README

   1 ABCDE
   2 =====
   3
   4 abcde is a frontend command-line utility (actually, a shell script) that
   5 grabs tracks off a CD, encodes them to Ogg/Vorbis, MP3, FLAC or Ogg/Speex
   6 format, and tags them, all in one go.
   7
   8 Your finished Ogg/MP3/FLAC/Speex's are, by default, stored in a subdirectory of
   9 the current directory (named after the artist) with a filename based on the
  10 track title. Spaces are replaced by underscores, and apostrophes and
  11 control codes are filtered out. Colons are replaced with an underscore and a
  12 hyphen. The end result usually looks like: Our_Lady_Peace/01.Supermans_Dead.ogg
  13 This filename munging is customizable - edit the mungefilename function in
  14 your abcde.conf to change it.
  15
  16 Need to go through an HTTP proxy for CDDB access? No problem, just export
  17 your http_proxy variable first so wget/fetch/curl can see it.
  18
  19 You already store CDDB entries for your CD collection on your hard disk? Piece
  20 of cake. Just edit CDDBLOCALDIR to point to the repository and give abcde the
  21 "-L" flag to make use of it.
  22
  23 Low on disk space? abcde has different algorithms to schedule ripping and
  24 encoding - to optimize for disk conservation, use -l.
  25
  26 abcde can also take advantage of SMP systems, just like make. Try
  27 'abcde -j 2' - it'll run two encoder jobs while it rips the next
  28 track.
  29
  30 abcde now uses FreeDB by default. To use a different FreeDB mirror or
  31 another CDDB service, change the CDDBURL option in your abcde.conf.
  32
  33 Frustrated that you can't use the CPU power on Machine A sitting right
  34 next to Machine B with the fast cdrom drive? Now you don't have to be -
  35 Run distmp3host (included in distmp3) on Machine A, and then run
  36 abcde -r MachineA from Machine B (where "MachineA" is a dns name or IP
  37 address). Use this in combination with '-j 0' to shift all encoding off the
  38 local machine.
  39
  40 You do not have internet connection, or just feel with free time to write
  41 down all the song names and artists instead of using CDDB? Use -n and edit
  42 the template.
  43
  44 To make abcde 2.x work more like 1.x, put these options in your abcde.conf:
  45
  46 INTERACTIVE=n
  47 OUTPUTTYPE=mp3
  48 ID3TAGV=1
  49
  50 NOTICE: abcde needs cd-discid. Grab it from:
  51 http://www.hispalinux.es/~data/files/cd-discid/
  52
  53 MAJOR CHANGES
  54 =============
  55 New options in 2.1.19:
  56
  57 * ONETRACK mode has been introduced. Setting the flag "-1" will create a
  58   single file with all the tracks from the CD.
  59
  60 Changes in 2.1.18:
  61
  62 * CDSPEED option defaults to eject. However, since cdparanoia has a built-in
  63   option to set the speed, we use it. There is not way (right now) to force
  64   the use of eject, but it will be introduced in a future release. Also one
  65   can use the pre_read function to set the speed with other program.
  66
  67 New options in 2.1.16:
  68
  69 * -S, CDSPEED and CDSPEEDOPTS for setting the speed of the CDROM. One can
  70   set the options in abcde.conf and pass the value on the command line.
  71   This option can be used with "eject -x <speed>", "setcd -x <speed>" or the
  72   built-in cdparanoia option "-S <speed>", if the CD reader supports it.
  73 * Added a pre-read function. Modify it at your pleasure in abcde.conf
  74   One can use it to close the CD drive.
  75 * -m option, to modify the playlist to include CRLF in every line. Some
  76   players insist on having those to work properly with playlists.
  77
  78 New options in 2.1.15:
  79
  80 * -V can be used to obtain some more information about the CDDB queries.
  81 * -v shows the version, basic help, and exits.
  82
  83 New options from 2.1.10 to 2.1.13:
  84
  85 * CDROMID has been introduced for cdda2wav use with SCSI devices.
  86 * Use -L to retrieve the CDDB entries from a local repository (also one can
  87   set CDDBUSELOCAL in the config file).
  88 * If CDDBCOPYLOCAL is set to "y" we store copies of the CDDB entries, under
  89   CDDBLOCALDIR (defaults to "~/.cddb).
  90
  91 Modifications from 2.1.9 to 2.1.10:
  92
  93 * Initial (still incomplete) MacOSX support is on the works.
  94 * A new tool (curl) has been added for MacOSX compatibility, as HTTPGET
  95   option.
  96
  97 Options modified from 2.1.8 to 2.1.9:
  98
  99 * KEEPWAVS option now sets the clean to "no".
 100
 101 Options added/modified from 2.1.3 to 2.1.5:
 102
 103 * Ogg/Speex added. Use "-o spx" to rip your audiobooks, for instance.
 104
 105 Options added/modified from 2.1.1 to 2.1.3:
 106
 107 * WGET has been substituted by HTTPGET. Now we support fetch as retrieval
 108   program.
 109 * KEEPWAVS has been introduced. Set it to "y" and the wav tracks will be
 110   kept.
 111 * CDDBPROTO is used to specify the protocol level in the CDDB retrieval.
 112 * DAGRAB has been introduced as a cd ripper.
 113
 114 Options added/modified from 2.0.3 to 2.1.x:
 115
 116 * -b use batch processing. It uses normalize to adjust the volume of the
 117   songs, and a -g gapless option from lame to remove gaps. Only available
 118   for mp3+lame combination.
 119 * a new "normalize" option has been added to -a, to normalize the volume.
 120 * -o works now with a combination of the different outputs: ogg, mp3, flac.
 121   Combine them separated by ",". Example: "-o ogg,flac".
 122 * OUTPUTTYPE is no longer used for the output file type. From version 2.1
 123   abcde implements multiple-output and the file type is always appended at
 124   the end of the file. The OUTPUT variable can be used in the
 125   PLAYLISTFORMAT and OUTPUTFORMAT to create different directory structures
 126   and playlist names for each of the output formats selected.
 127 * DYEAR can be used as DiskYear value in CDDB data. If the data is not
 128   supplied by the CDDB server, it can be added.
 129
 130 Other options that changed from 1.x to 2.x:
 131
 132 * -e doesn't exist anymore, abcde now presents you with all of the cddb data
 133   and asks you if you want to edit it. If you don't want to be asked,
 134   use -N or INTERACTIVE=n
 135 * The output type defaults to Ogg/Vorbis. Specify -o mp3 or OUTPUTTYPE=mp3
 136   if you still want to output mp3's.
 137 * -l 2 is now just -l, LOWDISK=2 should now be LOWDISK=y
 138 * -V and -v are gone, abcde will now prompt you if you'd like to use Various
 139   Artists handling, after showing you the cddb data.
 140 * -P is now '-a playlist,clean', PLAYLISTONLY=y is now
 141   ACTIONS=playlist,clean
 142 * -p is now '-a playlist,move,clean', PLAYLIST=y is now
 143   ACTIONS=playlist,move,clean
 144 * cddb-tool has been cleaned up a little bit. 'get' is now 'query' and
 145   'read', and the tempfile handling has been removed.
 146 * ID3COMMENT is now COMMENT.
 147 * FreeDB is now the default CDDB database.
 148
 149
 150 REQUIREMENTS
 151 ============
 152
 153 abcde requires the following backend tools to work:
 154
 155 * An Ogg/Vorbis encoder (oggenc, the default, or vorbize) or:
 156 * An MP3 encoder (lame, gogo, bladeenc, l3enc, etc). Any MP3 encoder that
 157   takes two filenames on the command line, one for input, one for output,
 158   will work.
 159   You can get lame at: http://www.mp3dev.org/mp3/
 160   You can get gogo at: http://homepage1.nifty.com/herumi/gogo_e.html
 161   You can get BladeEnc at: http://bladeenc.mp3.no/
 162   You can get a trial version of mp3enc at:
 163     http://www.iis.fhg.de/amm/download/ or:
 164 * FLAC encoder (flac) or:
 165 * Ogg/Speex encoder (speexenc)
 166 * normalize for volume normalization.
 167 * CD Paranoia, an audio CD reading utility,
 168 * Or cdda2wav, the audio CD reading utility cdparanoia was born from,
 169 * Or dagrab, another audio CD reading utility.
 170 * cd-discid, a CDDB DiscID reading program. Formerly bundled with abcde.
 171   It's available in Debian or http://www.hispalinux.es/~data/files/cd-discid/
 172 * An HTTP retrieval program: wget, fetch (FreeBSD) or curl (MacOSX)
 173 * id3, an id3 tagging program. Available at: http://lly.org/~rcw/id3/
 174 * id3v2, an id3 version 2.0 tagger. http://id3v2.sourceforge.net/
 175 * (optional) distmp3, a client/server for distributed mp3 encoding.
 176   You can get distmp3 at http://wlug.westbo.se/medlprog/medlprog.html
 177
 178 Potential problems:
 179
 180 Having trouble getting cdparanoia to read from your drive as a user?
 181 Add yourself to the cdrom group, change the permissions on your cdrom device
 182 to 660, and if you have a SCSI cdrom drive, check the permissions on
 183 /dev/sg* as well.
 184
 185 Running out of disk space for .wav files but don't want to use -l? Put them
 186 in a different location by adding WAVOUTPUTDIR=/some/other/path to your
 187 /etc/abcde.conf or ~/.abcde.conf.
 188
 189 If abcde seems to be ignoring your configuration options or not running
 190 commands such as the encoder, you may have misquoted something. Config
 191 options such as the following do not work:
 192
 193 LAMEOPTS=-h -k
 194
 195 Try this instead:
 196
 197 LAMEOPTS='-h -k'
 198
 199 Abcde's new mailing list is abcde@listas.hispalinux.es. So far has not
 200 been actively used.
 201 The posts from non-subscribers are moderated to prevent spam.
 202
 203 Archives of the old list are publically available at:
 204 http://lly.org/~rcw/abcde/list/current/threads.html
 205
 206 Abcde's current page is at http://www.hispalinux.es/~data/abcde.php
 207 Abcde's new homepage will be at http://abcde.hispalinux.es/.
 208 Abcde's old homepage is at http://lly.org/~rcw/abcde/page/.
 209 --
 210 Robert Woodcock <rcw@debian.org>
 211 Jesus Climent <jesus.climent@hispalinux.es>