MAN page from PLD abcde-2.2.0-1.noarch.rpm

ABCDE

Section: User Commands (1)
Index

NAME

abcde - Grab an entire CD and compress it to Ogg/Vorbis, MP3, FLAC, Ogg/Speex and/or MPP/MP+(Musepack) format.

SYNOPSIS

abcde[options] [tracks]

DESCRIPTION

Ordinarily, the process of grabbing the data off a CD and encoding it, thentagging or commenting it, is very involved.abcdeis designed to automate this. It will take an entire CD and convert it intoa compressed audio format - Ogg/Vorbis, MPEG Audio Layer III, Free LosslessAudio Codec (FLAC), Ogg/Speex or MPP/MP+(Musepack). With one command, it will:

*: Do a CDDB query over the Internet to look up your CD or use a locally stored CDDB entry
*: Grab a track from your CD
*: Compress it to Ogg/Vorbis, MP3, FLAC, Ogg/Speex and/or MPP/MP+(Musepack) format
*: Comment or ID3 tag it
*: Give it an intelligible filename
*: Delete the intermediate WAV file (or save it for later use)
*: Repeat until finished

OPTIONS

-1: Encode the whole CD in a single file. The resulting file uses the CD titlefor tagging.
-a [actions]: Comma-delimited list of actions to perform. Can be one or more of:cddb, read, normalize, encode, tag, move, playlist, clean. Normalizeand encode imply read. Tag implies cddb, read, encode. Move impliescddb, read, encode, tag. Playlist implies cddb. The default is todo all actions except normalize and playlist.
-b: Enable batch mode normalization. See the BATCH configuration variable.
-c [filename]: Specifies an additional configuration file to parse. Configuration optionsin this file override those in /etc/abcde.conf or $HOME/.abcde.conf.
-C [discid]: Allows you to resume a session fordiscidwhen you no longer have the CD available (abcde will automatically resume ifyou still have the CD in the drive). You must have already finished atleast the "read" action during the previous session.
-d [devicename]: CD-ROM block device that contains audio tracks to be read.
-D: Capture debugging information (you'll want to redirect this - try 'abcde -D2>logfile')
-h: Get help information.
-j [number]: Start [number] encoder processes at once. Useful for SMP systems. Overridesthe MAXPROCS configuration variable. Set it to "0" when using distmp3 to avoidlocal encoding processes.
-k: Keep the wav files after encoding.
-l: Use the low-diskspace algorithm. See the LOWDISK configuration variable.
-L: Use a local CDDB repository. See CDDBLOCALDIR variable.
-n: Do not query CDDB database. Create and use a template. Edit the template toprovide song names, artist(s), ...
-N: Non interactive mode. Do not ask anything from the user. Just go ahead.
-m: Create DOS-style playlists, modifying the resulting one by adding CRLF lineendings. Some hardware players insist on having those to work.
-o [filetype]: Select output type. Can be "ogg", "mp3", "flac", "spx" or "mpc". Specify a comma-delimited list of output types to obtain all specified types. See the OUTPUTTYPE configuration variable.
-p: Pads track numbers with 0's.
-r [hosts...]: Remote encode on this comma-delimited list of machines using distmp3. Seethe REMOTEHOSTS configuration variable.
-R: Add replaygain information to the id3 or tag information for playnormalization. Only works with MP3 and Ogg/Vorbis.
-s [number]: [DEPRECATED: use -t, see below]
-S [speed]: Set the speed of the CD drive. Needs CDSPEED and CDSPEEDOPTS set properlyand both the program and device must support the capability.
-t [number]: Start the numbering of the tracks at a given number. It only affects thefilenames and the playlist. Internal (tag) numbering remains the same.
-T [number]: Same as -t but changes also the internal (tag) numbering. Keep in mind thatthe default TRACK tag for MP3 is $T/$TRACKS so it is changed to simply $T.
-v: Show the version and exit
-V: Be a bit more verbose. On slow networks the CDDB requests might give thesensation nothins is happening.
-x: Eject the CD when all tracks have been read. See the EJECTCD configurationvariable.
-w [comment]: Add a comment to the tracks ripped from the CD.
-W [number]: Concatenate CD's. It uses the number provided to define a comment "CD #" andto modify the numbering of the tracks, starting with "#01".
[tracks]: A list of tracks you want abcde to process. If this isn't specified, abcdewill process the entire CD. Accepts ranges of track numbers -"abcde 1-5 7 9" will process tracks 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, and 9.

OUTPUT

Each track is, by default, placed in a separate file named after the trackin a subdirectory named after the artist under the current directory. This can be modified using the OUTPUTFORMAT and VAOUTPUTFORMATvariables in your abcde.conf. Each file is given an extension identifying its compression format, '.ogg', '.mp3', '.flac', '.spx', or '.mpc'.

CONFIGURATION

abcde sources two configuration files on startup - /etc/abcde.conf and$HOME/.abcde.conf, in that order.

The configuration variables have to be set as follows:
VARIABLE=value: Except when "value" needs to be quoted or otherwise interpreted. If other variables within "value" are to be expanded upon reading the configuration file, then double quotes should be used. If they are only supposed to be expanded upon use (for example OUTPUTFORMAT) then single quotes must be used.
All sh escaping/quoting rules apply.
Here is a list of options abcde recognizes:
CDDBURL: Specifies a server to use for CDDB lookups.
HELLOINFO: Specifies the Hello information to send to the CDDB server. The CDDBprotocol requires you to send a valid username and hostname each time youconnect. The format of this is usernameAATThostname.
CDDBLOCALDIR: Specifies a directory where we store a local CDDB repository. The entries mustbe standard CDDB entries, with the filename being the DISCID value. OtherCD playing and ripping programs (like Grip) store the entries under ~/.cddband we can make use of those entries.
CDDBCOPYLOCAL: Store local copies of the CDDB entries under the $CDDBLOCALDIR directory.
CDDBUSELOCAL: Actually use the stored copies of the CDDB entries. Can be overriden using the "-L" flag (if is CDDBUSELOCAL in "n"). If an entry is found, we always give the choice of retrieving a CDDB entry from the internet.
OGGENCODERSYNTAX: Specifies the style of encoder to use for the Ogg/Vorbis encoder. Valid options are 'oggenc' (default for Ogg/Vorbis) and 'vorbize'.This affects the default location of the binary,the variable to pick encoder command-line options from, and where the optionsare given.
MP3ENCODERSYNTAX: Specifies the style of encoder to use for the MP3 encoder. Valid options are'lame' (default for MP3), 'gogo', 'bladeenc', 'l3enc' and 'mp3enc'.Affects the same way as explained above for Ogg/Vorbis.
FLACENCODERSYNTAX: Specifies the style of encoder to use for the FLAC encoder. At this point only'flac' is available for FLAC encoding.
SPEEXENCODERSYNTAX: Specifies the style of encoder to use for Speex encoder. At this point only'speexenc' is available for Ogg/Speex encoding.
MPPENCODERSYNTAX: Specifies the style of encoder to use for MPP/MP+ (Musepack) encoder. At thispoint we only have 'mppenc' available, from corecodecs.org.
NORMALIZERSYNTAX: Specifies the style of normalizer to use. Valid options are 'default'and 'normalize' (and both run 'normalize-audio'), since we only support it,ATM.
CDROMREADERSYNTAX: Specifies the style of cdrom reader to use. Valid options are 'cdparanoia'and 'debug'. It is used for querying the CDROM and obtain a list of validtracks and DATA tracks. Right now, only cdparanoia is supported.
KEEPWAVS: It defaults to no, so if you want to keep those wavs ripped from your CD,set it to "y". You can use the "-k" switch in the command line. The defaultbehaviour with KEEPWAVS set is the keep the temporary directory and the wavfiles even you have requested the "clean" action.
PADTRACKS: If set to "y", it adds 0's to the file numbers to complete a two-number holder. Usefull when encoding tracks 1-9.
INTERACTIVE: Set to "n" if you want to perform automatic rips, without user intervention.
NICE VALUES: Define the values for priorities (nice values) for the different CPU-hungryprocesses: encoding (ENCNICE), CDROM read (READNICE) and distributed encoderwith distmp3 (DISTMP3NICE).
PATHNAMES: The following configuration file options specify the pathnames of theirrespective utilities: LAME, GOGO, BLADEENC, L3ENC, XINGMP3ENC, MP3ENC, VORBIZE,OGGENC, FLAC, SPEEXENC, MPPENC, ID3, ID3V2, CDPARANOIA, CDDA2WAV, CDDAFS,CDDISCID, CDDBTOOL, EJECT, MD5SUM, DISTMP3, VORBISCOMMENT, NORMALIZE, CDSPEEDand HTTPGET.
COMMAND-LINE OPTIONS: If you wish to specify command-line options to any of the programs abcdeuses, set the following configuration file options: LAMEOPTS, GOGOOPTS,BLADEENCOPTS, L3ENCOPTS, XINGMP3ENCOPTS, MP3ENCOPTS, VORBIZEOPTS, OGGENCOPTS,FLACOPTS, SPEEXENCOPTS, MPPENCOPTS, ID3OPTS, ID3V2OPTS, CDPARANOIAOPTS,CDDA2WAVOPTS, CDDAFSOPTS, CDDBTOOLOPTS, EJECTOPTS, DISTMP3OPTS, NORMALIZEOPTS,CDSPEEDOPTS and HTTPGETOPTS.
CDSPEEDVALUE: Set the value of the CDROM speed. The default is to read the disc as fast asthe reading program and the system permits. The steps are defined as 150kB/s(1x).
ACTIONS: The default actions to be performed when reading a disc.
CDROM: If set, it points to the CD-Rom device which has to be used for audioextraction. Abcde tries to guess the right device, but it may fail.
OUTPUTDIR: Specifies the directory to place completed tracks/playlists in.
WAVOUTPUTDIR: Specifies the temporary directory to store .wav files in. Abcde may use upto 700MB of temporary space for each session (although it is rare to useover 100MB for a machine that can encode music as fast as it can read it).
OUTPUTTYPE: Specifies the encoding format to output, as well as the default extension andencoder. Defaults to "ogg". Valid settings are "ogg" (Ogg/Vorbis), "mp3"(MPEG-1 Audio Layer III), "flac" (Free Lossless Audio Codec), "spx" (Ogg/Speex)and "mpc" (MPP/MP+ (Musepack)). Values like "ogg,mp3" encode the tracks in both Ogg/Vorbis and MP3 formats.
For each value in OUTPUTTYPE, abcde expands a different process for encoding,tagging and moving, so you can use the format placeholder, OUTPUT, to create different subdirectories to hold the different types. The variable OUTPUT willbe 'ogg', 'mp3', 'flac', 'spx' and/or 'mpc', depending on the OUTPUTTYPE you define.For example
OUTPUTFORMAT='${OUTPUT}/${ARTISTFILE}/${ALBUMFILE}/${TRACKNUM}._${TRACKFILE}'
OUTPUTFORMAT: Specifies the format for completed Ogg/Vorbis, MP3, FLAC, Ogg/Speex or MPP/MP+ (Musepack) filenames.Variables are includedusing standard shell syntax. Allowed variables are GENRE, ALBUMFILE, ARTISTFILE,TRACKFILE, TRACKNUM, and YEAR. Default is'${ARTISTFILE}-${ALBUMFILE}/${TRACKNUM}-${TRACKFILE}'.Make sure to use single quotes around this variable. TRACKNUM isautomatically zero-padded, when the number of encoded tracks is higher than9. When lower, you can force with '-p' in the command line.
VAOUTPUTFORMAT: Just like OUTPUTFORMAT but for Various Artists discs. Default is whateverOUTPUTFORMAT is set to.
MAXPROCS: Defines how many encoders to run at once. This makes for huge speedupson SMP systems. You should run one encoder per CPU at once for maximumefficiency, although more doesn't hurt very much. Set it "0" when usingmp3dist to avoid getting encoding processes in the local host.
LOWDISK: If set to y, conserves disk space by encoding tracks immediately afterreading them. This is substantially slower than normal operation butrequires several hundred MB less space to complete the encoding of anentire CD. Use only if your system is low on space and cannot encode asquickly as it can read.
BATCH: If set to y, enables batch mode normalization, which preserves relativevolume differences between tracks of an album. Also enables nogap encodingwhen using the 'lame' encoder.
PLAYLISTFORMAT: Specifies the format for completed playlist filenames. Works like theOUTPUTFORMAT configuration variable. Default is'${ARTISTFILE}_-_${ALBUMFILE}.m3u'.Make sure to use single quotes around this variable.
PLAYLISTDATAPREFIX: Specifies a prefix for filenames within a playlist. Useful for httpplaylists, etc.
DOSPLAYLIST: If set, the resulting playlist will have CR-LF line endings, needed by somehardware-based players.
COMMENT: Specifies a comment to embed in the ID3 or Ogg comment field of eachfinished track. Can be up to 28 characters long. Supports the samesyntax as OUTPUTFORMAT. Does not currently support ID3v2.
REMOTEHOSTS: Specifies a comma-delimited list of systems to use for remote encoding usingdistmp3. Equivalent to -r.
mungefilename: mungefilename() is an abcde shell function that can be overridden viaabcde.conf. It takes CDDB data as $1 and outputs the resulting filename onstdout. It defaults to eating control characters, apostrophes andquestion marks, translating spaces and forward slashes to underscores, andtranslating colons to an underscore and a hyphen.
If you modify this function, it is probably a good idea to keep the forwardslash munging (UNIX cannot store a file with a '/' char in it) as well asthe control character munging (NULs can't be in a filename either, andnewlines and such in filenames are typically not desirable).
mungegenre: mungegenre () is a shell function used to modify the $GENRE variable. Asa default action, it takes $GENRE as $1 and outputs the resulting valueto stdout converting all UPPERCASE characters to lowercase.
pre_read: pre_read () is a shell function which is executed before the CDROM is readfor the first time, during abcde execution. It can be used to close the CDROMtray, to set its speed (via "setcd" or via "eject", if available) and otherpreparation actions. The default function is empty.
EJECTCD: If set to "y", abcde will call eject(1) to eject the cdrom from the driveafter all tracks have been read.
EXTRAVERBOSE: If set to "y", some operations which are usually now shown to the end userare visible, such as CDDB queries. Usefull for initial debug and if yournetwork/CDDB server is slow.

BACKEND TOOLS

abcde requires the following backend tools to work:

*: An Ogg/Vorbis, MP3, FLAC, Ogg/Speex or MPP/MP+(Musepack) encoder (oggenc, vorbize, lame, gogo, bladeenc, l3enc, mp3enc, flac, speexenc, mppenc)
*: An audio CD reading utility (cdparanoia, cdda2wav, dagrab)
*: cd-discid, a CDDB DiscID reading program.
*: An HTTP retrieval program: wget, fetch (FreeBSD) or curl (Mac OS X, among others).
*: (for MP3s) id3 or id3v2, id3 v1 and v2 tagging programs.
*: (optional) distmp3, a client/server for distributed mp3 encoding.
*: (optional) normalize, a WAV file volume normalizer.

AUTHORS

Robert Woodcock <rcwAATTdebian.org>,Jesus Climent <jesus.climentAATThispalinux.es> and contributions from many others.

This document was created byman2html,using the manual pages.