ABCDE
=====
abcde is a frontend command-line utility (actually, a shell script) that
grabs tracks off a CD, encodes them to ogg, mp3 or flac format, and tags 
them, all in one go.

Your finished Oggs/MP3/Flac's are, by default, stored in a subdirectory of 
the current directory (named after the artist) with a filename based on the
track title. Spaces are replaced by underscores, and apostrophes and
control codes are filtered out. Colons are replaced with an underscore and a
hyphen. The end result usually looks like: Our_Lady_Peace/Supermans_Dead.mp3
This filename munging is customizable - edit the mungefilename function in
your abcde.conf to change it.

Need to go through an HTTP proxy for CDDB access? No problem, just export
your http_proxy variable first so wget/fetch can see it.

Low on disk space? abcde has different algorithms to schedule ripping and
encoding - to optimize for disk conservation, use -l.

abcde can also take advantage of SMP systems, just like make. Try
'abcde -j 2' - it'll run two encoder jobs while it rips the next
track.

abcde now uses FreeDB by default. To use a different FreeDB mirror or
another CDDB service, change the CDDBURL option in your abcde.conf.

Frustrated that you can't use the CPU power on Machine A sitting right
next to Machine B with the fast cdrom drive? Now you don't have to be -
Run distmp3host (included in distmp3) on Machine A, and then run
abcde -r MachineA from Machine B (where "MachineA" is a dns name or IP
address). Use this in combination with '-j 0' to shift all encoding off the
local machine.

You do not have internet connection, or just feel with free time to write 
down all the song names and artists instead of using CDDB? Use -n and edit
the template.

To make abcde 2.x work more like 1.x, put these options in your abcde.conf:

INTERACTIVE=n
OUTPUTTYPE=mp3
ID3TAGV=1

Options added/modified from 2.1.1 to 2.1.3:

* WGET has been substituted by HTTPGET. Now we support fetch as retrieval
  program.
* KEEPWAVS has been introduced. Set it to "y" and do not use the "clean"
  action so the wav tracks will be kept.
* CDDBPROTO is used to specify the protocol level in the CDDB retrieval.
* DAGRAB has been introduced as a cd ripper.

Options added/modified from 2.0.3 to 2.1.x:

* -b use batch processing. It uses normalize to adjust the volume of the
  songs, and a -g gapless option from lame to remove gaps. Only available
  for mp3+lame combination.
* a new "normalize" option has been added to -a, to normalize the volume.
* -o works now with a combination of the different outputs: ogg, mp3, flac.
  Combine them separated by ",". Example: "-o ogg,flac".
* OUTPUTTYPE is no longer used for the output file type. From version 2.1
  abcde implements multiple-output and the file type is always appended at
  the end of the file. The OUTPUT variable can be used in the 
  PLAYLISTFORMAT and OUTPUTFORMAT to create different directory structures
  and playlist names for each of the output formats selected.
* DYEAR can be used as DiskYear value in CDDB data. If the data is not 
  supplied by the CDDB server, it can be added.

Other options that changed from 1.x to 2.x:

* -e doesn't exist anymore, abcde now presents you with all of the cddb data
  and asks you if you want to edit it. If you don't want to be asked,
  use -N or INTERACTIVE=n
* The output type defaults to Ogg Vorbis. Specify -o mp3 or OUTPUTTYPE=mp3
  if you still want to output mp3's.
* -l 2 is now just -l, LOWDISK=2 should now be LOWDISK=y
* -V and -v are gone, abcde will now prompt you if you'd like to use Various
  Artists handling, after showing you the cddb data.
* -P is now '-a playlist,clean', PLAYLISTONLY=y is now
  ACTIONS=playlist,clean
* -p is now '-a playlist,move,clean', PLAYLIST=y is now
  ACTIONS=playlist,move,clean
* cddb-tool has been cleaned up a little bit. 'get' is now 'query' and
  'read', and the tempfile handling has been removed.
* ID3COMMENT is now COMMENT.
* FreeDB is now the default CDDB database.

abcde requires the following backend tools to work:

* An Ogg encoder (oggenc, the default, or vorbize) or:
* An MP3 encoder (lame, gogo, bladeenc, l3enc, etc). Any MP3 encoder that
  takes two filenames on the command line, one for input, one for output,
  will work.
  You can get lame at: http://www.mp3dev.org/mp3/
  You can get gogo at: http://homepage1.nifty.com/herumi/gogo_e.html
  You can get BladeEnc at: http://bladeenc.mp3.no/
  You can get a trial version of mp3enc at:
    http://www.iis.fhg.de/amm/download/ or:
* Flac encoder (flac)
* normalize for volume normalization.
* CD Paranoia, an audio CD reading utility,
* Or cdda2wav, the audio CD reading utility cdparanoia was born from,
* Or dagrab, another audio CD reading utility.
* cd-discid, a CDDB DiscID reading program. Formerly bundled with abcde.
  It's available in Debian or at http://lly.org/~rcw/cd-discid/.
* An HTTP retrieval program: wget or fetch (FreeBSD)
* id3, an id3 tagging program. Available at: http://lly.org/~rcw/id3/
* id3v2, an id3 version 2.0 tagger. http://id3v2.sourceforge.net/
* (optional) distmp3, a client/server for distributed mp3 encoding.
  You can get distmp3 at http://wlug.westbo.se/medlprog/medlprog.html

Potential problems:

Having trouble getting cdparanoia to read from your drive as a user?
Add yourself to the cdrom group, change the permissions on your cdrom device
to 660, and if you have a SCSI cdrom drive, check the permissions on
/dev/sg* as well.

Running out of disk space for .wav files but don't want to use -l? Put them
in a different location by adding WAVOUTPUTDIR=/some/other/path to your
/etc/abcde.conf or ~/.abcde.conf.

If abcde seems to be ignoring your configuration options or not running
commands such as the encoder, you may have misquoted something. Config
options such as the following do not work:

LAMEOPTS=-h -k

Try this instead:

LAMEOPTS='-h -k'

Abcde's mailing list is abcde@whimsica.lly.org. It's a good place to find
out about new releases and talk about bug reports and feature requests.
You are encouraged to subscribe - my goal is to keep as much discussion
about issues in abcde public as possible and to encourage open feedback.
The list is low-volume and posts from non-subscribers are moderated to
prevent spam.

Archives of the list are publically available at:
http://lly.org/~rcw/abcde/list/current/threads.html

To subscribe, put "subscribe" in the subject or body of an email to
"abcde-request@whimsica.lly.org".

abcde's new homepage will be at http://abcde.hispalinux.es/.
Abcde's old homepage is at http://lly.org/~rcw/abcde/page/.
--
Robert Woodcock <rcw@debian.org>
Jesus Climent <jesus.climent@hispalinux.es>
