3 abcde \- Grab an entire CD and compress it to Ogg/Vorbis, MP3, FLAC, Ogg/Speex, AAC,
4 WavPack and/or MPP/MP+(Musepack) format.
9 Ordinarily, the process of grabbing the data off a CD and encoding it, then
10 tagging or commenting it, is very involved.
12 is designed to automate this. It will take an entire CD and convert it into
13 a compressed audio format - Ogg/Vorbis, MPEG Audio Layer III, Free Lossless
14 Audio Codec (FLAC), Ogg/Speex, MPP/MP+(Musepack), M4A (AAC) wv (WavPack)
16 With one command, it will:
19 Do a CDDB or Musicbrainz query over the Internet to look up your CD or
20 use a locally stored CDDB entry, or read CD-TEXT from your CD as a
21 fallback for track information
24 Grab an audio track (or all the audio CD tracks) from your CD
27 Normalize the volume of the individual file (or the album as a single unit)
30 Compress to Ogg/Vorbis, MP3, FLAC, Ogg/Speex, MPP/MP+(Musepack), M4A, wv (WavPack)
31 and/or Opus format(s), all in one CD read
34 Comment or ID3/ID3v2 tag
37 Give an intelligible filename
40 Calculate replaygain values for the individual file (or the album as a single unit)
43 Delete the intermediate WAV file (or save it for later use)
50 can also grab a CD and turn it into a single FLAC file with an embedded
51 cuesheet which can be user later on as a source for other formats, and will be
52 treated as if it was the original CD. In a way,
54 can take a compressed backup of your CD collection.
58 Encode the whole CD in a single file. The resulting file uses the CD title
59 for tagging. If the resulting format is a flac file with an embedded cuesheet,
60 the file can be used as a source for creating other formats. Use "\-1 \-o
61 flac \-a default,cue" for obtaining such a file.
64 Comma-delimited list of actions to perform. Can be one or more of: cddb, cue,
65 read, normalize, encode, tag, move, replaygain, playlist, clean. Normalize and
66 encode imply read. Tag implies cddb, read, encode. Move implies cddb, read,
67 encode, tag. Replaygain implies cddb, read, encode, tag and move. Playlist
68 implies cddb. The default is to do all actions except cue, normalize,
69 replaygain and playlist.
72 Enable batch mode normalization. See the BATCHNORM configuration variable.
75 Specifies an additional configuration file to parse. Configuration options
76 in this file override those in \fI/etc/abcde.conf\fR or \fI$HOME/.abcde.conf\fR.
79 Allows you to resume a session for
81 when you no longer have the CD available (\fBabcde\fR will automatically resume if
82 you still have the CD in the drive). You must have already finished at
83 least the "read" action during the previous session.
85 .B \-d [devicename | filename]
86 CD\-ROM block device that contains audio tracks to be read. Alternatively, a
87 single-track flac file with embedded cuesheet.
90 Capture debugging information (you'll want to redirect this \- try 'abcde \-D
94 Erase information about encoded tracks from the internal status file, to enable
95 other encodings if the wav files have been kept.
98 Force the removal of the temporary ABCDETEMPDIR directory, even when we have
99 not finished. For example, one can read and encode several formats, including
100 \'.ogg\', and later on execute a \'move\' action with only one of the given
101 formats. On a normal situation it would erase the rest of those encoded
102 formats. In this case, \fBabcde\fR will refuse to execute such command, except if \-f
106 Enable lame's \-\-nogap option. See the NOGAP variable. WARNING: lame's
107 \-\-nogap disables the Xing mp3 tag. This tag is required for mp3 players to
108 correctly display track lengths when playing variable-bit-rate mp3 files.
111 Get help information.
114 Start [number] encoder processes at once. Useful for SMP systems. Overrides
115 the MAXPROCS configuration variable. Set it to "0" when using \fBdistmp3\fR to avoid
116 local encoding processes.
119 Keep the wav files after encoding.
122 Use the low-diskspace algorithm. See the LOWDISK configuration variable.
125 Use a local CDDB repository. See CDDBLOCALDIR variable.
128 Create DOS-style playlists, modifying the resulting one by adding CRLF line
129 endings. Some hardware players insist on having those to work.
132 Do not query CDDB database. Create and use a template. Edit the template to
133 provide song names, artist(s), ...
136 Non interactive mode. Do not ask anything from the user. Just go ahead.
138 .B \-o [filetype][:filetypeoptions]
139 Select output type. Can be "vorbis" (or "ogg"), "mp3", "flac", "spx", "mpc",
140 "m4a", "wav", "wv" or "opus". Specify a comma-delimited list of output types to obtain
141 all specified types. See the OUTPUTTYPE configuration variable. One can pass
142 options to the encoder for a specific filetype on the command line separating
143 them with a colon. The options must be escaped with double-quotes.
146 Pads track numbers with 0\'s.
149 Use Unix PIPES to read and encode in one step. It disables multiple encodings,
150 since the WAV audio file is never stored in the disc.
153 Remote encode on this comma-delimited list of machines using \fBdistmp3\fR. See
154 the REMOTEHOSTS configuration variable.
157 List, separated by commas, the fields to be shown in the CDDB parsed entries.
158 Right now it only uses "year" and "genre".
161 Set the speed of the CD drive. Needs CDSPEED and CDSPEEDOPTS set properly
162 and both the program and device must support the capability.
165 Start the numbering of the tracks at a given number. It only affects the
166 filenames and the playlist. Internal (tag) numbering remains the same.
169 Same as \-t but changes also the internal (tag) numbering. Keep in mind that
170 the default TRACK tag for MP3 is $T/$TRACKS so it is changed to simply $T.
173 Set CDDBPROTO to version 5, so that we retrieve ISO-8859-15 encoded CDDB
174 information, and we tag and add comments with Latin1 encoding.
177 Show the version and exit
180 Be more verbose. On slow networks the CDDB requests might give the
181 sensation nothing is happening. Add this more than once to make things
185 Eject the CD when all tracks have been read. See the EJECTCD configuration
189 Use an alternative "cue2discid" implementation. The name of the binary must be
190 exactly that. \fBabcde\fR comes with an implementation in python under the examples
191 directory. The special keyword "builtin" forces the usage of the internal
192 (default) implementation in shell script.
195 Add a comment to the tracks ripped from the CD. If you wish to use
196 parentheses, these will need to be escaped. i.e. you have to write
197 "\\(" instead of "(".
200 Concatenate CD\'s. It uses the number provided to define a comment "CD #" and
201 to modify the numbering of the tracks, starting with "#01". For Ogg/Vorbis and
202 FLAC files, it also defines a DISCNUMBER tag.
205 DEBUG mode: it will rip, using \fBcdparanoia\fR, the very first second of each track
206 and proceed with the actions requested very quickly, also providing some
207 "hidden" information about what happens on the background. CAUTION: IT WILL
208 ERASE ANY EXISTING RIPS WITHOUT WARNING!
211 A list of tracks you want \fBabcde\fR to process. If this isn't specified, \fBabcde\fR
212 will process the entire CD. Accepts ranges of track numbers -
213 "abcde 1-5 7 9" will process tracks 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, and 9.
215 Each track is, by default, placed in a separate file named after the track in a
216 subdirectory named after the artist under the current directory. This can be
217 modified using the OUTPUTFORMAT and VAOUTPUTFORMAT variables in your
218 \fIabcde.conf\fR. Each file is given an extension identifying its compression
219 format, 'vorbis' for '.ogg', '.mp3', '.flac', '.spx', '.mpc', '.wav', 'wv' or '.opus'.
221 \fBabcde\fR sources two configuration files on startup - \fI/etc/abcde.conf\fR and
222 \fI$HOME/.abcde.conf\fR, in that order.
224 The configuration options stated in those files can be overridden by providing
225 the appropriate flags at runtime.
227 The configuration variables have to be set as follows:
230 Except when "value" needs to be quoted or otherwise interpreted. If other
231 variables within "value" are to be expanded upon reading the configuration
232 file, then double quotes should be used. If they are only supposed to be
233 expanded upon use (for example OUTPUTFORMAT) then single quotes must be used.
235 All shell escaping/quoting rules apply.
237 Here is a list of options \fBabcde\fR recognizes:
240 Specifies the method we want to use to retrieve the track information. Two
241 values are recognized: "cddb" and "musicbrainz". The "cddb" value needs the
242 CDDBURL and HELLOINFO variables described below. The "musicbrainz" value uses
243 the Perl helper script \fBabcde-musicbrainz-tool\fR to establish a
244 conversation with the Musicbrainz server for information retrieval.
247 Specifies a server to use for CDDB lookups.
250 Specifies the protocol version used for the CDDB retrieval of results. Version
251 6 retrieves CDDB entries in UTF-8 format.
254 Specifies the Hello information to send to the CDDB server. The CDDB
255 protocol requires you to send a valid username and hostname each time you
256 connect. The format of this is username@hostname.
259 Specifies a directory where we store a local CDDB repository. The entries must
260 be standard CDDB entries, with the filename being the DISCID value. Other
261 CD playing and ripping programs (like Grip) store the entries under \fI~/.cddb\fR
262 and we can make use of those entries.
264 .B CDDBLOCALRECURSIVE
265 Specifies if the CDDBLOCALDIR has to be searched recursively trying to find a
266 match for the CDDB entry. If a match is found and selected, and CDDBCOPYLOCAL
267 is selected, it will be copied to the root of the CDDBLOCALDIR if
268 CDDBLOCALPOLICY is "modified" or "new". The default "y" is needed for the local
272 Defines when a CDDB entry should be stored in the defined CDDBLOCALDIR. The
273 possible policies are: "net" for a CDDB entry which has been received from the
274 net (overwriting any possible local CDDB entry); "new" for a CDDB entry which
275 was received from the net, but will request confirmation to overwrite a local
276 CDDB entry found in the root of the CDDBLOCALDIR directory; "modified" for a
277 CDDB entry found in the local repository but which has been modified by the
278 user; and "always" which forces the CDDB entry to be stored back in the root of
279 the CDDBLOCALDIR no matter where it was found, and no matter it was not edited.
280 This last option will always overwrite the one found in the root of the local
281 repository (if any). STILL NOT WORKING!!
284 Store local copies of the CDDB entries under the $CDDBLOCALDIR directory.
287 Actually use the stored copies of the CDDB entries. Can be overridden using the
288 "\-L" flag (if is CDDBUSELOCAL in "n"). If an entry is found, we always give
289 the choice of retrieving a CDDB entry from the internet.
292 Coma-separated list of fields we want to parse during the CDDB parsing.
293 Defaults to "year,genre".
296 Specifies the style of encoder to use for the Ogg/Vorbis encoder. Valid options
297 are \'oggenc\' (default for Ogg/Vorbis) and \'vorbize\'.
298 This affects the default location of the binary,
299 the variable to pick encoder command-line options from, and where the options
303 Specifies the style of encoder to use for the MP3 encoder. Valid options are
304 \'lame\' (default for MP3), \'gogo\', \'bladeenc\', \'l3enc\' and \'mp3enc\'.
305 Affects the same way as explained above for Ogg/Vorbis.
308 Specifies the style of encoder to use for the FLAC encoder. At this point only
309 \'flac\' is available for FLAC encoding.
311 .B SPEEXENCODERSYNTAX
312 Specifies the style of encoder to use for Speex encoder. At this point only
313 \'speexenc\' is available for Ogg/Speex encoding.
316 Specifies the style of encoder to use for MPP/MP+ (Musepack) encoder. At this
317 point we only have \'mpcenc\' available, from musepack.net.
320 Specifies the style of encoder to use for M4A (AAC) encoder. We support \'faac\'
321 as \'default\' as well as higher quality audio with neroAacEnc and fdkaac.
324 Specifies the style of encoder to use for WavPack. We support \'wavpack\'
328 Specifies the style of encoder to use for the Opus encoder. At this point only
329 \'opusenc\' is available for Opus encoding.
332 Specifies the style of normalizer to use. Valid options are \'default\'
333 and \'normalize'\ (and both run \'normalize-audio\'), since we only support it,
337 Specifies the style of cdrom reader to use. Valid options are \'cdparanoia\',
338 \'debug\' and \'flac\'. It is used for querying the CDROM and obtain a list of
339 valid tracks and DATA tracks. The special \'flac\' case is used to "rip" CD
340 tracks from a single-track flac file.
343 Specifies the syntax of the program we use to read the CD CUE sheet. Right now
344 we only support \'mkcue\', but in the future other readers might be used.
347 It defaults to no, so if you want to keep those wavs ripped from your CD,
348 set it to "y". You can use the "\-k" switch in the command line. The default
349 behaviour with KEEPWAVS set is to keep the temporary directory and the wav
350 files even you have requested the "clean" action.
353 If set to "y", it adds 0's to the file numbers to complete a two-number
354 holder. Useful when encoding tracks 1-9.
357 Set to "n" if you want to perform automatic rips, without user intervention.
360 Define the values for priorities (nice values) for the different CPU-hungry
361 processes: encoding (ENCNICE), CDROM read (READNICE) and distributed encoder
362 with \fBdistmp3\fR (DISTMP3NICE).
365 The following configuration file options specify the pathnames of their
366 respective utilities: LAME, TOOLAME, GOGO, BLADEENC, L3ENC, XINGMP3ENC, MP3ENC,
367 VORBIZE, OGGENC, FLAC, SPEEXENC, MPCENC, AACENC, WVENC, OPUSENC, ID3, EYED3, METAFLAC,
368 CDPARANOIA, CDDA2WAV, PIRD, CDDAFS, CDDISCID, CDDBTOOL, EJECT, MD5SUM, DISTMP3,
369 VORBISCOMMENT, NORMALIZE, CDSPEED, MP3GAIN, VORBISGAIN, MPPGAIN, MKCUE, MKTOC,
370 CUE2DISCID (see option "\-X"), DIFF and HTTPGET.
372 .B COMMAND-LINE OPTIONS
373 If you wish to specify command-line options to any of the programs \fBabcde\fR uses,
374 set the following configuration file options: LAMEOPTS, TOOLAMEOPTS, GOGOOPTS,
375 BLADEENCOPTS, L3ENCOPTS, XINGMP3ENCOPTS, MP3ENCOPTS, VORBIZEOPTS, WVENCOPTS, OGGENCOPTS,
376 FLACOPTS, SPEEXENCOPTS, MPCENCOPTS, AACENCOPTS, OPUSENCOPTS, ID3OPTS, EYED3OPTS,
377 MP3GAINOPTS, CDPARANOIAOPTS, CDDA2WAVOPTS, PIRDOPTS, CDDAFSOPTS, CDDBTOOLOPTS,
378 EJECTOPTS, DISTMP3OPTS, NORMALIZEOPTS, CDSPEEDOPTS, MKCUEOPTS, VORBISCOMMMENTOPTS,
379 METAFLACOPTS, DIFFOPTS, FLACGAINOPTS, VORBISGAINOPTS and HTTPGETOPTS.
382 Set the value of the CDROM speed. The default is to read the disc as fast as
383 the reading program and the system permits. The steps are defined as 150kB/s
387 The default actions to be performed when reading a disc.
390 If set, it points to the CD-Rom device which has to be used for audio
391 extraction. Abcde tries to guess the right device, but it may fail. The special
392 \'flac\' option is defined to extract tracks from a single-track flac file.
394 .B CDPARANOIACDROMBUS
395 Defined as "d" when using \fBcdparanoia\fR with an IDE bus and as "g" when using
396 \fBcdparanoia\fR with the ide-scsi emulation layer.
399 Specifies the directory to place completed tracks/playlists in.
402 Specifies the temporary directory to store .wav files in. Abcde may use up
403 to 700MB of temporary space for each session (although it is rare to use
404 over 100MB for a machine that can encode music as fast as it can read it).
407 Specifies the encoding format to output, as well as the default extension and
408 encoder. Defaults to "vorbis". Valid settings are "vorbis" (or "ogg")
409 (Ogg/Vorbis), "mp3" (MPEG-1 Audio Layer III), "flac" (Free Lossless Audio
410 Codec), "spx" (Ogg/Speex), "mpc" (MPP/MP+ (Musepack)), "m4a" (AAC)),
411 "wv" (WavPack", "wav" (Microsoft Waveform) or "opus" (Opus Interactive Audio Codec). Values
412 like "vorbis,mp3" encode the tracks in both Ogg/Vorbis and MP3 formats. For example
414 OUTPUTTYPE=vorbis,flac
416 For each value in OUTPUTTYPE, \fBabcde\fR expands a different process for encoding,
417 tagging and moving, so you can use the format placeholder, OUTPUT, to create
418 different subdirectories to hold the different types. The variable OUTPUT will
419 be 'vorbis', 'mp3', 'flac', 'spx', 'mpc', 'm4a', 'wv' and/or 'wav', depending on the
420 OUTPUTTYPE you define. For example
422 OUTPUTFORMAT='${OUTPUT}/${ARTISTFILE}/${ALBUMFILE}/${TRACKNUM}._${TRACKFILE}'
425 Specifies the format for completed Ogg/Vorbis, MP3, FLAC, Ogg/Speex, MPP/MP+
426 (Musepack) or M4A filenames. Variables are included using standard shell
427 syntax. Allowed variables are GENRE, ALBUMFILE, ARTISTFILE, TRACKFILE,
428 TRACKNUM, and YEAR. Default is \'${ARTISTFILE}-${ALBUMFILE}/${TRACKNUM}-${TRACKFILE}\'.
429 Make sure to use single quotes around this variable. TRACKNUM is automatically
430 zero-padded, when the number of encoded tracks is higher than 9. When lower,
431 you can force with '\-p' in the command line.
434 Just like OUTPUTFORMAT but for Various Artists discs. The default is 'Various-${ALBUMFILE}/${TRACKNUM}.${ARTISTFILE}-${TRACKFILE}'
436 .B ONETRACKOUTPUTFORMAT
437 Just like OUTPUTFORMAT but for single-track rips (see option "\-1"). The default is '${ARTISTFILE}-${ALBUMFILE}/${ALBUMFILE}'
439 .B VAONETRACKOUTPUTFORMAT
440 Just like ONETRACKOUTPUTFORMAT but for Various Artists discs. The default is 'Various-${ALBUMFILE}/${ALBUMFILE}'
443 Defines how many encoders to run at once. This makes for huge speedups
444 on SMP systems. You should run one encoder per CPU at once for maximum
445 efficiency, although more doesn't hurt very much. Set it "0" when using
446 mp3dist to avoid getting encoding processes in the local host.
449 If set to y, conserves disk space by encoding tracks immediately after
450 reading them. This is substantially slower than normal operation but
451 requires several hundred MB less space to complete the encoding of an
452 entire CD. Use only if your system is low on space and cannot encode as
453 quickly as it can read.
455 Note that this option may also help when reading
456 a CD with errors. This is because on a scratchy disk reading is quite timing
457 sensitive and this option reduces the background load on the system which
458 allows the ripping program more precise control.
461 If set to y, enables batch mode normalization, which preserves relative
462 volume differences between tracks of an album. Also enables nogap encoding
463 when using the \'lame\' encoder.
466 Activate the lame's \-\-nogap option, that allows files found in CDs with no
467 silence between songs (such as live concerts) to be encoded without noticeable
468 gaps. WARNING: lame's \-\-nogap disables the Xing mp3 tag. This tag is
469 required for mp3 players to correctly display track lengths when playing
470 variable-bit-rate mp3 files.
473 Specifies the format for completed playlist filenames. Works like the
474 OUTPUTFORMAT configuration variable. Default is
475 \'${ARTISTFILE}_\-_${ALBUMFILE}.m3u\'.
476 Make sure to use single quotes around this variable.
478 .B PLAYLISTDATAPREFIX
479 Specifies a prefix for filenames within a playlist. Useful for http
483 If set, the resulting playlist will have CR-LF line endings, needed by some
484 hardware-based players.
487 Specifies a comment to embed in the ID3 or Ogg comment field of each
488 finished track. Can be up to 28 characters long. Supports the same
489 syntax as OUTPUTFORMAT. Does not currently support ID3v2.
492 Specifies a comma-delimited list of systems to use for remote encoding using
493 \fBdistmp3\fR. Equivalent to \-r.
496 mungefilename() is an \fBabcde\fR shell function that can be overridden via
497 \fIabcde.conf\fR. It takes CDDB data as $1 and outputs the resulting filename on
498 stdout. It defaults to eating control characters, apostrophes and
499 question marks, translating spaces and forward slashes to underscores, and
500 translating colons to an underscore and a hyphen.
502 If you modify this function, it is probably a good idea to keep the forward
503 slash munging (UNIX cannot store a file with a '/' char in it) as well as
504 the control character munging (NULs can't be in a filename either, and
505 newlines and such in filenames are typically not desirable).
508 mungegenre () is a shell function used to modify the $GENRE variable. As
509 a default action, it takes $GENRE as $1 and outputs the resulting value
510 to stdout converting all UPPERCASE characters to lowercase.
513 pre_read () is a shell function which is executed before the CDROM is read
514 for the first time, during \fBabcde\fR execution. It can be used to close the CDROM
515 tray, to set its speed (via "setcd" or via "eject", if available) and other
516 preparation actions. The default function is empty.
519 post_read () is a shell function which is executed after the CDROM is read
520 (and, if applies, before the CDROM is ejected). It can be used to read a TOC
521 from the CDROM, or to try to read the DATA areas from the CD (if any exist).
522 The default function is empty.
525 If set to "y", \fBabcde\fR will call \fBeject\fR(1) to eject the cdrom from the drive
526 after all tracks have been read. It has no effect when CDROM is set to a flac
530 If set to "1", some operations which are usually now shown to the end user
531 are visible, such as CDDB queries. Useful for initial debug and if your
532 network/CDDB server is slow. Set to "2" or more for even more verbose
535 Possible ways one can call \fBabcde\fR:
538 Will work in most systems
540 .B abcde \-d /dev/cdrom2
541 If the CDROM you are reading from is not the standard \fI/dev/cdrom\fR (in GNU/Linux systems)
543 .B abcde \-o vorbis,flac
544 Will create both Ogg/Vorbis and Ogg/FLAC files.
546 .B abcde \-o vorbis:"-b 192"
547 Will pass "\-b 192" to the Ogg/Vorbis encoder, without having to modify the
551 For double+ CD settings: will create the 1st CD starting with the track number
552 101, and will add a comment "CD 1" to the tracks, the second starting with 201
555 .B abcde \-d singletrack.flac
556 Will extract the files contained in singletrack using the embedded cuesheet.
558 \fBabcde\fR requires the following backend tools to work:
561 An Ogg/Vorbis, MP3, FLAC, Ogg/Speex, MPP/MP+(Musepack), M4A encoder or Opus encoder
562 (oggenc, vorbize, lame, gogo, bladeenc, l3enc, mp3enc, flac, speexenc, mpcenc, faac,
563 neroAacEnc, fdkaac, wavpack, opusenc).
566 An audio CD reading utility (cdparanoia, icedax, cdda2wav, pird,
567 dagrab). To read CD-TEXT information, icedax or cdda2wav will be
571 cd-discid, a CDDB DiscID reading program.
574 An HTTP retrieval program: wget, fetch (FreeBSD) or curl (Mac OS X,
575 among others). Alternatively, abcde-musicbrainz-tool (which depends on
576 Perl and some Musicbrainz libraries) can be used to retrieve CDDB
577 information about the CD.
580 (for MP3s) id3 or eyeD3, id3 v1 and v2 tagging programs.
583 (optional) distmp3, a client/server for distributed mp3 encoding.
586 (optional) normalize-audio, a WAV file volume normalizer.
589 (optional) a replaygain file volume modifier (vorbisgain, metaflac, mp3gain, replaygain),
592 (optional) mkcue, a CD cuesheet extractor.
599 .BR normalize-audio (1),
621 Robert Woodcock <rcw@debian.org>,
622 Jesus Climent <jesus.climent@hispalinux.es>,
623 Colin Tuckley <colint@debian.org>,
624 Steve McIntyre <93sam@debian.org> and contributions from many others.