abcde.1

   1 .TH ABCDE 1
   2 .SH NAME
   3 abcde \- Grab an entire CD and compress it to Ogg/Vorbis, MP3, FLAC, Ogg/Speex and/or MPP/MP+(Musepack) format.
   4 .SH SYNOPSIS
   5 .B abcde
   6 .I [options] [tracks]
   7 .SH DESCRIPTION
   8 Ordinarily, the process of grabbing the data off a CD and encoding it, then
   9 tagging or commenting it, is very involved.
  10 .BR abcde
  11 is designed to automate this. It will take an entire CD and convert it into
  12 a compressed audio format - Ogg/Vorbis, MPEG Audio Layer III, Free Lossless
  13 Audio Codec (FLAC), Ogg/Speex or MPP/MP+(Musepack). With one command, it will:
  14 .TP
  15 .B *
  16 Do a CDDB query over the Internet to look up your CD or use a locally stored CDDB entry
  17 .TP
  18 .B *
  19 Grab a track from your CD
  20 .TP
  21 .B *
  22 Compress it to Ogg/Vorbis, MP3, FLAC, Ogg/Speex and/or MPP/MP+(Musepack) format
  23 .TP
  24 .B *
  25 Comment or ID3 tag it
  26 .TP
  27 .B *
  28 Give it an intelligible filename
  29 .TP
  30 .B *
  31 Delete the intermediate WAV file (or save it for later use)
  32 .TP
  33 .B *
  34 Repeat until finished
  35 .SH OPTIONS
  36 .TP
  37 .B \-1
  38 Encode the whole CD in a single file. The resulting file uses the CD title
  39 for tagging.
  40 .TP
  41 .B \-a [actions]
  42 Comma-delimited list of actions to perform. Can be one or more of:
  43 cddb, read, normalize, encode, tag, move, playlist, clean. Normalize
  44 and encode imply read. Tag implies cddb, read, encode. Move implies
  45 cddb, read, encode, tag. Playlist implies cddb. The default is to
  46 do all actions except normalize and playlist.
  47 .TP
  48 .B \-b
  49 Enable batch mode normalization. See the BATCH configuration variable.
  50 .TP
  51 .B \-c [filename]
  52 Specifies an additional configuration file to parse. Configuration options
  53 in this file override those in /etc/abcde.conf or $HOME/.abcde.conf.
  54 .TP
  55 .B \-C [discid]
  56 Allows you to resume a session for
  57 .I discid
  58 when you no longer have the CD available (abcde will automatically resume if
  59 you still have the CD in the drive). You must have already finished at
  60 least the "read" action during the previous session.
  61 .TP
  62 .B \-d [devicename]
  63 CD\-ROM block device that contains audio tracks to be read.
  64 .TP
  65 .B \-D
  66 Capture debugging information (you'll want to redirect this \- try 'abcde \-D
  67 2>logfile')
  68 .TP
  69 .B \-f
  70 Force the use of a locally cached CDDB entry and fallback to a template if none
  71 is found. For faster network-disconnected operation.
  72 .TP
  73 .B \-j [number]
  74 Start [number] encoder processes at once. Useful for SMP systems. Overrides
  75 the MAXPROCS configuration variable. Set it to "0" when using distmp3 to avoid
  76 local encoding processes.
  77 .TP
  78 .B \-k
  79 Keep the wav files after encoding.
  80 .TP
  81 .B \-l
  82 Use the low-diskspace algorithm. See the LOWDISK configuration variable.
  83 .TP
  84 .B \-L
  85 Use a local CDDB repository. See CDDBLOCALDIR variable.
  86 .TP
  87 .B -n
  88 Do not query CDDB database. Create and use a template. Edit the template to
  89 provide song names, artist(s), ...
  90 .TP
  91 .B -N
  92 Non interactive mode. Do not ask anything from the user. Just go ahead.
  93 .TP
  94 .B -m
  95 Create DOS-style playlists, modifying the resulting one by adding CRLF line
  96 endings. Some hardware players insist on having those to work.
  97 .TP
  98 .B \-o [filetype]
  99 Select output type. Can be "ogg", "mp3", "flac", "spx" or "mpc". Specify a
 100 comma-delimited list of output types to obtain all specified types. See
 101 the OUTPUTTYPE configuration variable.
 102 .TP
 103 .B \-p
 104 Pads track numbers with 0\'s.
 105 .TP
 106 .B \-r [hosts...]
 107 Remote encode on this comma-delimited list of machines using distmp3. See
 108 the REMOTEHOSTS configuration variable.
 109 .TP
 110 .B \-s [number]
 111 [DEPRECATED: use -t, see below]
 112 .TP
 113 .B \-S [speed]
 114 Set the speed of the CD drive. Needs CDSPEED and CDSPEEDOPTS set properly
 115 and both the program and device must support the capability.
 116 .TP
 117 .B \-t [number]
 118 Start the numbering of the tracks at a given number. It only affects the
 119 filenames and the playlist. Internal (tag) numbering remains the same.
 120 .TP
 121 .B \-T [number]
 122 Same as \-t but changes also the internal (tag) numbering. Keep in mind that
 123 the default TRACK tag for MP3 is $T/$TRACKS so it is changed to simply $T.
 124 .TP
 125 .B \-v
 126 Show the version and exit
 127 .TP
 128 .B \-V
 129 Be a bit more verbose. On slow networks the CDDB requests might give the
 130 sensation nothins is happening.
 131 .TP
 132 .B \-x
 133 Eject the CD when all tracks have been read. See the EJECTCD configuration
 134 variable.
 135 .TP
 136 .B \-h
 137 Get help information.
 138 .TP
 139 .B [tracks]
 140 A list of tracks you want abcde to process. If this isn't specified, abcde
 141 will process the entire CD. Accepts ranges of track numbers -
 142 "abcde 1-5 7 9" will process tracks 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, and 9.
 143 .SH OUTPUT
 144 Each track is, by default, placed in a separate file named after the track
 145 in a subdirectory named after the artist under the current directory.
 146 This can be modified using the OUTPUTFORMAT and VAOUTPUTFORMAT
 147 variables in your abcde.conf. Each file is given an extension identifying
 148 its compression format, '.ogg', '.mp3', '.flac', '.spx', or '.mpc'.
 149 .SH CONFIGURATION
 150 abcde sources two configuration files on startup - /etc/abcde.conf and
 151 $HOME/.abcde.conf, in that order.
 152 .TP
 153 The configuration variables have to be set as follows:
 154 .TP
 155 .B VARIABLE=value
 156 Except when "value" needs to be quoted or otherwise interpreted. If other
 157 variables within "value" are to be expanded upon reading the configuration
 158 file, then double quotes should be used. If they are only supposed to be
 159 expanded upon use (for example OUTPUTFORMAT) then single quotes must be used.
 160 .TP
 161 All sh escaping/quoting rules apply.
 162 .TP
 163 Here is a list of options abcde recognizes:
 164 .TP
 165 .B CDDBURL
 166 Specifies a server to use for CDDB lookups.
 167 .TP
 168 .B OGGENCODERSYNTAX
 169 Specifies the style of encoder to use for the Ogg/Vorbis encoder. Valid options
 170 are \'oggenc\' (default for Ogg/Vorbis) and \'vorbize\'.
 171 This affects the default location of the binary,
 172 the variable to pick encoder command-line options from, and where the options
 173 are given.
 174 .TP
 175 .B MP3ENCODERSYNTAX
 176 Specifies the style of encoder to use for the MP3 encoder. Valid options are
 177 \'lame\' (default for MP3), \'gogo\', \'bladeenc\', \'l3enc\' and \'mp3enc\'.
 178 Affects the same way as explained above for Ogg/Vorbis.
 179 .TP
 180 .B FLACENCODERSYNTAX
 181 Specifies the style of encoder to use for the FLAC encoder. At this point only
 182 \'flac\' is available for FLAC encoding.
 183 .TP
 184 .B SPEEXENCODERSYNTAX
 185 Specifies the style of encoder to use for Speex encoder. At this point only
 186 \'speexenc\' is available for Ogg/Speex encoding.
 187 .TP
 188 .B MPPENCODERSYNTAX
 189 Specifies the style of encoder to use for MPP/MP+ (Musepack) encoder. At this
 190 point we only have \'mppenc\' available, from corecodecs.org.
 191 .TP
 192 .B NORMALIZERSYNTAX
 193 Specifies the style of normalizer to use.  Valid options are \'default\'
 194 and \'normalize'\ (and both run \'normalize-audio\'), since we only support it, ATM.
 195 .TP
 196 .B HELLOINFO
 197 Specifies the Hello information to send to the CDDB server. The CDDB
 198 protocol requires you to send a valid username and hostname each time you
 199 connect. The format of this is username@hostname.
 200 .TP
 201 .B CDDBLOCALDIR
 202 Specifies a directory where we store a local CDDB repository. The entries must
 203 be standard CDDB entries, with the filename being the DISCID value. Other
 204 CD playing and ripping programs (like Grip) store the entries under ~/.cddb
 205 and we can make use of those entries.
 206 .TP
 207 .B CDDBCOPYLOCAL
 208 Store local copies of the CDDB entries under the $CDDBLOCALDIR directory.
 209 .TP
 210 .B CDDBUSELOCAL
 211 Actually use the stored copies of the CDDB entries. Can be overriden using the
 212 "-L" flag (if is CDDBUSELOCAL in "n"). If an entry is found, we always give
 213 the choice of retrieving a CDDB entry from the internet.
 214 .TP
 215 .B OUTPUTDIR
 216 Specifies the directory to place completed tracks/playlists in.
 217 .TP
 218 .B WAVOUTPUTDIR
 219 Specifies the temporary directory to store .wav files in. Abcde may use up
 220 to 700MB of temporary space for each session (although it is rare to use
 221 over 100MB for a machine that can encode music as fast as it can read it).
 222 .TP
 223 .B OUTPUTFORMAT
 224 Specifies the format for completed Ogg/Vorbis, MP3, FLAC, Ogg/Speex or MPP/MP+
 225 (Musepack) filenames.
 226 Variables are included
 227 using standard shell syntax. Allowed variables are GENRE, ALBUMFILE, ARTISTFILE,
 228 TRACKFILE, TRACKNUM, and YEAR. Default is
 229 \'${ARTISTFILE}-${ALBUMFILE}/${TRACKNUM}-${TRACKFILE}\'.
 230 Make sure to use single quotes around this variable. TRACKNUM is
 231 automatically zero-padded, when the number of encoded tracks is higher than
 232 9. When lower, you can force with '-p' in the command line.
 233 .TP
 234 .B OUTPUTTYPE
 235 Specifies the encoding format to output, as well as the default extension and
 236 encoder. Defaults to "ogg". Valid settings are "ogg" (Ogg/Vorbis), "mp3"
 237 (MPEG-1 Audio Layer III), "flac" (Free Lossless Audio Codec), "spx" (Ogg/Speex)
 238 and "mpc" (MPP/MP+ (Musepack)). Values like "ogg,mp3" encode the tracks in
 239 both Ogg/Vorbis and MP3 formats.
 240 .P
 241 For each value in OUTPUTTYPE, abcde expands a different process for encoding,
 242 tagging and moving, so you can use the format placeholder, OUTPUT, to create
 243 different subdirectories to hold the different types. The variable OUTPUT will
 244 be 'ogg', 'mp3', 'flac', 'spx' and/or 'mpc', depending on the OUTPUTTYPE you define.
 245 For example
 246 .P
 247 OUTPUTFORMAT='${OUTPUT}/${ARTISTFILE}/${ALBUMFILE}/${TRACKNUM}._${TRACKFILE}'
 248 .TP
 249 .B VAOUTPUTFORMAT
 250 Just like OUTPUTFORMAT but for Various Artists discs. Default is whatever
 251 OUTPUTFORMAT is set to.
 252 .TP
 253 .B PATHNAMES
 254 The following configuration file options specify the pathnames of their
 255 respective utilities: LAME, GOGO, BLADEENC, L3ENC, XINGMP3ENC, MP3ENC,
 256 VORBIZE, OGGENC, FLAC, SPEECENC, MPPENC, ID3, ID3V2, CDPARANOIA, CDDA2WAV,
 257 HTTPGET, CDDISCID, CDDBTOOL, EJECT, NORMALIZE, DISTMP3, VORBISCOMMENT, and
 258 CDSPEED.
 259 .TP
 260 .B COMMAND-LINE OPTIONS
 261 If you wish to specify command-line options to any of the programs abcde
 262 uses, set the following configuration file options: LAMEOPTS, GOGOOPTS,
 263 BLADEENCOPTS, L3ENCOPTS, XINGMP3ENCOPTS, MP3ENCOPTS, VORBIZEOPTS,
 264 OGGENCOPTS, FLACOPTS, SPEEXENCOPTS, MPPENCOPTS, ID3OPTS, ID3V2OPTS,
 265 CDPARANOIAOPTS, CDDA2WAVOPTS, HTTPGETOPTS, CDDBTOOLOPTS, EJECTOPTS,
 266 DISTMP3OPTS, NORMALIZEOPTS, CDSPEEDOPTS, and CDSPEEDVALUE.
 267 .TP
 268 .B CDROM
 269 If set, it points to the CD-Rom device which has to be used for audio
 270 extraction. Abcde tries to guess the right device, but it may fail.
 271 .TP
 272 .B MAXPROCS
 273 Defines how many encoders to run at once. This makes for huge speedups
 274 on SMP systems. You should run one encoder per CPU at once for maximum
 275 efficiency, although more doesn't hurt very much. Set it "0" when using
 276 mp3dist to avoid getting encoding processes in the local host.
 277 .TP
 278 .B LOWDISK
 279 If set to y, conserves disk space by encoding tracks immediately after
 280 reading them. This is substantially slower than normal operation but
 281 requires several hundred MB less space to complete the encoding of an
 282 entire CD. Use only if your system is low on space and cannot encode as
 283 quickly as it can read.
 284 .TP
 285 .B BATCH
 286 If set to y, enables batch mode normalization, which preserves relative
 287 volume differences between tracks of an album. Also enables nogap encoding
 288 when using the \'lame\' encoder.
 289 .TP
 290 .B KEEPWAVS
 291 It defaults to no, so if you want to keep those wavs ripped from your CD,
 292 set it to "y". You can use the "-k" switch in the command line. The default
 293 behaviour with KEEPWAVS set is the keep the temporary directory and the wav
 294 files even you have requested the "clean" action.
 295 .TP
 296 .B PADTRACKS
 297 If set to "y", it adds 0's to the file numbers to complete a two-number
 298 holder. Usefull when encoding tracks 1-9.
 299 .TP
 300 .B PLAYLISTFORMAT
 301 Specifies the format for completed playlist filenames. Works like the
 302 OUTPUTFORMAT configuration variable. Default is
 303 \'${ARTISTFILE}_\-_${ALBUMFILE}.m3u\'.
 304 Make sure to use single quotes around this variable.
 305 .TP
 306 .B PLAYLISTDATAPREFIX
 307 Specifies a prefix for filenames within a playlist. Useful for http
 308 playlists, etc.
 309 .TP
 310 .B DOSPLAYLIST
 311 If set, the resulting playlist will have CR-LF line endings, needed by some
 312 hardware-based players.
 313 .TP
 314 .B COMMENT
 315 Specifies a comment to embed in the ID3 or Ogg comment field of each
 316 finished track. Can be up to 28 characters long. Supports the same
 317 syntax as OUTPUTFORMAT. Does not currently support ID3v2.
 318 .TP
 319 .B REMOTEHOSTS
 320 Specifies a comma-delimited list of systems to use for remote encoding using
 321 distmp3. Equivalent to -r.
 322 .TP
 323 .B mungefilename
 324 mungefilename() is an abcde shell function that can be overridden via
 325 abcde.conf. It takes CDDB data as $1 and outputs the resulting filename on
 326 stdout. It defaults to eating control characters, apostrophes and
 327 question marks, translating spaces and forward slashes to underscores, and
 328 translating colons to an underscore and a hyphen.
 329 .br
 330 If you modify this function, it is probably a good idea to keep the forward
 331 slash munging (UNIX cannot store a file with a '/' char in it) as well as
 332 the control character munging (NULs can't be in a filename either, and
 333 newlines and such in filenames are typically not desirable).
 334 .TP
 335 .B mungegenre
 336 mungegenre () is a shell function used to modify the $GENRE variable. As
 337 a default action, it takes $GENRE as $1 and outputs the resulting value
 338 to stdout converting all UPPERCASE characters to lowercase.
 339 .TP
 340 .B pre_read
 341 pre_read () is a shell function which is executed before the CDROM is read
 342 for the first time, during abcde execution. It can be used to close the CDROM
 343 tray, to set its speed (via "setcd" or via "eject", if available) and other
 344 preparation actions. The default function is empty.
 345 .TP
 346 .B EJECTCD
 347 If set to "y", abcde will call eject(1) to eject the cdrom from the drive
 348 after all tracks have been read.
 349 .TP
 350 .B EXTRAVERBOSE
 351 If set to "y", some operations which are usually now shown to the end user
 352 are visible, such as CDDB queries. Usefull for initial debug and if your
 353 network/CDDB server is slow.
 354 .SH BACKEND TOOLS
 355 abcde requires the following backend tools to work:
 356 .TP
 357 .B *
 358 An Ogg/Vorbis, MP3, FLAC, Ogg/Speex or MPP/MP+(Musepack) encoder (oggenc, vorbize, lame, gogo, bladeenc, l3enc, mp3enc, flac, speexenc, mppenc)
 359 .TP
 360 .B *
 361 An audio CD reading utility (cdparanoia, cdda2wav, dagrab)
 362 .TP
 363 .B *
 364 cd-discid, a CDDB DiscID reading program.
 365 .TP
 366 .B *
 367 An HTTP retrieval program: wget, fetch (FreeBSD) or curl (Mac OS X, among others).
 368 .TP
 369 .B *
 370 (for MP3s) id3 or id3v2, id3 v1 and v2 tagging programs.
 371 .TP
 372 .B *
 373 (optional) distmp3, a client/server for distributed mp3 encoding.
 374 .TP
 375 .B *
 376 (optional) normalize, a WAV file volume normalizer.
 377 .SH "SEE ALSO"
 378 .BR cdparanoia (1),
 379 .BR cdda2wav (1),
 380 .BR dagrab (1),
 381 .BR normalize-audio (1),
 382 .BR oggenc (1),
 383 .BR vorbize (1),
 384 .BR flac (1),
 385 .BR speexenc(1),
 386 .BR mppenc(1),
 387 .BR id3 (1),
 388 .BR wget (1),
 389 .BR fetch (1),
 390 .BR cd-discid (1),
 391 .BR distmp3 (1),
 392 .BR distmp3host (1),
 393 .BR curl(1)
 394 .SH AUTHORS
 395 Robert Woodcock <rcw@debian.org>,
 396 Jesus Climent <jesus.climent@hispalinux.es> and contributions from many others.