3 abcde \- Grab an entire CD and compress it to Ogg/Vorbis, MP3, FLAC, Ogg/Speex 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 Disable batch mode replaygain. It processes file by file to add the replaygain
73 information. See the NOBATCHREPLAYGAIN configuration variable.
76 Specifies an additional configuration file to parse. Configuration options
77 in this file override those in \fI/etc/abcde.conf\fR or \fI$HOME/.abcde.conf\fR.
80 Allows you to resume a session for
82 when you no longer have the CD available (\fBabcde\fR will automatically resume if
83 you still have the CD in the drive). You must have already finished at
84 least the "read" action during the previous session.
86 .B \-d [devicename | filename]
87 CD\-ROM block device that contains audio tracks to be read. Alternatively, a
88 single-track flac file with embedded cuesheet.
91 Capture debugging information (you'll want to redirect this \- try 'abcde \-D
95 Erase information about encoded tracks from the internal status file, to enable
96 other encodings if the wav files have been kept.
99 Force the removal of the temporary ABCDETEMPDIR directory, even when we have
100 not finished. For example, one can read and encode several formats, including
101 \'.ogg\', and later on execute a \'move\' action with only one of the given
102 formats. On a normal situation it would erase the rest of those encoded
103 formats. In this case, \fBabcde\fR will refuse to execute such command, except if \-f
107 Enable lame's \-\-nogap option. See the NOGAP variable. WARNING: lame's
108 \-\-nogap disables the Xing mp3 tag. This tag is required for mp3 players to
109 correctly display track lengths when playing variable-bit-rate mp3 files.
112 Get help information.
115 Start [number] encoder processes at once. Useful for SMP systems. Overrides
116 the MAXPROCS configuration variable. Set it to "0" when using \fBdistmp3\fR to avoid
117 local encoding processes.
120 Keep the wav files after encoding.
123 Use the low-diskspace algorithm. See the LOWDISK configuration variable.
126 Use a local CDDB repository. See CDDBLOCALDIR variable.
129 Create DOS-style playlists, modifying the resulting one by adding CRLF line
130 endings. Some hardware players insist on having those to work.
133 Do not query CDDB database. Create and use a template. Edit the template to
134 provide song names, artist(s), ...
137 Non interactive mode. Do not ask anything from the user. Just go ahead.
139 .B \-o [filetype][:filetypeoptions]
140 Select output type. Can be "vorbis" (or "ogg"), "mp3", "flac", "spx", "mpc",
141 "m4a", "wav" or "opus". Specify a comma-delimited list of output types to obtain
142 all specified types. See the OUTPUTTYPE configuration variable. One can pass
143 options to the encoder for a specific filetype on the command line separating
144 them with a colon. The options must be escaped with double-quotes.
147 Pads track numbers with 0\'s.
150 Use Unix PIPES to read and encode in one step. It disables multiple encodings,
151 since the WAV audio file is never stored in the disc.
154 Remote encode on this comma-delimited list of machines using \fBdistmp3\fR. See
155 the REMOTEHOSTS configuration variable.
158 List, separated by commas, the fields to be shown in the CDDB parsed entries.
159 Right now it only uses "year" and "genre".
162 Set the speed of the CD drive. Needs CDSPEED and CDSPEEDOPTS set properly
163 and both the program and device must support the capability.
166 Start the numbering of the tracks at a given number. It only affects the
167 filenames and the playlist. Internal (tag) numbering remains the same.
170 Same as \-t but changes also the internal (tag) numbering. Keep in mind that
171 the default TRACK tag for MP3 is $T/$TRACKS so it is changed to simply $T.
174 Set CDDBPROTO to version 5, so that we retrieve ISO-8859-15 encoded CDDB
175 information, and we tag and add comments with Latin1 encoding.
178 Show the version and exit
181 Be more verbose. On slow networks the CDDB requests might give the
182 sensation nothing is happening. Add this more than once to make things
186 Eject the CD when all tracks have been read. See the EJECTCD configuration
190 Use an alternative "cue2discid" implementation. The name of the binary must be
191 exactly that. \fBabcde\fR comes with an implementation in python under the examples
192 directory. The special keyword "builtin" forces the usage of the internal
193 (default) implementation in shell script.
196 Add a comment to the tracks ripped from the CD.
199 Concatenate CD\'s. It uses the number provided to define a comment "CD #" and
200 to modify the numbering of the tracks, starting with "#01". For Ogg/Vorbis and
201 FLAC files, it also defines a DISCNUMBER tag.
204 DEBUG mode: it will rip, using \fBcdparanoia\fR, the very first second of each track
205 and proceed with the actions requested very quickly, also providing some
206 "hidden" information about what happens on the background. CAUTION: IT WILL
207 ERASE ANY EXISTING RIPS WITHOUT WARNING!
210 A list of tracks you want \fBabcde\fR to process. If this isn't specified, \fBabcde\fR
211 will process the entire CD. Accepts ranges of track numbers -
212 "abcde 1-5 7 9" will process tracks 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, and 9.
214 Each track is, by default, placed in a separate file named after the track in a
215 subdirectory named after the artist under the current directory. This can be
216 modified using the OUTPUTFORMAT and VAOUTPUTFORMAT variables in your
217 \fIabcde.conf\fR. Each file is given an extension identifying its compression
218 format, 'vorbis' for '.ogg', '.mp3', '.flac', '.spx', '.mpc', '.aac', '.wav' or '.opus'.
220 \fBabcde\fR sources two configuration files on startup - \fI/etc/abcde.conf\fR and
221 \fI$HOME/.abcde.conf\fR, in that order.
223 The configuration options stated in those files can be overridden by providing
224 the appropriate flags at runtime.
226 The configuration variables have to be set as follows:
229 Except when "value" needs to be quoted or otherwise interpreted. If other
230 variables within "value" are to be expanded upon reading the configuration
231 file, then double quotes should be used. If they are only supposed to be
232 expanded upon use (for example OUTPUTFORMAT) then single quotes must be used.
234 All shell escaping/quoting rules apply.
236 Here is a list of options \fBabcde\fR recognizes:
239 Specifies the method we want to use to retrieve the track information. Two
240 values are recognized: "cddb" and "musicbrainz". The "cddb" value needs the
241 CDDBURL and HELLOINFO variables described below. The "musicbrainz" value uses
242 the Perl helper script \fBabcde-musicbrainz-tool\fR to establish a
243 conversation with the Musicbrainz server for information retrieval.
246 Specifies a server to use for CDDB lookups.
249 Specifies the protocol version used for the CDDB retrieval of results. Version
250 6 retrieves CDDB entries in UTF-8 format.
253 Specifies the Hello information to send to the CDDB server. The CDDB
254 protocol requires you to send a valid username and hostname each time you
255 connect. The format of this is username@hostname.
258 Specifies a directory where we store a local CDDB repository. The entries must
259 be standard CDDB entries, with the filename being the DISCID value. Other
260 CD playing and ripping programs (like Grip) store the entries under \fI~/.cddb\fR
261 and we can make use of those entries.
263 .B CDDBLOCALRECURSIVE
264 Specifies if the CDDBLOCALDIR has to be searched recursively trying to find a
265 match for the CDDB entry. If a match is found and selected, and CDDBCOPYLOCAL
266 is selected, it will be copied to the root of the CDDBLOCALDIR if
267 CDDBLOCALPOLICY is "modified" or "new".
270 Defines when a CDDB entry should be stored in the defined CDDBLOCALDIR. The
271 possible policies are: "net" for a CDDB entry which has been received from the
272 net (overwriting any possible local CDDB entry); "new" for a CDDB entry which
273 was received from the net, but will request confirmation to overwrite a local
274 CDDB entry found in the root of the CDDBLOCALDIR directory; "modified" for a
275 CDDB entry found in the local repository but which has been modified by the
276 user; and "always" which forces the CDDB entry to be stored back in the root of
277 the CDDBLOCALDIR no matter where it was found, and no matter it was not edited.
278 This last option will always overwrite the one found in the root of the local
279 repository (if any). STILL NOT WORKING!!
282 Store local copies of the CDDB entries under the $CDDBLOCALDIR directory.
285 Actually use the stored copies of the CDDB entries. Can be overridden using the
286 "\-L" flag (if is CDDBUSELOCAL in "n"). If an entry is found, we always give
287 the choice of retrieving a CDDB entry from the internet.
290 Coma-separated list of fields we want to parse during the CDDB parsing.
291 Defaults to "year,genre".
294 Specifies the style of encoder to use for the Ogg/Vorbis encoder. Valid options
295 are \'oggenc\' (default for Ogg/Vorbis) and \'vorbize\'.
296 This affects the default location of the binary,
297 the variable to pick encoder command-line options from, and where the options
301 Specifies the style of encoder to use for the MP3 encoder. Valid options are
302 \'lame\' (default for MP3), \'gogo\', \'bladeenc\', \'l3enc\' and \'mp3enc\'.
303 Affects the same way as explained above for Ogg/Vorbis.
306 Specifies the style of encoder to use for the FLAC encoder. At this point only
307 \'flac\' is available for FLAC encoding.
309 .B SPEEXENCODERSYNTAX
310 Specifies the style of encoder to use for Speex encoder. At this point only
311 \'speexenc\' is available for Ogg/Speex encoding.
314 Specifies the style of encoder to use for MPP/MP+ (Musepack) encoder. At this
315 point we only have \'mpcenc\' available, from musepack.net.
318 Specifies the style of encoder to use for M4A (AAC) encoder. We support \'faac\'
319 as \'default\' but support is there for neroAacEnc as well.
322 Specifies the style of encoder to use for the Opus encoder. At this point only
323 \'opusenc\' is available for Opus encoding.
326 Specifies the style of normalizer to use. Valid options are \'default\'
327 and \'normalize'\ (and both run \'normalize-audio\'), since we only support it,
331 Specifies the style of cdrom reader to use. Valid options are \'cdparanoia\',
332 \'debug\' and \'flac\'. It is used for querying the CDROM and obtain a list of
333 valid tracks and DATA tracks. The special \'flac\' case is used to "rip" CD
334 tracks from a single-track flac file.
337 Specifies the syntax of the program we use to read the CD CUE sheet. Right now
338 we only support \'mkcue\', but in the future other readers might be used.
341 It defaults to no, so if you want to keep those wavs ripped from your CD,
342 set it to "y". You can use the "\-k" switch in the command line. The default
343 behaviour with KEEPWAVS set is to keep the temporary directory and the wav
344 files even you have requested the "clean" action.
347 If set to "y", it adds 0's to the file numbers to complete a two-number
348 holder. Useful when encoding tracks 1-9.
351 Set to "n" if you want to perform automatic rips, without user intervention.
354 Define the values for priorities (nice values) for the different CPU-hungry
355 processes: encoding (ENCNICE), CDROM read (READNICE) and distributed encoder
356 with \fBdistmp3\fR (DISTMP3NICE).
359 The following configuration file options specify the pathnames of their
360 respective utilities: LAME, TOOLAME, GOGO, BLADEENC, L3ENC, XINGMP3ENC, MP3ENC,
361 VORBIZE, OGGENC, FLAC, SPEEXENC, MPCENC, AACENC, OPUSENC, ID3, EYED3, METAFLAC,
362 CDPARANOIA, CDDA2WAV, PIRD, CDDAFS, CDDISCID, CDDBTOOL, EJECT, MD5SUM, DISTMP3,
363 VORBISCOMMENT, NORMALIZE, CDSPEED, MP3GAIN, VORBISGAIN, MPPGAIN, MKCUE, MKTOC,
364 CUE2DISCID (see option "\-X"), DIFF and HTTPGET.
366 .B COMMAND-LINE OPTIONS
367 If you wish to specify command-line options to any of the programs \fBabcde\fR uses,
368 set the following configuration file options: LAMEOPTS, TOOLAMEOPTS, GOGOOPTS,
369 BLADEENCOPTS, L3ENCOPTS, XINGMP3ENCOPTS, MP3ENCOPTS, VORBIZEOPTS, OGGENCOPTS,
370 FLACOPTS, SPEEXENCOPTS, MPCENCOPTS, AACENCOPTS, OPUSENCOPTS, ID3OPTS, EYED3OPTS,
371 MP3GAINOPTS, CDPARANOIAOPTS, CDDA2WAVOPTS, PIRDOPTS, CDDAFSOPTS, CDDBTOOLOPTS,
372 EJECTOPTS, DISTMP3OPTS, NORMALIZEOPTS, CDSPEEDOPTS, MKCUEOPTS, VORBISCOMMMENTOPTS,
373 METAFLACOPTS, DIFFOPTS, FLACGAINOPTS, VORBISGAINOPTS and HTTPGETOPTS.
376 Set the value of the CDROM speed. The default is to read the disc as fast as
377 the reading program and the system permits. The steps are defined as 150kB/s
381 The default actions to be performed when reading a disc.
384 If set, it points to the CD-Rom device which has to be used for audio
385 extraction. Abcde tries to guess the right device, but it may fail. The special
386 \'flac\' option is defined to extract tracks from a single-track flac file.
388 .B CDPARANOIACDROMBUS
389 Defined as "d" when using \fBcdparanoia\fR with an IDE bus and as "g" when using
390 \fBcdparanoia\fR with the ide-scsi emulation layer.
393 Specifies the directory to place completed tracks/playlists in.
396 Specifies the temporary directory to store .wav files in. Abcde may use up
397 to 700MB of temporary space for each session (although it is rare to use
398 over 100MB for a machine that can encode music as fast as it can read it).
401 Specifies the encoding format to output, as well as the default extension and
402 encoder. Defaults to "vorbis". Valid settings are "vorbis" (or "ogg")
403 (Ogg/Vorbis), "mp3" (MPEG-1 Audio Layer III), "flac" (Free Lossless Audio
404 Codec), "spx" (Ogg/Speex), "mpc" (MPP/MP+ (Musepack)), "m4a" (for M4A (AAC)),
405 "wav" (Microsoft Waveform) or "opus" (Opus Interactive Audio Codec). Values
406 like "vorbis,mp3" encode the tracks in both Ogg/Vorbis and MP3 formats. For example
408 OUTPUTTYPE=vorbis,flac
410 For each value in OUTPUTTYPE, \fBabcde\fR expands a different process for encoding,
411 tagging and moving, so you can use the format placeholder, OUTPUT, to create
412 different subdirectories to hold the different types. The variable OUTPUT will
413 be 'vorbis', 'mp3', 'flac', 'spx', 'mpc', 'm4a' and/or 'wav', depending on the
414 OUTPUTTYPE you define. For example
416 OUTPUTFORMAT='${OUTPUT}/${ARTISTFILE}/${ALBUMFILE}/${TRACKNUM}._${TRACKFILE}'
419 Specifies the format for completed Ogg/Vorbis, MP3, FLAC, Ogg/Speex, MPP/MP+
420 (Musepack) or M4A filenames. Variables are included using standard shell
421 syntax. Allowed variables are GENRE, ALBUMFILE, ARTISTFILE, TRACKFILE,
422 TRACKNUM, and YEAR. Default is \'${ARTISTFILE}-${ALBUMFILE}/${TRACKNUM}-${TRACKFILE}\'.
423 Make sure to use single quotes around this variable. TRACKNUM is automatically
424 zero-padded, when the number of encoded tracks is higher than 9. When lower,
425 you can force with '\-p' in the command line.
428 Just like OUTPUTFORMAT but for Various Artists discs. The default is 'Various-${ALBUMFILE}/${TRACKNUM}.${ARTISTFILE}-${TRACKFILE}'
430 .B ONETRACKOUTPUTFORMAT
431 Just like OUTPUTFORMAT but for single-track rips (see option "\-1"). The default is '${ARTISTFILE}-${ALBUMFILE}/${ALBUMFILE}'
433 .B VAONETRACKOUTPUTFORMAT
434 Just like ONETRACKOUTPUTFORMAT but for Various Artists discs. The default is 'Various-${ALBUMFILE}/${ALBUMFILE}'
437 Defines how many encoders to run at once. This makes for huge speedups
438 on SMP systems. You should run one encoder per CPU at once for maximum
439 efficiency, although more doesn't hurt very much. Set it "0" when using
440 mp3dist to avoid getting encoding processes in the local host.
443 If set to y, conserves disk space by encoding tracks immediately after
444 reading them. This is substantially slower than normal operation but
445 requires several hundred MB less space to complete the encoding of an
446 entire CD. Use only if your system is low on space and cannot encode as
447 quickly as it can read.
449 Note that this option may also help when reading
450 a CD with errors. This is because on a scratchy disk reading is quite timing
451 sensitive and this option reduces the background load on the system which
452 allows the ripping program more precise control.
455 If set to y, enables batch mode normalization, which preserves relative
456 volume differences between tracks of an album. Also enables nogap encoding
457 when using the \'lame\' encoder.
460 Activate the lame's \-\-nogap option, that allows files found in CDs with no
461 silence between songs (such as live concerts) to be encoded without noticeable
462 gaps. WARNING: lame's \-\-nogap disables the Xing mp3 tag. This tag is
463 required for mp3 players to correctly display track lengths when playing
464 variable-bit-rate mp3 files.
467 Specifies the format for completed playlist filenames. Works like the
468 OUTPUTFORMAT configuration variable. Default is
469 \'${ARTISTFILE}_\-_${ALBUMFILE}.m3u\'.
470 Make sure to use single quotes around this variable.
472 .B PLAYLISTDATAPREFIX
473 Specifies a prefix for filenames within a playlist. Useful for http
477 If set, the resulting playlist will have CR-LF line endings, needed by some
478 hardware-based players.
481 Specifies a comment to embed in the ID3 or Ogg comment field of each
482 finished track. Can be up to 28 characters long. Supports the same
483 syntax as OUTPUTFORMAT. Does not currently support ID3v2.
486 Specifies a comma-delimited list of systems to use for remote encoding using
487 \fBdistmp3\fR. Equivalent to \-r.
490 mungefilename() is an \fBabcde\fR shell function that can be overridden via
491 \fIabcde.conf\fR. It takes CDDB data as $1 and outputs the resulting filename on
492 stdout. It defaults to eating control characters, apostrophes and
493 question marks, translating spaces and forward slashes to underscores, and
494 translating colons to an underscore and a hyphen.
496 If you modify this function, it is probably a good idea to keep the forward
497 slash munging (UNIX cannot store a file with a '/' char in it) as well as
498 the control character munging (NULs can't be in a filename either, and
499 newlines and such in filenames are typically not desirable).
502 mungegenre () is a shell function used to modify the $GENRE variable. As
503 a default action, it takes $GENRE as $1 and outputs the resulting value
504 to stdout converting all UPPERCASE characters to lowercase.
507 pre_read () is a shell function which is executed before the CDROM is read
508 for the first time, during \fBabcde\fR execution. It can be used to close the CDROM
509 tray, to set its speed (via "setcd" or via "eject", if available) and other
510 preparation actions. The default function is empty.
513 post_read () is a shell function which is executed after the CDROM is read
514 (and, if applies, before the CDROM is ejected). It can be used to read a TOC
515 from the CDROM, or to try to read the DATA areas from the CD (if any exist).
516 The default function is empty.
519 If set to "y", \fBabcde\fR will call \fBeject\fR(1) to eject the cdrom from the drive
520 after all tracks have been read. It has no effect when CDROM is set to a flac
524 If set to "1", some operations which are usually now shown to the end user
525 are visible, such as CDDB queries. Useful for initial debug and if your
526 network/CDDB server is slow. Set to "2" or more for even more verbose
529 Possible ways one can call \fBabcde\fR:
532 Will work in most systems
534 .B abcde \-d /dev/cdrom2
535 If the CDROM you are reading from is not the standard \fI/dev/cdrom\fR (in GNU/Linux systems)
537 .B abcde \-o vorbis,flac
538 Will create both Ogg/Vorbis and Ogg/FLAC files.
540 .B abcde \-o vorbis:"-b 192"
541 Will pass "\-b 192" to the Ogg/Vorbis encoder, without having to modify the
545 For double+ CD settings: will create the 1st CD starting with the track number
546 101, and will add a comment "CD 1" to the tracks, the second starting with 201
549 .B abcde \-d singletrack.flac
550 Will extract the files contained in singletrack using the embedded cuesheet.
552 \fBabcde\fR requires the following backend tools to work:
555 An Ogg/Vorbis, MP3, FLAC, Ogg/Speex, MPP/MP+(Musepack), M4A encoder or Opus encoder (oggenc, vorbize, lame, gogo, bladeenc, l3enc, mp3enc, flac, speexenc, mpcenc, faac, neroAacEnc, 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),
611 Robert Woodcock <rcw@debian.org>,
612 Jesus Climent <jesus.climent@hispalinux.es>,
613 Colin Tuckley <colint@debian.org>,
614 Steve McIntyre <93sam@debian.org> and contributions from many others.