FAQ

   1 0. INTRODUCTION
   2    ============
   3
   4 Q. Who created abcde? Who develops it nowadays?
   5 A. It was originally created by Robert Woodcook. He decided to give up
   6    maintaining it at some point in 2002 and Jesus Climent took over. In 2012,
   7    Colin Tuckley and Steve McIntyre joined in to help. Contact
   8    jesus.climent@hispalinux.es, colint@debian.org or 93sam@debian.org if you
   9    have a problem or a suggestion.
  10
  11
  12 1. INSTALLATION
  13    ============
  14
  15 Q. How can I install abcde on my system?
  16 A. To get abcde you can use a pre-packaged version, available for Debian,
  17    FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD and others.
  18    In case you want to install your own release, you need to download the
  19    source and install the complementary programs (abcde is just a frontend
  20    and its functionality is provided by other programs).
  21
  22    abcde needs cd-discid. Grab it from:
  23    http://www.hispalinux.es/~data/files/cd-discid/
  24
  25    Read the README files for a complete list of requirements.
  26
  27 Q. I have a problem, and I reported some time ago. Have you solved it already?
  28 A. Maybe. Try downloading the trunk of the development from
  29    http://abcde.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/
  30
  31 Q. When are you going to release a new version?
  32 A. When it is ready. I keep on having new ideas and adding them to the trunk
  33    (stored in the URL above), so I dont release until all the ideas are
  34    finished.
  35
  36
  37 2. EXECUTION
  38    =========
  39
  40 Q. I want to force abcde 2.x to behave more like 1.x. How do I do it?
  41 A. Put these options in your abcde.conf:
  42
  43    INTERACTIVE=n
  44    OUTPUTTYPE=mp3
  45    ID3TAGV=1
  46
  47 Q. Low on disk space?
  48 A. abcde has different algorithms to schedule ripping and encoding - to
  49    optimize for disk conservation, use -l. You can also define
  50    WAVOUTPUTDIR=/some/other/path to your /etc/abcde.conf or ~/.abcde.conf to
  51    store the WAV files on another NFS shared fisk, for example.
  52    Also, UNIX pipes have also been implemented, using "-P", so abcde reads and
  53    encodes the tracks from the CD at once. However, it has the drawback that
  54    only one format can be encoded at a time.
  55
  56 Q. How can i make abcde encode faster? My CD reader is way faster than the pace
  57    it can encode my tracks.
  58 A. abcde can take advantage of SMP systems, just like make. Try 'abcde -j 2' -
  59    it'll run two encoder jobs while it rips the next track.
  60    You can also make use of systems which are networked, with the help of
  61    distmp3. For example, MachineA has a better CPU power and MachineB has a CD
  62    drive. Run distmp3host (included in distmp3) on Machine A, and then run
  63    abcde -r MachineA from MachineB (where "MachineA" is a dns name or IP
  64    address). Use this in combination with '-j 0' to shift all encoding off the
  65    local machine.
  66
  67 Q. I am having problems with *my CD reading program* reading the drive as a
  68    user.
  69 A. You might have to add yourself (or the users who want to use abcde) to the
  70    cdrom group and change the permissions of the cdrom device to 660. If you
  71    have a SCSI cdrom drive, check the permissions of /dev/sg* as well.
  72
  73 Q. I would like to give the trackname and the artist_name directly to the
  74    encoder (in my case oggenc), but found no documentation.
  75 A. That is not possible, since abcde gets the information from CDDB database.
  76    You can create a template and fill it with the option "-n". Also, you can
  77    get the CDDB entry and edit it yourself. abcde has also an option to drop
  78    back to a template if you like none of the CDDB entries, selecting 0 from
  79    the CDDB options.
  80
  81 Q. (Thanks to Amaya) Where are those options and settings defined? Why dont
  82    you include a proper abcde.conf as an example?
  83 A. I do. It should be installed under /etc/abcde.conf and contains more or
  84    less all the defaults abcde uses. You can use $(HOME)/.abcde.conf to
  85    override those defaults. More information can be obtained from the man page
  86    which can be consulted using "man abcde".
  87
  88 Q. I keep on getting files with ".ogg.ogg" extension. What am I doing wrong?
  89 A. The code for multiple-output adds automatically the extension of the
  90    different outputs you select with the "-o" extension (or with OUTPUTTYPE
  91    variable). Erase the ".${OUTPUTTYPE}" part from the OUTPUTFORMAT variable
  92    in /etc/abcde.conf or ~/.abcde.conf
  93
  94 Q. I have modified some of the options, and now CDDB has stopped working.
  95 A. Check that you have modified everything in the right way. For instance, if
  96    you modify the HTTPGET program you might want to set some options of your
  97    own. If you use the predefined ones (wget, curl and fetch) abcde will try
  98    to use some defaults. Keep in mind that the output should go to the output
  99    as standard output, to be saved in a file for later use.
 100
 101    If abcde seems to be ignoring your configuration options or not running
 102    commands such as the encoder, you may have misquoted something. Config
 103    options such as the following do not work:
 104
 105    LAMEOPTS=-h -k
 106
 107    Try this instead:
 108
 109    LAMEOPTS='-h -k'
 110
 111 Q. How can I separate the different output files I get using multiple-output
 112    support?
 113 A. Use the OUTPUT variable in PLAYLISTFORMAT and OUTPUTFORMAT. It holds the
 114    different output file types you passed to abcde (i.e., ogg, mp3, flac)
 115    during playlist creation and file/directory creation.
 116
 117 Q. I have a CD with a data track, and abcde complaints it cannot read/encode
 118    it.
 119 A. From version 2.2 onwards, abcde includes some checkings with cdparanoia, to
 120    try to get this right.
 121    (It is not easy to find a data track on a CD. Right now, I can only think
 122    of getting the track info from CDDB and ask the user for continuing should
 123    a "data" track name is found. But the solution is far from been optimal.
 124    For now, if you find a "data" track and you know the number, restart abcde
 125    specifying the tracks to be encoded, leaving out the data one).
 126
 127 Q. I am requested to have "eject" when setting the speed although I do not use
 128    it for anything.
 129 A. If you do not use cdparanoia, eject is used for setting the speed of the
 130    cdrom drive. You can substitute it for "setcd" with "-x" as the argument,
 131    but you have to install it manually (setcd is, at least, available in
 132    Debian).
 133    Another way to get the same results is using the pre_read function, defined
 134    in your /etc/abcde.conf file.
 135
 136 Q. I have a CD set with 1+ discs, and want to have them in the same directory,
 137    sorted properly. What can abcde do for me?
 138 A. Set abcde to rip the first CD and give it the option "-t 101". Use a generic
 139    name for the CD, and reuse it with the rest of the CDs, editing the CDDB
 140    entries. Use "-t 201" for the second CD and so on. Use "-w <comment>" to
 141    add a comment about the CD you are ripping (-w "disc #"). Alternatively you
 142    can use only the "-t ###" option and then move all the files to the same
 143    directory, but the tag/comment information on the files will differ. If you
 144    want the tagged track number to be set to the modified number you should use
 145    "-T ###".
 146    Even better! If you use "-W <cd_number>", abcde will put a comment to every
 147    CD set ("CD <number>") and modify the number of the tracks both in the file
 148    name and the tag/comment information.
 149
 150 Q. I have a live concert. I want to encode it in a single file. How do i do it?
 151 A. Use "-1" and it will be encoded in a single file. Use "cue" as an action to
 152    make a CUE sheet file where the information about the tracks is stored.
 153
 154 Q. Can I use abcde to take a backup of my CD collection?
 155 A. Yes. Use "abcde -1 -o flac -a default,cue" and it will create a single-track
 156    FLAC file with an embedded cuesheet. Later on, you can use the command
 157    "abcde -o vorbis -d flac-file.flac" to extract the individual tracks in
 158    Ogg/Vorbis format. Of course you can select whatever format you want.
 159
 160
 161 3. CDDB and Musicbrainz
 162    ====================
 163
 164 Q. I need to go through an HTTP proxy for CDDB access.
 165 A. No problem, just export your http_proxy variable first so wget/fetch/curl
 166    can see it.
 167
 168 Q. I already store CDDB entries in my hard disc. Can I make use of them?
 169 A. Piece of cake. Just edit CDDBLOCALDIR to point to the repository and give
 170    abcde the "-L" flag to make use of it.
 171
 172 Q. Fine, now it uses local CDDB, but I have no network connection. How can I
 173    disable CDDB checks?
 174 A. Use the "-L -n" combination. It will try to use local CDDB entries, and if
 175    nothing can be found, it will use a template. You will be also given the
 176    choice to edit such template.
 177
 178 Q. How can I use some other CDDB information provider?
 179 A. abcde now uses FreeDB by default. To use a different FreeDB mirror or
 180    another CDDB service, change the CDDBURL option in your abcde.conf.
 181
 182 Q. After requesting CDDB data, I received several answers which seem to be
 183    quite alike. Can I find out the difference between some of them?
 184 A. Yes. When asked which one you want to select, use "X,Y" where X and Y are
 185    the numbers of the selections you want to find the difference between.
 186
 187 Q. I don't like CDDB/FreeDB. How can I use Musicbrainz instead?
 188 A. Set CDDBMETHOD=musicbrainz and try it!
 189
 190 3. FORMATS
 191    =======
 192
 193 Q. What formats can I encode my music to?
 194 A. As for version 2.2, abcde includes support for MP3, Ogg/Vorbis,
 195    Ogg/Speex, Flac and MPP/MP+(Musepack). Support for AAC will be added once
 196    an FLOSS encoder/decoder is working.
 197
 198 Q. I want the new *put the newest and coolest codec there* format to be
 199    supported by abcde. Abcde is so cool but i want to encode also to this
 200    new format...
 201 A. Patches are welcome! ;)
 202    No, seriously, if the format is usable, available for Linux and open
 203    source/free software, it should be fairly easy to integrate. Support for
 204    AAC (m4p) should be the next one to be introduced.
 205
 206 Q. I use Debian/RedHat/(put your Unix flavour here) and MP3 encoding is not
 207    working. What am I doing wrong?
 208 A. Since MP3 is considered non-free (you get it for free, but hardware players
 209    and net broadcasters have to pay license fees), some release engineering
 210    groups and release management teams have decided not to provide MP3 encoding
 211    tools.
 212    These distributions or operative systems have decided to use Ogg/Vorbis as
 213    the default encoding format, since it contains no (known) patent claims
 214    and they are (supposed to be) completely Free (released under a BSD-like
 215    license).
 216    However, there is no strong (at the moment) hardware support, although
 217    some groups and companies are strongly working on getting it, real soon
 218    now. For that reason some people prefer to encode to MP3.
 219
 220    UPDATE *** UPDATE
 221    There are known brands already selling Ogg/Vorbis portable players: Rio,
 222    iRiver, Neuros, iAudio,...
 223    Go buy one and you have no more reasons to use MP3.
 224
 225    If you are among those individuals, you might need to add support for MP3
 226    encoding to your system:
 227    Debian : check http://ftp.nerim.net/debian-marillat to install lame in your
 228             system. Others prefer bladeenc. Check www.apt-get.org or google.
 229    RedHat : search on rpmfind.net
 230    FreeBSD: By default includes LAME support.
 231    OpenBSD: Available by specifying you want to install the port with LAME
 232             support, or by just installing it later from the ports tree.
 233    NetBSD : Available in pkgsrc.
 234
 235    Others : Please, help me here.
 236
 237 Q. Huh! Why is MPPENCODER (with MPP) and .mpc the extension?
 238 A. Dunno. You must ask the guys who created and defined the format. The
 239    standard is MPEGplus (MPP/MP+) but the files use .mpc extension.
 240
 241
 242 4. MISC PROBLEMS
 243    ==== ========
 244
 245 Q. What happened with normalize?
 246 A. Normalize has changed its name under Debian, which is the GNU/Linux
 247    distribution for developing abcde (well, is The GNU/Linux Distribution
 248    i only use, at the moment). Now it is called normalize-audio.
 249    If you are using some other flavour of OS, you need to change the name
 250    of the executable in your abcde.conf file.
 251
 252 Q. I am using MacOSX and I am having problems to use abcde.
 253 A. Well, I have a Mac, but I use linux on it. I have not been able to find
 254    a way to make it work there, since I do not have the development tools
 255    installed. I have placed a basic support, but some user reports are just
 256    complaining about abcde not encoding the ripped tracks, as if
 257    icedax/cdda2wav/cdparanoia/cddafs would never end reading them. If you have
 258    such a system and experience problems, please, report them, and I will
 259    try to work them out with your help.
 260
 261 Q. My hardware player (put it here) does not recognize the playlists created
 262    with abcde. What I am doing wrong?
 263 A. Try using "-m" when creating the playlists, or setting DOSPLAYLIST as an
 264    option in the config file.
 265
 266 OBSOLETE
 267 --------
 268 Q. I set KEEPWAVS to "y" but abcde insists on erasing my directory, along
 269    with the wav tracks. What I am doing wrong?
 270 A. The default action set includes clean, which cleans the temp directory,
 271    if nothing goes wrong. Take the "clean" out from the action list and you
 272    are done.
 273    UPDATE: KEEPWAVS unselects now the clean action.
 274
 275 --
 276 Jesus Climent <jesus.climent@hispalinux.es>