Linux audio

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Audio CD ripping

See Linux CD.

Format conversion

This section is about how to convert an audio file from one format (e.g. .flac) into another one (e.g. .mp3).

Audio Conversion using Virtual FS

mp3fs

Example: 

mp3fs -b 224 ~/Music /mnt/mp3 -o allow_other,ro

Nautilus Audio Converter

Install with
sudo apt-get install wavpack mppenc libmpcdec3 faac flac vorbis-tools faad lame libid3-3.8.3-dev nautilus-script-audio-convert
libid3-3.8.3-dev needed for id3tag.
See Ubuntu Geek - Simplest way to convert audio file(s) on Ubuntu Linux

Gnome Sound Converter

Very nice utility.

  • Can convert to flac, ogg, mp3.
  • Output to given directory, in {artis - album} format
  • mp3, support lame vbr (but apparently --vbr-old only) — done via GStreamer pipeline.

flac - FLAC encoder / decoder

flac -d source.flac
flac -d source.flac -o output.wav
flac -d source.flac -c                 # Write output to stdout

lame - MP3 encoder / decoder

See also Technical information on encoding settings. 

lame -m auto --preset standard input.wav output.mp3       # Equiv to fast standard
lame -m auto --preset fast standard input.wav output.mp3  # Equiv to -V2 (~192kbps)
lame -m auto --preset extreme input.wav output.mp3        # Equiv to fast extreme
lame -m auto --preset fast extreme input.wav output.mp3   # Equiv to -V0 (~256kbps)
lame -m auto --preset insane input.wav output.mp3         # Equiv to -b 320

twolame - MP2 encoder / decoder

twolame -b 256 input.wav -o "output.mp3"

pacpl - Multi-format encoder / decoder in Perl

# From FLAC to MP3 - Using LAME (extreme quality) - recurse & keep directory structure
pacpl --to mp3 -r -p flac/ --outdir /media/USB --encoder lame --defopts 0 --eopts="-m auto --preset fast extreme"
# To decrease encoding priority:
nice -n 19 pacpl ...

To change the directory structure from "Artist - Album" to "Artist/Album": 

for i in *; do eval $(echo $i | sed -r '/ - /!s/(.*)/ARTIST=Various;ALBUM="\1"/; / - /s/(.*) - (.*)/ARTIST="\1"; ALBUM="\2"/'); mkdir "$ARTIST"; mv "$i" "$ARTIST/$ALBUM"; done

yaflac2mp3 - Yet Another FLAC to MP3 script

An handy script to transcode from FLAC to MP3. Could be used as a basis for customized script. See also [1] for more ideas. 

yaflac2mp3.sh -s . -d mp3

Using Banshee player

  • Plug external mp3 player device
  • Right click on device in Banshee
  • Select the media type (ogg, mp3), then click on edit button.
    • For mp3, quality goes from 0 (worst) to 9 (best). 7 seems equivalent to lame -V 2, i.e. fast standard preset, and 9 seems equivalent to lame -V 0, ie. fast extreme preset
  • BUG? — apparently can't save to .ogg although ogg is selected as encoder... — SOLVED see below.
  • BUG? — export all files in device root directory — SOLVED see below.
  • Create a file named ..is_audio_player in device root directory. For instance, to have audio files added in OGG format to the device, using a 1-folder deep structure (ie. Artist - Album/Track. Title), use the following:
name=SAMSUNG\ YP-U1\ (1GB)
folder_depth=1
output_formats=application/ogg,audio/mpeg,audio/mp3

To have files stored elsewhere than in root folder: 

name=SAMSUNG\ CARD\ (8GB)
audio_folders=musics/,other/subfolder
folder_depth=2
output_formats=application/ogg,audio/mpeg,audio/mp3

Using RhythmBox player

  • Can also export to external mp3 player
  • BUG? — Apparently only in mp3 (although there are some settings about preferred format in preferences)
  • Quality seems to be lame --preset fast standard
  • Export in /Artist/Album/Track - Title.mp3

Cover Art and ID3 Tags

Conventions and standards

Cover art filename
Usual names are folder.jpg (apparently the standard on Windows) and cover.jpg. Other options are front.jpg, %filename%.jpg or%album%.jpg.
Banshee supports at least folder.jpg and cover.jpg.
On Android, the standard is albumart.jpg.
Encoding / charset
  • Use UTF-8 as default charset, both for the filename and the tags.
  • Enforcing Unicode filenames — UTF-8 is usually the default charset for mounted filesystems on Linux (ext3/4, reiserfs...). However on Samba, it requires option iocharset=utf8:
mount -t cifs -o iocharset=utf8 //host/share /mnt/point
For USB sticks, make sure it is enabled with option utf8=1:
mount - vfat -o utf8=1 /dev/sdb1 /mnt/point
  • Enforcing Unicode tags — Note that some converter screw up with the charset (for instance pacpl). So you might need to post-process the tags after conversion, for instance id3-to-unicode or github fork).

Editors (GUI-based)

mp3 tag editor, idv3 tags...

MusicBrainZ Picard
Probably the most complete and powerful editor out there. Front-end to Picard database. Including cover art download.
Banshee
Banshee first takes the cover art locally from file (folder.jpg, cover.jpg...). Otherwise it will download automatically cover arts for music in the library. These cover arts are stored in ~/.cache/media-art. Cover art filename is a hash of artist and album name (See this link for a more powerful script [6]):
f="Ennio Morricone"
al="My Name Is Nobody"
echo "~/.cache/media-art/album-$(echo -ne "$f\t$al" | md5sum | cut -b1-32).jpg"
  • You can edit metadata (ID3 tags) in Banshee, but click Write metadata to files to save back to library.
Easytags aac
  • Edit ID3 tag, including cover arts (with automatically download)
Puddletag
  • A bit buggy sometimes
folder.jpg
  • Used under Windows.

Editors (CLI-based)

Beets with fetchart plugins
Has auto-tagging facility (MusicBrainZ support) and can fetch and embed album arts automatically from itunes, amazon, google...
eyeD3 (best)
A simple tag editor, very complete (including cover art edition).
eyeD3 myfile.mp3
eyeD3 --list-image-types                          # View available image type (APIC frame)
eyeD3 --add-image=folder.jpg:FRONT_COVER:folder.jpg myfile.mp3
eyeD3 --plugin=stats --verbose *.mp3              # Stats on mp3 files, including bad / missing tags
id3v2
Does not report cover arts.
mp3info
Only id3 v1 it seems
id3ed (no package on ubuntu)
CoverLovin — obsolete
To download cover art automatically. Broken.
Album Cover Art Downloader — obsolete
Can save into a folder.jpg file, .folder.png and an Icon entry in .directory for Konqueror, into an ID3v3 APIC frame...
Broken.

Tools and scripts

View ALL tags in a music collection

Reference: [7]

Require eyeD3. 

find music -iname "*.mp3" -exec eyeD3 -v {} \; | tee index
sort -u index | awk -F\): '/^<.*$/ {print $1}' | uniq | awk -F\)\> '{print $1}' | awk -F\( '{print $(NF)}' > tags

Remove ALL tags but some in a music collection

Reference: [8], [9]

This script removes all tags except a few white listed ones. This is handy to remove inaccurate tags, or in case of conflicts (for instance when two tags are in conflict because tag editor ignored one of the tag). Tags may also contain private information (like buying date, etc).


Require eyeD3. Run as 

cd ~/music
strip-tags.sh

See oktags for list of tags that are kept.

Music players, library managers and organizers

Reference: [10], [11]

My current favorites: banshee, beets, cmus and picard.

Amarok

TBC

Banshee

TBC

Beets

beets is a very powerful and extensible music library manager. It can auto-tag music files, find cover arts, browse and search for title very rapidly...

References:

To install: 

sudo pip install beets
sudo pip install requests            # For album art download plugin fetchart
sudo easy_install python-itunes      # To allow downloading art from iTunes

First configure beet. Issue command beet config -e, and enter the following config: 

directory: ~/music
library: ~/.cache/musiclibrary.blb
import:
    copy: no
plugins: fetchart
fetchart:
    maxwidth: 1000

This will configure beets to store music in directory ~/music, and build its database into ~/.cache/musiclibrary.blb. The copy: no option tells beets not to move/copy the imported music to local music folder. Then a few plugins are loaded and configured.

Import music files into your library: 

beet import ~/music

Some commands:

  • beet config -p
get location of the config file.
  • beet list [query]
beet ls [query]
Show the full library, or search it with given query.

Some tips:

  • Beets can fetch art for album already in the library [12]:
beet fetchart [-f] [query]
  • Beets can embed art using plugin embedart.
  • Beets can look for track duplicates

cmus

cmus is a small, fast and powerful console music player for Unix-like operating systems. TBC

Install latest version
  • Install build dependencies
sudo apt-get build-dep cmus
  • Download latest version and untar it
tar xvzf cmus-2.7.1.tar.gz
cd cmus-2.7.1
../configure
make
sudo make install
Basic usage
  • u — Update media cache.
Troubleshoot
  • Incorrect sorting of album artists.
Probably due to conflicting tags (see [13], [14]). Cmus uses the content of tag TPE2 (aka "album artist") if present instead of TPE1 (aka "artist") used by other players like Amarok. The solution is to update the tags, or strip unnecessary tags using the script above strip-tags.sh.
See also http://id3.org/id3v2.3.0 for tag info.
  • To have all tracks of a same albums listed under the same artists, but still keep different artists / track, use a common artist name for album artist (e.g. Adamo) and a specific name for artist (e.g. Adamo en duo avec Bénabar).

gmusicbrowser

TBC

Guayadeque

TBC

MPD

MPD stands for Music Player Daemon. TBC.

Nightingale

TBC

MusicBrainZ Picard

Picard is a front-end to the MusicBrainZ library.

Troubleshoot — Cannot load album information in Picard 1.2
  • This is a known bug in Picard 1.2 that prevents Picard to download album information when album art are associated with unknown types. Upgrade to version 1.3.2 from Ubuntu repository (ex. Xenial release).
Select the CORRECT LABEL
Tag files - easiest method
Easiest method is to use the CD lookup feature.
  • Insert the CD
  • Click on CD lookup.
  • This will find the release in MB database.
  • Then drag and drop your locally extracted album onto that release.
Tag files - easy method
  • First Add Folder, or (with file browser visible) drag and drop a folder to Unmatched Files.
  • Click Cluster
  • Click an album in the cluster, or click Clusters to lookup all albums, and click Lookup
  • Right click album in right pane, and select Save.
Tag files - scanning
When Picard does not find a release corresponding to the cluster, use the scanning tool to find the release.
  • Click an album in the cluster (or Clusters' to select all clusters), and click Scan.
Tag files - manual lookup
  • Click an album cluster, and click Lookup in browser.
  • Browse the MB database. When the matching release is found, click the TAGGER link (the tag with green background)
  • The release opens in Picard (it was send via port 8000 that Picard is listening to). Now either drag & drop the album on that release, or drag&drap each track individually. On error, just right click on the track and click remove.
Encoding a new release - Examples
  • Label: Columbia, Cat. No: COL 488791-2

My options:

Tags Cover Art File Naming
Before tagging
  • Clear existing tags
  • Remove ID3 tags from FLAC files
  • Remove APEv2 tags from MP3 files
  • ID3v2 version: 2.3
Location
  • Embed cover images into tags
  • Embed only front images
  • Save cover images as separate files. Use file name: folder.
Coverart Providers
  • Amazon
  • CD Baby
  • Cover Art Archive
Cover Art Archive
  • Only use images of the following size: 500px
  • Download only images: Front, Back
  • Use the first image type as the filename
  • Rename files when saving
  • Replace Windows-incompatible characters
  • Move files to this directory when saving: (update as necessary)
  • Delete empty directories
  • Move additional files: *.jpg *.png *.cue *.accurip *.log *.m3u
Name file like this
  • if2(%albumartist%,%artist%)/%album%/$if($gt(%totaldiscs%,1),%discnumber%-,)$num(%tracknumber%,2)$if(%compilation%, %artist% -,) %title%

Rhythmbox

TBC

Web Radio

Several ways to play internet radios in Linux (sources [15]).

Let's consider the following radios: 

[playlist]
numberofentries=5
File1=http://85.25.86.69:8100
Title1=(#1 - 25/160) Chromanova.fm presents: Ambient & Chillout Deejay Sets
Length1=-1
File2=http://212.112.241.88:8100
Title2=(#2 - 25/120) Chromanova.fm presents: Ambient & Chillout Deejay Sets
Length1=-1
File3=http://85.25.86.69:9000
Title3=(#3 - 159/160) Chromanova.fm presents: Ambient & Chillout Deejay Sets
Length1=-1

Here we list the various way to play the radios listed above.

Mplayer
  • Mplayer can play most streams. Give it the *stream* URL, not the playlist. Use -cache 1000 to cache audio stream. Works also fine with proxies.
mplayer -cache 1000 http://85.25.86.69:8100
mpg123
  • mpg123 can also play most radio stream. Works also fine with proxies.
mpg123 -cache 1000 http://85.25.86.69:8100
audacious
  • TBC
streamtuner2
  • TBC
streamtuner2 -r         # Then tell audacious to open http://localhost:8000
streamripper
  • Use streamripper to rip an audio stream into a file. It can also relay the stripped stream to a local port to be played and ripped simultaneously
streamripper server:port -D "%S/%q -- %A - %T"           # Rip to file (w/ naming convention)
streamripper server:port -D "%S/%q -- %A - %T" -r        # Rip and relay to port 8000
mpg123 http://localhost:8000                             # ... and play it
banshee
  • NOT WORKING — can't make it work, at least behind a proxy. Giving either .pls, or stream URL, nothing works (w/o error msg)


rhythmbox
  • NOT WORKING — can't make it work, at least behind a proxy. Giving either .pls, or stream URL, nothing works (w/o error msg)
amarok
  • STATE UNKNOWN — Used to work in the past, but need some weird configuration for the proxy.
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