[PLUG] MP3 Ripper

Wed May 29 05:28:57 UTC 2002

On Tue, 28 May 2002, Robbert van Andel wrote:

> I got it, but the website is very cryptic on installing it.?  I use Red
> Hat, not Debian.  Any suggestions?
[snip]

There isn't actually much to it even in the Debian version, it provides
two command line tools:

    abcde, cddb-tool

I think the problem is you need a bunch of other programs in order to
use it:

  1 - An encoder (one of these): lame, gogo, bladeenc, or l3enc
  2 - id3
  3 - cdparanoia
  4 - cdda2wav
  5 - wget
  6 - cd-discid
  7 - vorbis-tools
  8 - eject
  9 - distmp3

Some of these are optional depending on what you want to do, I don't have
distmp3 installed, don't use vorbis (yet) or eject so these could
presumably be left out.  These are all command line tools and I don't
think any of them require any configuration, just stick them on your
path.  Once you have them all installed and on your default path, you
just need a  configuration file in your home directory:

   .abcde.conf

see below for my configuration - you will need to adjust it for your
needs, particularly to match the encoder you are using (I use bladeenc).
Once it's all installed, just pop in a CD and enter the command:

 abcde

With my configuration file and a computer with access to the internet (for
looking up the album titles and track names) it will automatically rip the
tracks, encode them, and place them in a directory structure like this:

   /home/music/<group_name>/<album_name>/<cd tracks>

with each track given the appropriate name for the song.  A play list
file will also be generated in the same directory with the tracks in the
correct order.

It may be a pain for non-Debian users to install, but I think it gives
you the ultimate in flexibility.

If it helps, my config file is below.

Shannon C. Dealy      |               DeaTech Research Inc.
dealy at deatech.com     |          - Custom Software Development -
                      |    Embedded Systems, Real-time, Device Drivers
Phone: (800) 467-5820 | Networking, Scientific & Engineering Applications
   or: (541) 451-5177 |                  www.deatech.com

==================== ~/.abcde.conf ======================================

# System defaults for abcde.
# If you wish to override these system-wide settings, create your own
# .abcde.conf file in your home directory.

# If you wish to use a different CDDB server, edit this line.
# If you just wanted to use a proxy server, just set your http_proxy
# environment variable - wget will use it correctly.
#CDDBURL="http://cddb.cddb.com/~cddb/cddb.cgi"
CDDBURL=http://freedb.freedb.org/~cddb/cddb.cgi

# The CDDB protocol requires hello information, including a valid username
# and hostname. If you feel paranoid about giving away such info, edit this
# line - the format is username+hostname.
HELLOINFO="nobody at nowhere.com"

# Specify the style of encoder to use here - lame, gogo, bladeenc, or l3enc.
# Currently this affects the default location of the binary, the variable
# to pick encoder command-line options from, and where the options are
# given.
#ENCODERSYNTAX=lame
ENCODERSYNTAX=bladeenc

# CD reader program to use - currently recognized options are 'cdparanoia'
# and 'cdda2wav'.
#CDROMREADERSYNTAX=cdparanoia

# Paths of programs to use
#ID3=id3
#LAME=lame
#BLADEENC=bladeenc
#L3ENC=l3enc
#GOGO=gogo
#ID3=id3
#CDPARANOIA=cdparanoia
#CDDA2WAV=cdda2wav
#WGET=wget
#CDDISCID=cd-discid
#CDDBTOOL=cddb-tool

# Options to call programs with
#LAMEOPTS=
#BLADEENCOPTS=
#L3ENCOPTS=
#GOGOOPTS=
#ID3OPTS=
#CDPARANOIAOPTS=
#CDDA2WAVOPTS=
#WGETOPTS=
#CDDBTOOLOPTS=

# CDDB options
# If NOSUBMIT is set to y, then abcde will never prompt asking if you
# wish to submit your edited cddb file.
#NOSUBMIT=n
# If NOCDDBQUERY is set to y, then abcde will never even try to access
# the CDDB server; running abcde will automatically drop you into a
# blank cddb file to edit at your leisure.  This is the same as the
# -n option.  NOCDDBQUERY=y implies NOSUBMIT=y.
#NOCDDBQUERY=n

# CD device you want to read from
#CDROM=/dev/cdrom

# If you'd like to make a default location that overrides the current
# directory for putting mp3's, uncomment this.
OUTPUTDIR=/home/music

# Or if you'd just like to put the temporary .wav files somewhere else
# you can specify that here
WAVOUTPUTDIR=/home/music

# Output filename format - change this to reflect your inner desire to
# organize things differently than everyone else :)
# You have the following variables at your disposal:
# ALBUMFILE, ARTISTFILE, TRACKFILE, and TRACKNUM.
# Make sure to single-quote this variable. abcde will automatically create
# the directory portion of this filename.
#OUTPUTFORMAT='${ARTISTFILE}/${TRACKFILE}.mp3'
OUTPUTFORMAT='${ARTISTFILE}/${ALBUMFILE}/${TRACKFILE}.mp3'

# Define how many encoders to run at once. This makes for huge speedups
# on SMP systems. Defaults to 1. Equivalent to -j.
#MAXPROCS=2

# Low disk options:
# 1:	Default parallelization (read entire CD in while encoding)
# 2:	No parallelization (rip, encode, rip, encode...)
# 3:	Smart parallelization (not yet implemented - doesn't rip until the
#	encoder will be ready for the data)
LOWDISK=1

# Playlist generation options:
# Uncomment this to generate m3u files for each CD. Equivalent to -p.
PLAYLIST=y
# Uncomment this to *only* generate m3u files. No ripping/encoding will be
# done. Equivalent to -P. Probably not the most useful thing to permanently
# set.
#PLAYLISTONLY=y
# Set the playlist file location format. Uses the same variables and format
# as OUTPUTFORMAT. If the playlist is specified to be in a subdirectory, it
# will be created for you and the playlist will reference files from that
# subdirectory.
#PLAYLISTFORMAT='${ARTISTFILE}_-_${ALBUMFILE}.m3u'
PLAYLISTFORMAT='${ARTISTFILE}/${ALBUMFILE}/PlayList.m3u'
# If you want to prefix every filename in a playlist with an arbitrary
# string (such as 'http://you/yourstuff/'), use this option
#PLAYLISTDATAPREFIX=''