume if
79 you still have the CD in the drive). You must have already finished at
80 least the "read" action during the previous session.
82 .B \-d [devicename | filename]
83 CD\-ROM block device that contains audio tracks to be read. Alternatively, a
84 single-track flac file with embedded cuesheet.
87 Capture debugging information (you'll want to redirect this \- try 'abcde \-D
91 Erase information about encoded tracks from the internal status file, to enable
92 other encodings if the wav files have been kept.
95 Force the removal of the temporary ABCDETEMPDIR directory, even when we have
96 not finished. For example, one can read and encode several formats, including
97 \'.ogg\', and later on execute a \'move\' action with only one of the given
98 formats. On a normal situation it would erase the rest of those encoded
99 formats. In this case, \fBabcde\fR will refuse to execute such command, except if \-f
103 Enable lame's \-\-nogap option. See the NOGAP variable. WARNING: lame's
104 \-\-nogap disables the Xing mp3 tag. This tag is required for mp3 players to
105 correctly display track lengths when playing variable-bit-rate mp3 files.
108 Get help information.
111 Start [number] encoder processes at once. Useful for SMP systems. Overrides
112 the MAXPROCS configuration variable. Set it to "0" when using \fBdistmp3\fR to avoid
113 local encoding processes.
116 Keep the wav files after encoding.
119 Use the low-diskspace algorithm. See the LOWDISK configuration variable.
122 Use a local CDDB repository. See CDDBLOCALDIR variable.
125 Create DOS-style playlists, modifying the resulting one by adding CRLF line
126 endings. Some hardware players insist on having those to work.
129 Do not query CDDB database. Create and use a template. Edit the template to
130 provide song names, artist(s), ...
133 Non interactive mode. Do not ask anything from the user. Just go ahead.
135 .B \-o [filetype][:filetypeoptions]
136 Select output type. Can be "vorbis" (or "ogg"), "mp3", "flac", "spx", "mpc",
137 "m4a", "wav" or "opus". Specify a comma-delimited list of output types to obtain
138 all specified types. See the OUTPUTTYPE configuration variable. One can pass
139 options to the encoder for a specific filetype on the command line separating
140 them with a colon. The options must be escaped with double-quotes.
143 Pads track numbers with 0\'s.
146 Use Unix PIPES to read and encode in one step. It disables multiple encodings,
147 since the WAV audio file is never stored in the disc.
150 Remote encode on this comma-delimited list of machines using \fBdistmp3\fR. See
151 the REMOTEHOSTS configuration variable.
154 List, separated by commas, the fields to be shown in the CDDB parsed entries.
155 Right now it only uses "year" and "genre".
158 Set the speed of the CD drive. Needs CDSPEED and CDSPEEDOPTS set properly
159 and both the program and device must support the capability.
162 Start the numbering of the tracks at a given number. It only affects the
163 filenames and the playlist. Internal (tag) numbering remains the same.
166 Same as \-t but changes also the internal (tag) numbering. Keep in mind that
167 the default TRACK tag for MP3 is $T/$TRACKS so it is changed to simply $T.
170 Set CDDBPROTO to version 5, so that we retrieve ISO-8859-15 encoded CDDB
171 information, and we tag and add comments with Latin1 encoding.
174 Show the version and exit
177 Be more verbose. On slow networks the CDDB requests might give the
178 sensation nothing is happening. Add this more than once to make things
182 Eject the CD when all tracks have been read. See the EJECTCD configuration
186 Use an alternative "cue2discid" implementation. The name of the binary must be
187 exactly that. \fBabcde\fR comes with an implementation in python under the examples
188 directory. The special keyword "builtin" forces the usage of the internal
189 (default) implementation in shell script.
192 Add a comment to the tracks ripped from the CD. If you wish to use
193 parentheses, these will need to be escaped. i.e. you have to write
194 "\\(" instead of "(".
197 Concatenate CD\'s. It uses the number provided to define a comment "CD #" and
198 to modify the numbering of the tracks, starting with "#01". For Ogg/Vorbis and
199 FLAC files, it also defines a DISCNUMBER tag.
202 DEBUG mode: it will rip, using \fBcdparanoia\fR, the very first second of each track
203 and proceed with the actions requested very quickly, also providing some
204 "hidden" information about what happens on the background. CAUTION: IT WILL
205 ERASE ANY EXISTING RIPS WITHOUT WARNING!
208 A list of tracks you want \fBabcde\fR to process. If this isn't specified, \fBabcde\fR
209 will process the entire CD. Accepts ranges of track numbers -
210 "abcde 1-5 7 9" will process tracks 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, and 9.
212 Each track is, by default, placed in a separate file named after the track in a
213 subdirectory named after the artist under the current directory. This can be
214 modified using the OUTPUTFORMAT and VAOUTPUTFORMAT variables in your
215 \fIabcde.conf\fR. Each file is given an extension identifying its compression
216 format, 'vorbis' for '.ogg', '.mp3', '.flac', '.spx', '.mpc', '.wav' or '.opus'.
218 \fBabcde\fR sources two configuration files on startup - \fI/etc/abcde.conf\fR and
219 \fI$HOME/.abcde.conf\fR, in that order.
221 The configuration options stated in those files can be overridden by providing
222 the appropriate flags at runtime.
224 The configuration variables have to be set as follows:
227 Except when "value" needs to be quoted or otherwise interpreted. If other
228 variables within "value" are to be expanded upon reading the configuration
229 file, then double quotes should be used. If they are only supposed to be
230 expanded upon use (for example OUTPUTFORMAT) then single quotes must be used.
232 All shell escaping/quoting rules apply.
234 Here is a list of options \fBabcde\fR recognizes:
237 Specifies the method we want to use to retrieve the track information. Two
238 values are recognized: "cddb" and "musicbrainz". The "cddb" value needs the
239 CDDBURL and HELLOINFO variables described below. The "musicbrainz" value uses
240 the Perl helper script \fBabcde-musicbrainz-tool\fR to establish a
241 conversation with the Musicbrainz server for information retrieval.
244 Specifies a server to use for CDDB lookups.
247 Specifies the protocol version used for the CDDB retrieval of results. Version
248 6 retrieves CDDB entries in UTF-8 format.
251 Specifies the Hello information to send to the CDDB server. The CDDB
252 protocol requires you to send a valid username and hostname each time you
253 connect. The format of this is username@hostname.
256 Specifies a directory where we store a local CDDB repository. The entries must
257 be standard CDDB entries, with the filename being the DISCID value. Other
258 CD playing and ripping programs (like Grip) store the entries under \fI~/.cddb\fR
259 and we can make use of those entries.
261 .B CDDBLOCALRECURSIVE
262 Specifies if the CDDBLOCALDIR has to be searched recursively trying to find a
263 match for the CDDB entry. If a match is found and selected, and CDDBCOPYLOCAL
264 is selected, it will be copied to the root of the CDDBLOCALDIR if
265 CDDBLOCALPOLICY is "modified" or "new".
268 Defines when a CDDB entry should be stored in the defined CDDBLOCALDIR. The
269 possible policies are: "net" for a CDDB entry which has been received from the
270 net (overwriting any possible local CDDB entry); "new" for a CDDB entry which
271 was received from the net, but will request confirmation to overwrite a local
272 CDDB entry found in the root of the CDDBLOCALDIR directory; "modified" for a
273 CDDB entry found in the local repository but which has been modified by the
274 user; and "always" which forces the CDDB entry to be stored back in the root of
275 the CDDBLOCALDIR no matter where it was found, and no matter it was not edited.
276 This last option will always overwrite the one found in the root of the local
277 repository (if any). STILL NOT WORKING!!
280 Store local copies of the CDDB entries under the $CDDBLOCALDIR directory.
283 Actually use the stored copies of the CDDB entries. Can be overridden using the
284 "\-L" flag (if is CDDBUSELOCAL in "n"). If an entry is found, we always give
285 the choice of retrieving a CDDB entry from the internet.
288 Coma-separated list of fields we want to parse during the CDDB parsing.
289 Defaults to "year,genre".
292 Specifies the style of encoder to use for the Ogg/Vorbis encoder. Valid options
293 are \'oggenc\' (default for Ogg/Vorbis) and \'vorbize\'.
294 This affects the default location of the binary,
295 the variable to pick encoder command-line options from, and where the options
299 Specifies the style of encoder to use for the MP3 encoder. Valid options are
300 \'lame\' (default for MP3), \'gogo\', \'bladeenc\', \'l3enc\' and \'mp3enc\'.
301 Affects the same way as explained above for Ogg/Vorbis.
304 Specifies the style of encoder to use for the FLAC encoder. At this point only
305 \'flac\' is available for FLAC encoding.
307 .B SPEEXENCODERSYNTAX
308 Specifies the style of encoder to use for Speex encoder. At this point only
309 \'speexenc\' is available for Ogg/Speex encoding.
312 Specifies the style of encoder to use for MPP/MP+ (Musepack) encoder. At this
313 point we only have \'mpcenc\' available, from musepack.net.
316 Specifies the style of encoder to use for M4A (AAC) encoder. We support \'faac\'
317 as \'default\' as well as higher quality audio with neroAacEnc and fdkaac.
320 Specifies the style of encoder to use for the Opus encoder. At this point only
321 \'opusenc\' is available for Opus encoding.
324 Specifies the style of normalizer to use. Valid options are \'default\'
325 and \'normalize'\ (and both run \'normalize-audio\'), since we only support it,
329 Specifies the style of cdrom reader to use. Valid options are \'cdparanoia\',
330 \'debug\' and \'flac\'. It is used for querying the CDROM and obtain a list of
331 valid tracks and DATA tracks. The special \'flac\' case is used to "rip" CD
332 tracks from a single-track flac file.
335 Specifies the syntax of the program we use to read the CD CUE sheet. Right now
336 we only support \'mkcue\', but in the future other readers might be used.
339 It defaults to no, so if you want to keep those wavs ripped from your CD,
340 set it to "y". You can use the "\-k" switch in the command line. The default
341 behaviour with KEEPWAVS set is to keep the temporary directory and the wav
342 files even you have requested the "clean" action.
345 If set to "y", it adds 0's to the file numbers to complete a two-number
346 holder. Useful when encoding tracks 1-9.
349 Set to "n" if you want to perform automatic rips, without user intervention.
352 Define the values for priorities (nice values) for the different CPU-hungry
353 processes: encoding (ENCNICE), CDROM read (READNICE) and distributed encoder
354 with \fBdistmp3\fR (DISTMP3NICE).
357 The following configuration file options specify the pathnames of their
358 respective utilities: LAME, TOOLAME, GOGO, BLADEENC, L3ENC, XINGMP3ENC, MP3ENC,
359 VORBIZE, OGGENC, FLAC, SPEEXENC, MPCENC, AACENC, OPUSENC, ID3, EYED3, METAFLAC,
360 CDPARANOIA, CDDA2WAV, PIRD, CDDAFS, CDDISCID, CDDBTOOL, EJECT, MD5SUM, DISTMP3,
361 VORBISCOMMENT, NORMALIZE, CDSPEED, MP3GAIN, VORBISGAIN, MPPGAIN, MKCUE, MKTOC,
362 CUE2DISCID (see option "\-X"), DIFF and HTTPGET.
364 .B COMMAND-LINE OPTIONS
365 If you wish to specify command-line options to any of the programs \fBabcde\fR uses,
366 set the following configuration file options: LAMEOPTS, TOOLAMEOPTS, GOGOOPTS,
367 BLADEENCOPTS, L3ENCOPTS, XINGMP3ENCOPTS, MP3ENCOPTS, VORBIZEOPTS, OGGENCOPTS,
368 FLACOPTS, SPEEXENCOPTS, MPCENCOPTS, AACENCOPTS, OPUSENCOPTS, ID3OPTS, EYED3OPTS,
369 MP3GAINOPTS, CDPARANOIAOPTS, CDDA2WAVOPTS, PIRDOPTS, CDDAFSOPTS, CDDBTOOLOPTS,
370 EJECTOPTS, DISTMP3OPTS, NORMALIZEOPTS, CDSPEEDOPTS, MKCUEOPTS, VORBISCOMMMENTOPTS,
371 METAFLACOPTS, DIFFOPTS, FLACGAINOPTS, VORBISGAINOPTS and HTTPGETOPTS.
374 Set the value of the CDROM speed. The default is to read the disc as fast as
375 the reading program and the system permits. The steps are defined as 150kB/s
379 The default actions to be performed when reading a disc.
382 If set, it points to the CD-Rom device which has to be used for audio
383 extraction. Abcde tries to guess the right device, but it may fail. The special
384 \'flac\' option is defined to extract tracks from a single-track flac file.
386 .B CDPARANOIACDROMBUS
387 Defined as "d" when using \fBcdparanoia\fR with an IDE bus and as "g" when using
388 \fBcdparanoia\fR with the ide-scsi emulation layer.
391 Specifies the directory to place completed tracks/playlists in.
394 Specifies the temporary directory to store .wav files in. Abcde may use up
395 to 700MB of temporary space for each session (although it is rare to use
396 over 100MB for a machine that can encode music as fast as it can read it).
399 Specifies the encoding format to output, as well as the default extension and
400 encoder. Defaults to "vorbis". Valid settings are "vorbis" (or "ogg")
401 (Ogg/Vorbis), "mp3" (MPEG-1 Audio Layer III), "flac" (Free Lossless Audio
402 Codec), "spx" (Ogg/Speex), "mpc" (MPP/MP+ (Musepack)), "m4a" (AAC)),
403 "wav" (Microsoft Waveform) or "opus" (Opus Interactive Audio Codec). Values
404 like "vorbis,mp3" encode the tracks in both Ogg/Vorbis and MP3 formats. For example
406 OUTPUTTYPE=vorbis,flac
408 For each value in OUTPUTTYPE, \fBabcde\fR expands a different process for encoding,
409 tagging and moving, so you can use the format placeholder, OUTPUT, to create
410 different subdirectories to hold the different types. The variable OUTPUT will
411 be 'vorbis', 'mp3', 'flac', 'spx', 'mpc', 'm4a' and/or 'wav', depending on the
412 OUTPUTTYPE you define. For example
414 OUTPUTFORMAT='${OUTPUT}/${ARTISTFILE}/${ALBUMFILE}/${TRACKNUM}._${TRACKFILE}'
417 Specifies the format for completed Ogg/Vorbis, MP3, FLAC, Ogg/Speex, MPP/MP+
418 (Musepack) or M4A filenames. Variables are included using standard shell
419 syntax. Allowed variables are GENRE, ALBUMFILE, ARTISTFILE, TRACKFILE,
420 TRACKNUM, and YEAR. Default is \'${ARTISTFILE}-${ALBUMFILE}/${TRACKNUM}-${TRACKFILE}\'.
421 Make sure to use single quotes around this variable. TRACKNUM is automatically
422 zero-padded, when the number of encoded tracks is higher than 9. When lower,
423 you can force with '\-p' in the command line.
426 Just like OUTPUTFORMAT but for Various Artists discs. The default is 'Various-${ALBUMFILE}/${TRACKNUM}.${ARTISTFILE}-${TRACKFILE}'
428 .B ONETRACKOUTPUTFORMAT
429 Just like OUTPUTFORMAT but for single-track rips (see option "\-1"). The default is '${ARTISTFILE}-${ALBUMFILE}/${ALBUMFILE}'
431 .B VAONETRACKOUTPUTFORMAT
432 Just like ONETRACKOUTPUTFORMAT but for Various Artists discs. The default is 'Various-${ALBUMFILE}/${ALBUMFILE}'
435 Defines how many encoders to run at once. This makes for huge speedups
436 on SMP systems. You should run one encoder per CPU at once for maximum
437 efficiency, although more doesn't hurt very much. Set it "0" when using
438 mp3dist to avoid getting encoding processes in the local host.
441 If set to y, conserves disk space by encoding tracks immediately after
442 reading them. This is substantially slower than normal operation but
443 requires several hundred MB less space to complete the encoding of an
444 entire CD. Use only if your system is low on space and cannot encode as
445 quickly as it can read.
447 Note that this option may also help when reading
448 a CD with errors. This is because on a scratchy disk reading is quite timing
449 sensitive and this option reduces the background load on the system which
450 allows the ripping program more precise control.
453 If set to y, enables batch mode normalization, which preserves relative
454 volume differences between tracks of an album. Also enables nogap encoding
455 when using the \'lame\' encoder.
458 Activate the lame's \-\-nogap option, that allows files found in CDs with no
459 silence between songs (such as live concerts) to be encoded without noticeable
460 gaps. WARNING: lame's \-\-nogap disables the Xing mp3 tag. This tag is
461 required for mp3 players to correctly display track lengths when playing
462 variable-bit-rate mp3 files.
465 Specifies the format for completed playlist filenames. Works like the
466 OUTPUTFORMAT configuration variable. Default is
467 \'${ARTISTFILE}_\-_${ALBUMFILE}.m3u\'.
468 Make sure to use single quotes around this variable.
470 .B PLAYLISTDATAPREFIX
471 Specifies a prefix for filenames within a playlist. Useful for http
475 If set, the resulting playlist will have CR-LF line endings, needed by some
476 hardware-based players.
479 Specifies a comment to embed in the ID3 or Ogg comment field of each
480 finished track. Can be up to 28 characters long. Supports the same
481 syntax as OUTPUTFORMAT. Does not currently support ID3v2.
484 Specifies a comma-delimited list of systems to use for remote encoding using
485 \fBdistmp3\fR. Equivalent to \-r.
488 mungefilename() is an \fBabcde\fR shell function that can be overridden via
489 \fIabcde.conf\fR. It takes CDDB data as $1 and outputs the resulting filename on
490 stdout. It defaults to eating control characters, apostrophes and
491 question marks, translating spaces and forward slashes to underscores, and
492 translating colons to an underscore and a hyphen.
494 If you modify this function, it is probably a good idea to keep the forward
495 slash munging (UNIX cannot store a file with a '/' char in it) as well as
496 the control character munging (NULs can't be in a filename either, and
497 newlines and such in filenames are typically not desirable).
500 mungegenre () is a shell function used to modify the $GENRE variable. As
501 a default action, it takes $GENRE as $1 and outputs the resulting value
502 to stdout converting all UPPERCASE characters to lowercase.
505 pre_read () is a shell function which is executed before the CDROM is read
506 for the first time, during \fBabcde\fR execution. It can be used to close the CDROM
507 tray, to set its speed (via "setcd" or via "eject", if available) and other
508 preparation actions. The default function is empty.
511 post_read () is a shell function which is executed after the CDROM is read
512 (and, if applies, before the CDROM is ejected). It can be used to read a TOC
513 from the CDROM, or to try to read the DATA areas from the CD (if any exist).
514 The default function is empty.
517 If set to "y", \fBabcde\fR will call \fBeject\fR(1) to eject the cdrom from the drive
518 after all tracks have been read. It has no effect when CDROM is set to a flac
522 If set to "1", some operations which are usually now shown to the end user
523 are visible, such as CDDB queries. Useful for initial debug and if your
524 network/CDDB server is slow. Set to "2" or more for even more verbose
527 Possible ways one can call \fBabcde\fR:
530 Will work in most systems
532 .B abcde \-d /dev/cdrom2
533 If the CDROM you are reading from is not the standard \fI/dev/cdrom\fR (in GNU/Linux systems)
535 .B abcde \-o vorbis,flac
536 Will create both Ogg/Vorbis and Ogg/FLAC files.
538 .B abcde \-o vorbis:"-b 192"
539 Will pass "\-b 192" to the Ogg/Vorbis encoder, without having to modify the
543 For double+ CD settings: will create the 1st CD starting with the track number
544 101, and will add a comment "CD 1" to the tracks, the second starting with 201
547 .B abcde \-d singletrack.flac
548 Will extract the files contained in singletrack using the embedded cuesheet.
550 \fBabcde\fR requires the following backend tools to work:
553 An Ogg/Vorbis, MP3, FLAC, Ogg/Speex, MPP/MP+(Musepack), M4A encoder or Opus encoder
554 (oggenc, vorbize, lame, gogo, bladeenc, l3enc, mp3enc, flac, speexenc, mpcenc, faac,
555 neroAacEnc, fdkaac, opusenc).
558 An audio CD reading utility (cdparanoia, icedax, cdda2wav, pird,
559 dagrab). To read CD-TEXT information, icedax or cdda2wav will be
563 cd-discid, a CDDB DiscID reading program.
566 An HTTP retrieval program: wget, fetch (FreeBSD) or curl (Mac OS X,
567 among others). Alternatively, abcde-musicbrainz-tool (which depends on
568 Perl and some Musicbrainz libraries) can be used to retrieve CDDB
569 information about the CD.
572 (for MP3s) id3 or eyeD3, id3 v1 and v2 tagging programs.
575 (optional) distmp3, a client/server for distributed mp3 encoding.
578 (optional) normalize-audio, a WAV file volume normalizer.
581 (optional) a replaygain file volume modifier (vorbisgain, metaflac, mp3gain, replaygain),
584 (optional) mkcue, a CD cuesheet extractor.
591 .BR normalize-audio (1),
612 Robert Woodcock <rcw@debian.org>,
613 Jesus Climent <jesus.climent@hispalinux.es>,
614 Colin Tuckley <colint@debian.org>,
615 Steve McIntyre <93sam@debian.org> and contributions from many others.