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Xenial Xerus has a nice modern version of abcde:

andrew@athens:~$ abcde -v | head -n 1
This is abcde v2.7.1.

I would like to use this to produce:

  1. High quality mp3 files for my portable player
  2. Lossless flac files as an archival backup
  3. Suitable album art download for both formats

Using the capabilities of Xenial's abcde to perform all 3 actions at the same time...

Full disclosure: I was formerly one of the maintainers of abcde.

andrew.46
  • 39,479

1 Answers1

11

The version of abcde under Xenial is quite capable but some extra applications are needed as well as abcde itself:

sudo apt-get install abcde lame eyed3 glyrc imagemagick cdparanoia flac

Now to create great quality mp3s and flacs at the same time (with album art also downloaded) the following simple commandline is required:

abcde -o 'flac:-8,mp3:-b 320' -G

abcde will ask you a few questions and then you can sit back while your CD is converted into 2 of the most popular audio formats today :).

Full disclosure: I was formerly one of the maintainers of abcde.

andrew.46
  • 39,479
  • http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=535950 gives this apt-get command: sudo apt-get install abcde cd-discid lame cdparanoia id3 id3v2. Is cdparanoia no longer required? I see cdparanoia referred to by the page at http://www.andrews-corner.org/abcde.html too. – bgoodr Jul 05 '16 at 23:59
  • Answering my own question above: abcde depends upon cdparanoia, so no need to list it. – bgoodr Jul 06 '16 at 00:24
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    @bgoodr Good to see you answered yourself :) – andrew.46 Jul 06 '16 at 01:15
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    What does -8 mean in flac:-8? – Matthias Nov 10 '23 at 21:36
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    @Matthias, it seems to be:

    -0..-8, --compression-level-0..--compression-level-8 Fastest compression..highest compression (default is -5).

    Check man flac.

     – João M. S. Silva Mar 16 '24 at 18:03
  • For anyone looking for how to continue when it says "Retrieved n matches": press 'q' and you will get the possibility to choose one of the album matches and continue. – 4rj4n Apr 13 '25 at 12:19
  • @4rj4n This is true for most users but it depends on the default pager of the user. This is covered in the FAQs for abcde under: 'I get stuck at the screen with multiple CDDB results.'. From memory I wrote this section :) – andrew.46 Apr 15 '25 at 06:00