| 1 | ABCDE |
| 2 | ===== |
| 3 | |
| 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 and/or MPP/MP+(Musepack) |
| 7 | format, and tags them, all in one go. |
| 8 | |
| 9 | Your finished Ogg/MP3/FLAC/Speex/MPP's are, by default, stored in a subdirectory |
| 10 | of the current directory (named after the artist) with a filename based on the |
| 11 | track title. Spaces are replaced by underscores, and apostrophes and control |
| 12 | codes are filtered out. Colons are replaced with an underscore and a hyphen. The |
| 13 | end result usually looks like: Our_Lady_Peace/01.Supermans_Dead.ogg This |
| 14 | filename munging is customizable - edit the mungefilename function in your |
| 15 | abcde.conf to change it. |
| 16 | |
| 17 | Many of the questions related of problems executing abcde have been moved to the |
| 18 | FAQ, which should be distributed along with this package. Reffer to that file |
| 19 | for more help. |
| 20 | |
| 21 | MAJOR CHANGES |
| 22 | ============= |
| 23 | Changes in 2.4: |
| 24 | * Read TOC entries from the CD. The default uses cdrdao. The program mkcue is |
| 25 | also optional. |
| 26 | * Possibility to use CDDBCHOICE1,CDDBCHOICE2 (i.e., 1,3) to get a diff of two |
| 27 | parsed CDDB entries. |
| 28 | * Added SHOWCDDBFIELDS to define wether to show the YEAR and GENRE fields from |
| 29 | the CDDB output. |
| 30 | * Added the possibility of embeding a cuesheet on a singletrack flac file. A |
| 31 | single BACKUP flag is most likely needed to use all the needed flags: |
| 32 | "abcde -1 -o flac -a default,cue" |
| 33 | * Added the possibility of using a singletrack flac file with an embeded |
| 34 | cuesheet as a source to extract tracks from (use -X to specify an external |
| 35 | CUE2DISCID implementation; check under examples in the distributed source |
| 36 | code or package). |
| 37 | * Added replaygain for Ogg/Vorbis and Ogg/FLAC. |
| 38 | * Added M4A encoding. |
| 39 | * Uses the default found $CDROMREADER instead of forcing cdparanoia when |
| 40 | cdda2wav is installed. |
| 41 | * BATCH mode has been split into two options: BATCHNORM and NOGAP. |
| 42 | * Added -U option for non-UNICODE (non UTF-8) tag encoding. |
| 43 | * Added -z for debug. |
| 44 | * Added -f to force the removal of left files. |
| 45 | * CUE support has changed from a flag (-M) to an action (cue). |
| 46 | |
| 47 | Changes in 2.3: |
| 48 | * Support for mkcue, to create a CUE sheet of the CD structure. It can be used |
| 49 | with "-1" to create a backup, so that later the original CD can be recreated. |
| 50 | * New -o <output(1)>:<options(1)>,... way of passing specific options to an |
| 51 | output. Now we can pass specific options without having to modify a config |
| 52 | file. This feature was already present in the last versions of the 2.2 cycle. |
| 53 | * Unix PIPEs, as a second way to encode files with a low disc space. |
| 54 | * Option to erase the "encoded" entries from the status file. Allows one to |
| 55 | encode the wav files (in case they were not erased) into another format. This |
| 56 | is needed until status information is stored for each format. |
| 57 | * The "ogg" output mode will be substituted for "vorbis" in the near future. |
| 58 | This release adds a compatibility layer so that both entries work. |
| 59 | * The FLAC encoder forces the files to be overwritten, in case they previously |
| 60 | exists. This avoids a half-through abcde run to continue without errors in |
| 61 | case it was cancelled during the FLAC encoding. |
| 62 | * Added a post_read() function so that we can do things with the CD before we |
| 63 | eject it. |
| 64 | |
| 65 | Changes in 2.2: |
| 66 | |
| 67 | * Support for MPP/MP+(Musepack) format. It can be downloaded from |
| 68 | corecodecs.org. It is supposed to be Free (not only free), and released under |
| 69 | the GPL... |
| 70 | * New "-t <number>" option for starting the numbering of the output files at a |
| 71 | given starting number. Ideal for albums with more than one CD. |
| 72 | * New "-T <number>" option, similar to "-t" but also modifies the tag entries |
| 73 | on the files themselves. |
| 74 | * New "-w <COMMENT>" to add a comment to the tracks of a given CD rip. Use |
| 75 | quotes. |
| 76 | * New "-W <number>" option to combine both a comment with "CD #number" and a |
| 77 | starting number for both the tracks and the tags with "#01" (that is, 101 for |
| 78 | the 1st CD, 201 for the second...) |
| 79 | * Support for keeping an existing playlist (and not add new entries to it), |
| 80 | erase the existing one (overwrite) or append new entries to the existing |
| 81 | one. |
| 82 | * Under ./examples you will find a very basic way to make abcde run in the |
| 83 | background and start a non-interactive rip of a CD, if it can find an |
| 84 | audio CD in the tray. |
| 85 | The abcded script depends on eject and cdparanoia being installed in your |
| 86 | system. |
| 87 | * New mungegenre function to switch off (or modify) the default behaviour of |
| 88 | transforming uppercase characters to lowercase. |
| 89 | * cdparanoia permits performing a query to the CD drive and obtain a list of |
| 90 | valid audio tracks. So, now we perform such query and process the results. |
| 91 | * Support for "None of the above" has been added with the "0" selection. A |
| 92 | template is created, and the selection to edit it is defaulted to "y". |
| 93 | |
| 94 | New options in 2.1.19: |
| 95 | |
| 96 | * ONETRACK mode has been introduced. Setting the flag "-1" will create a |
| 97 | single file with all the tracks from the CD. |
| 98 | |
| 99 | Changes in 2.1.18: |
| 100 | |
| 101 | * CDSPEED option defaults to eject. However, since cdparanoia has a built-in |
| 102 | option to set the speed, we use it. There is not way (right now) to force the |
| 103 | use of eject, but it will be introduced in a future release. Also one can use |
| 104 | the pre_read function to set the speed with other program. |
| 105 | |
| 106 | New options in 2.1.16: |
| 107 | |
| 108 | * -S, CDSPEED and CDSPEEDOPTS for setting the speed of the CDROM. One can set |
| 109 | the options in abcde.conf and pass the value on the command line. This option |
| 110 | can be used with "eject -x <speed>", "setcd -x <speed>" or the built-in |
| 111 | cdparanoia option "-S <speed>", if the CD reader supports it. |
| 112 | * Added a pre-read function. Modify it at your pleasure in abcde.conf |
| 113 | One can use it to close the CD drive. |
| 114 | * -m option, to modify the playlist to include CRLF in every line. Some players |
| 115 | insist on having those to work properly with playlists. |
| 116 | |
| 117 | New options in 2.1.15: |
| 118 | |
| 119 | * -V can be used to obtain some more information about the CDDB queries. |
| 120 | * -v shows the version, basic help, and exits. |
| 121 | |
| 122 | New options from 2.1.10 to 2.1.13: |
| 123 | |
| 124 | * CDROMID has been introduced for cdda2wav use with SCSI devices. |
| 125 | * Use -L to retrieve the CDDB entries from a local repository (also one can |
| 126 | set CDDBUSELOCAL in the config file). |
| 127 | * If CDDBCOPYLOCAL is set to "y" we store copies of the CDDB entries, under |
| 128 | CDDBLOCALDIR (defaults to "~/.cddb). |
| 129 | |
| 130 | Modifications from 2.1.9 to 2.1.10: |
| 131 | |
| 132 | * Initial (still incomplete) MacOSX support is on the works. |
| 133 | * A new tool (curl) has been added for MacOSX compatibility, as HTTPGET |
| 134 | option. |
| 135 | |
| 136 | Options modified from 2.1.8 to 2.1.9: |
| 137 | |
| 138 | * KEEPWAVS option now sets the clean to "no". |
| 139 | |
| 140 | Options added/modified from 2.1.3 to 2.1.5: |
| 141 | |
| 142 | * Ogg/Speex added. Use "-o spx" to rip your audiobooks, for instance. |
| 143 | |
| 144 | Options added/modified from 2.1.1 to 2.1.3: |
| 145 | |
| 146 | * WGET has been substituted by HTTPGET. Now we support fetch as retrieval |
| 147 | program. |
| 148 | * KEEPWAVS has been introduced. Set it to "y" and the wav tracks will be |
| 149 | kept. |
| 150 | * CDDBPROTO is used to specify the protocol level in the CDDB retrieval. |
| 151 | * DAGRAB has been introduced as a cd ripper. |
| 152 | |
| 153 | Options added/modified from 2.0.3 to 2.1.x: |
| 154 | |
| 155 | * -b use batch processing. It uses normalize-audio to adjust the volume of |
| 156 | the songs, and a -g gapless option from lame to remove gaps. Only available |
| 157 | for mp3+lame combination. |
| 158 | * a new "normalize" option has been added to -a, to normalize the volume. |
| 159 | * -o works now with a combination of the different outputs: ogg, mp3, flac. |
| 160 | Combine them separated by ",". Example: "-o ogg,flac". |
| 161 | * OUTPUTTYPE is no longer used for the output file type. From version 2.1 abcde |
| 162 | implements multiple-output and the file type is always appended at the end of |
| 163 | the file. The OUTPUT variable can be used in the PLAYLISTFORMAT and |
| 164 | OUTPUTFORMAT to create different directory structures and playlist names for |
| 165 | each of the output formats selected. |
| 166 | |
| 167 | * DYEAR can be used as DiskYear value in CDDB data. If the data is not supplied |
| 168 | by the CDDB server, it can be added. |
| 169 | |
| 170 | Other options that changed from 1.x to 2.x: |
| 171 | |
| 172 | * -e doesn't exist anymore, abcde now presents you with all of the cddb data |
| 173 | and asks you if you want to edit it. If you don't want to be asked, |
| 174 | use -N or INTERACTIVE=n |
| 175 | * The output type defaults to Ogg/Vorbis. Specify -o mp3 or OUTPUTTYPE=mp3 |
| 176 | if you still want to output mp3's. |
| 177 | * -l 2 is now just -l, LOWDISK=2 should now be LOWDISK=y |
| 178 | * -V and -v are gone, abcde will now prompt you if you'd like to use Various |
| 179 | Artists handling, after showing you the cddb data. |
| 180 | * -P is now '-a playlist,clean', PLAYLISTONLY=y is now |
| 181 | ACTIONS=playlist,clean |
| 182 | * -p is now '-a playlist,move,clean', PLAYLIST=y is now |
| 183 | ACTIONS=playlist,move,clean |
| 184 | * cddb-tool has been cleaned up a little bit. 'get' is now 'query' and |
| 185 | 'read', and the tempfile handling has been removed. |
| 186 | * ID3COMMENT is now COMMENT. |
| 187 | * FreeDB is now the default CDDB database. |
| 188 | |
| 189 | |
| 190 | REQUIREMENTS |
| 191 | ============ |
| 192 | |
| 193 | abcde requires the following backend tools to work: |
| 194 | |
| 195 | * An Ogg/Vorbis encoder (oggenc, the default, or vorbize) or: |
| 196 | * An MP3 encoder (lame, gogo, bladeenc, l3enc, etc). Any MP3 encoder that |
| 197 | takes two filenames on the command line, one for input, one for output, |
| 198 | will work. |
| 199 | You can get lame at: http://www.mp3dev.org/mp3/ |
| 200 | You can get gogo at: http://homepage1.nifty.com/herumi/gogo_e.html |
| 201 | You can get BladeEnc at: http://bladeenc.mp3.no/ |
| 202 | You can get a trial version of mp3enc at: |
| 203 | http://www.iis.fhg.de/amm/download/ or: |
| 204 | * FLAC encoder (flac) or: |
| 205 | * Ogg/Speex encoder (speexenc) or: |
| 206 | * MPP/MP+(Musepack) encoder (mppenc) or: |
| 207 | * AAC encoder (faac) |
| 208 | * normalize-audio for volume normalization. |
| 209 | * CD Paranoia, an audio CD reading utility or: |
| 210 | * icedax/cdda2wav, the audio CD reading utility cdparanoia was born from or: |
| 211 | * dagrab, another audio CD reading utility. |
| 212 | * cd-discid, a CDDB DiscID reading program. Formerly bundled with abcde. |
| 213 | It's available in Debian or http://linukz.org/cd-discid.shtml |
| 214 | * An HTTP retrieval program: wget, fetch (FreeBSD) or curl (MacOSX) |
| 215 | * id3, an id3 tagging program. Available at: http://lly.org/~rcw/id3/ |
| 216 | * id3v2, an id3 version 2.0 tagger. http://id3v2.sourceforge.net/ |
| 217 | * (optional) distmp3, a client/server for distributed mp3 encoding. |
| 218 | You can get distmp3 at http://wlug.westbo.se/medlprog/medlprog.html |
| 219 | |
| 220 | Abcde's new mailing list is abcde@listas.hispalinux.es. So far has not |
| 221 | been actively used. |
| 222 | The posts from non-subscribers are moderated to prevent spam. |
| 223 | |
| 224 | Abcde's current page is at http://code.google.com/p/abcde/ |
| 225 | |
| 226 | -- |
| 227 | Jesus Climent <jesus.climent@hispalinux.es> |
| 228 | Colin Tuckley <colint@debian.org> |
| 229 | |
| 230 | abcde was originally created by Robert Woodcock <rcw@debian.org> |
| 231 | |