YoLinux: Linux MP3

Players:

Amarok	http://amarok.kde.org/
Description:	Feature rich KDE audio player. Available plugins include an automatic scrolling of Lyrics. Supports M3U playlists. From the GNOME toolbar: Applications -> Sound & Video -> Amarok
Formats:	MP3, WMA, Real, Ogg, AAC, FLAC, ALAC (Apple), SHN, WAV. Also optical audio CD.
Installation:	Debian/Ubuntu: sudo apt-get install amarok If KDE is not yet installed, it will be when as this application is dependent upon Qt and KDE.

Audacious	http://audacious-media-player.org/
Description:	Feature rich audio player. A Gtk2 fork and superset of beep and xmmx players. Supports M3U, PLS and XSPF playlists From the GNOME toolbar: Applications -> Sound & Video -> Audacious
Formats:	MP3, AAC, AC3, APE, ALAC (Apple), FLAC, Ogg Vorbis, WAV, Musepack, TTA, WMA, several chiptune formats, MIDI, Playstation Audio, etc. Also optical audio CD.
Installation:	Debian/Ubuntu: apt-get install audacious Red Hat EL5/Fedora 4-6 RPMs: audacious, audacious-plugins

Rhythmbox	http://www.gnome.org/projects/rhythmbox
Description:	Default Gnome player and jukebox. Supports PLS playlists. Based on Gnome gStreamer plugin framework. From the GNOME toolbar: Applications -> Sound & Video -> Rhythmbox
Formats:	MP3, AAC, AC3, APE, ALAC (Apple), FLAC, Ogg Vorbis, WAV, Musepack, WMA, Real. (very complete!) Also optical audio CD.
Installation:	Debian/Ubuntu: apt-get install rhythmbox Fedora/Red Hat: Included on installation media. RPM package: rhythmbox

JuK	http://developer.kde.org/~wheeler/juk.html
Description:	KDE player and jukebox. Integrates well with toolbar. From the GNOME toolbar: Applications -> Sound & Video -> JuK
Formats:	MP3, APE, FLAC, Ogg Vorbis, Musepack. Optical CD not natively supported. Audio CD only with helper application.
Installation:	Debian/Ubuntu: apt-get install juk Fedora/Red Hat (RHEL6): Included on installation media. RPM package: kdemultimedia

user1@localhost:~/MP3$ mpg123 01_02_Tres_Brujas.mp3
High Performance MPEG 1.0/2.0/2.5 Audio Player for Layers 1, 2 and 3
	version 1.12.1; written and copyright by Michael Hipp and others
	free software (LGPL/GPL) without any warranty but with best wishes

Playing MPEG stream 1 of 1: 01_02_Tres_Brujas.mp3 ...
Title:   Tres Brujas                     Artist: The Sword
Album:   Warp Riders
Year:    2010                            Genre:  Metal
MPEG 1.0 layer III, VBR, 44100 Hz joint-stereo

[4:09] Decoding of 01_02_Tres_Brujas.mp3 finished.
      
      

user1@localhost:~/MP3$ mpg321 Slacktone_-_The_Bells_of_St_Kahuna_Live__KEXP.mp3
High Performance MPEG 1.0/2.0/2.5 Audio Player for Layer 1, 2, and 3.
Version 0.2.12-1 (2010/07/01). Written and copyrights by Joe Drew,
now maintained by Nanakos Chrysostomos and others.
Uses code from various people. See 'README' for more!
THIS SOFTWARE COMES WITH ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY! USE AT YOUR OWN RISK!
Title	: The Bells of St. Kahuna (Live  Artist : Slacktone                     
Album	: Slacktone - Live @ KEXP 9/23/2 Year	 : 2011
Comment : URL: http://freemusicarchive.o Genre : rock                          

Playing MPEG stream from Slacktone_-_The_Bells_of_St_Kahuna_Live__KEXP.mp3 ...
MPEG 1.0 layer III, 320 kbit/s, 44100 Hz joint-stereo

[4:30] Decoding of Slacktone_-_The_Bells_of_St_Kahuna_Live__KEXP.mp3 finished.
      
      

Additional Digital Audio Players:

• Alsa
• Banshee - Gnome media player (CDs, audio books, Podcasts, Radio, Videos, ...)
• Exaile - Python/Gtk+ full featured player
• Muine Gnome
• MPlayer - (not just a video player)
• SongBird - GUI based on Firefox XUL framework
• XMMS.org - 4Front Multimedia
  Note: Typing the letter 'l' will open a dialog box which will allow you to select a new file.
  Use as GUI or command line: xmms file-name.mp3
  • Xmms plug-ins

[Potential Pitfall]: Many of the audio players require an internet connection to connect to music information repositories on the internet. Gnome based applications will require one to set the GNOME proxy configuration if your LAN is behind a corporate proxy. See GNOME proxy configuration to set this configuration for the GNOME desktop and GNOME applications.

Links:

• Wikipedia comparison of audio players
• MP3 Tools lists

Name	Comments	GUI	CDDA	MP3	Ogg	FLAC	WAV
Sound Juicer	Current Gnome CD ripper Connects to MusicBrainz.com for CD and track information.	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
Grip	depricated Gnome CD ripper	Y	N	Y	Y	Y	Y
KaudioCreator	KDE desktop ripper/encoder. Configure with KDE Control Center (kcontrol) System Setings -> Sound and Multimedia -> Audio CD	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
CD Paranoia	Command line CD to WAV,AIFF,AIFF-C	N	N	N	N	N	Y
RipperX	Supports CDDB lookups. apt-get install ripperx	Y	N	Y	Y	Y	Y
Ruby Ripper	Uses CDDB-info. Install: apt-get install rubyripper rubyripper-gtk Dependencies: cd-discid cdparanoia flac lame mp3gain normalize-audio ruby-gnome2 ruby vorbisgain	Y	N	Y	Y	Y	Y
MP3c	MP3 creator - X-11 and console program - connects to the CDDB database	Y	N	Y	Y	N	N

Audio Formats:

• MP3: patented format. Lossy data compression.
• Ogg Vorbis: lossy open audio format
  Vorbis.com
• FLAC: Free Lossless Audio Codec. Non-proprietary, unencumbered by patents
  flac.sourceforge.net
• AAC: Advanced Audio Coding. Apple iPod format. Patented. A patent license is required for all manufacturers or developers of AAC codecs. Thus FOSS implementations such as FFmpeg and FAAC may be distributed in source form only, in order to avoid patent infringement.
• WAV:
• CDDA: Compact Disk Digital Audio. Raw compact disc format.
  flac.sourceforge.net

Wikipedia comparison of audio formats

Digital Audio Encoders:

Name	Comments	Output
LAME	LAME is a high quality MPEG Audio Layer III (MP3) encoder licensed under the LGPL.	MP3
Fraunhofer technology licensed by Technicolor MP3HD	Commercially available mp3HD command line encoder for Linux.	MP3
BladeEnc	BladeEnc is a fast freeware MP3 encoder..	MP3
MP+	Designed to maintain the same level of quality as the original WAV file.	MP3
Ogg Vorbis	Open, non-proprietary, patent-and-royalty-free, general-purpose compressed audio format for high quality (44.1-48.0kHz, 16+ bit, polyphonic) autdio.	ogg
FAAC	Advanced Audio Coder (MPEG2-AAC, MPEG4-AAC)..	AAC
FLAC	command line encoder: source commands	FLAC
Fraunhofer	LGPL.	MP3

Sound Juicer is the current (Fedora 4+) Linux Gnome desktop audio CD riping and encoding tool.
Launch application: Applications + Sound and Video... + Audio CD Extractor

• Red Hat/Fedora/CentOS:
  • The sound-juicer RPM is included in the DVD ISO images and can be installed during installation or afterwards from the DVD.
    or
  • yum install sound-juicer
• Ubuntu: apt-get install sound-juicer

Sound Juicer configuration:

/usr/bin/gnome-audio-profiles-properties
(RPM package: gnome-media)

Select "New" and enter "Profile name".

EnterGstreamer encoding parameters. See below.

MP3 encoding parameters:

Profile Name	Gstreamer pipeling	File extension
Mp3 - Lossy	audio/x-raw-int,rate=44100,channels=2 ! lame name=enc	mp3
Mp3 - High Quality (Lame)	audio/x-raw-int,rate=44100,channels=2 ! lame name=enc vbr=4 vbr-quality=2	mp3
Mp3 - Portable	audio/x-raw-int,rate=44100,channels=2 ! lame name=enc vbr=4 vbr-quality=6	mp3
Ogg Quality, Lossy	audio/x-raw-float,rate=44100,channels=2 ! vorbisenc name=enc quality=0.5 ! oggmux	ogg
WAV Voice, Lossless	audio/x-raw-int,rate=22050,channels=1 ! wavenc name=enc	wav

Ripping and encoding:

Set destination "Folder".
Set preferences by selecting encoder.

Put CD in tray. Sound Juicer will attempt to identify the Title, Artist, Tracks, etc from MusicBrainz.com. If not you get this display.

[Potential Pitfall]: This feature requires an internet connection to connect to the music information repository at MusicBrainz.com. One must set the GNOME proxy configuration if your LAN is behind a corporate proxy. See GNOME proxy configuration to set this configuration for the GNOME desktop and GNOME applications.

Select "Extract" to "Rip" and encode! Sound Juicer rings a bell when done.

Red Hat, Fedora, CentOS, Suse and Mandrake RPM based Linux distributions:

In order to encode to MP3 one must install the MP3 encoder which is not available with either the default Ubuntu or Red Hat distributions. Red Hat, Fedora, CentOS, Suse and Mandrake RPM based Linux distributions will require the installation of the gstreamer-plugins-ugly RPM package. The available encoder configurations can be seen or modified with gnome-audio-profiles-properties.

The gstreamer-plugins-ugly RPM and dependencies can be found at http://rpm.pbone.net/

Debian/Ubuntu: 11.04

• Open Source Solution: Installation: apt-get install gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly-multiverse

• Commercial Solution: Fluendo (Fluendo is a company specialized in delivering licensed products for Unix and Linux multimedia.)
  Use the "Ubunto Software Center" to download and install the Fluendo MP3 codecs.
  
  This installs package: gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3

Selection of encoders for Sound Juicer.

Note that Grip is no longer the default Gnome CD ripper. Grip has been replaced by Sound Juicer.

Grip is available in RPM form with Fedora Core (1,2,3) and Red Hat distributions. On older Red Hat 7 releases, it was available on the Red Hat Powertools CD The source is available from the Grip home page. This GUI is a front-end to Linux command line tools. It utilizes cdparanoia (cdparanoia is actually built into Grip or you can use the external cdparanoia command) or cdda2wav (my choice) for CD "ripping" and lame (best choice), bladeenc, mp3encode, gogo, xingmp3enc or l3enc to encode the MP3 file. Set the appropriate options under the "Config" tab. Grip also has a built-in CD player (GCD) and connects to CDDB (freedb.freedb.org) to obtain track titles where available.

• Red Hat/Fedora/CentOS: yum install grip
• Ubuntu: apt-get install grip

Usage:

• # Install MP3 encoder (detailed below): # Download lame source and compile (detailed below). (or bladeenc)
• Start Grip: /usr/bin/grip
• Configure Grip:
  • Select "Config" + "MP3" (or "Encode") + "Encoder" tabs.
    • Set the "Encoder" pull down menu to "lame" or "bladeenc"
    • Set the MP3 encoder: /opt/bin/lame or /opt/bin/bladeenc
      (Note: Fedora Core comes with lame and Grip is pre-configured.)
    • Default file format: ~/mp3/%a/%d/%n.mp3
      This will put the ripped and encoded MP3 files into the directory/file: $HOME/mp3/Artist-name/Disc-title/Track-name.mp3
• Select tracks to convert. Select the "Tracks" tab and select the tracks with the middle mouse button (three button mouse or two at once for a two button mouse).
• Select the "Rip" tab + "Rip+Encde" button to begin.

Configure	Select Tracks
Rip

It is easiest to use the GUI tool Grip as described above. You may choose to use the command line interface as detailed here:

Dump tracks on an audio CD to wav files on your hard drive:

cdda2wav -D 0,4,0 -B /tmp/prefix-of-music-file
          

The files will be written out as /tmp/prefix-of-music-file_01.inf /tmp/prefix-of-music-file_01.wav /tmp/prefix-of-music-file_02.inf ...

You may have to be root. See YoLinux managing groups tutorial to configure system for regular users with CD-ROM access.

Encode MP3: Convert WAV to MP3

Use one of the following encoders:

• Lame:

  lame prefix-of-music-file_01.wav  song.mp3          - Fixed 128kbs stereo encoding
  lame -h prefix-of-music-file_01.wav  song.mp3       - High quality
  lame -f prefix-of-music-file_01.wav  song.mp3       - Fast and low quality
  lame -b 112 prefix-of-music-file_01.wav  song.mp3   - Encode at a bit rate of 112 kbs
                

  Type lame --help to see file "USAGE" and get list of command line options.

  Installation:

  • Ubuntu: sudo apt-get install lame

  Man pages:

  • lame

  Use mlame script to convert multiple wav files.
  ./mlame -r -o "-v -V 0 -b 112" a*.wav

  mlame Options:

  • -h: help text
  • -r: remove files after encoding
  • -o: "<lame options>" overrides script default options "-h -d -m j -b 128"
  
  OR

• Bladeenc:

  bladeenc prefix-of-music-file_01.wav  song.mp3
  

Note: The size of the MP3 file will be approximately 10% the size of the wav file.

I was e-mailed the following tip: "Found that the BladeEnc MP3 encoder works better (for my ears) encoding NewAge/Classical/etc and that lame is better for harder music genres." Judge for yourself.

One may notice that the MP3 encoders are often missing from Linux distributions. The reason is that since 1998, the German research lab that holds the MP3 patent, Fraunhofer, imposes fees to license and distribute the encoder. This may lead to the eventual rise of Ogg Vorbis as a standard format although the recording industry rejects it due to the lack of anti-piracy mechanisms.

The "lame" command line MP3 encoder is used in the conversion of wav files (and other formats) to the MP3 file format.

The "lame" encoder RPMs currently ships with the Fedora Core. If you wish to build the latest:

• The Lame home page: http://lame.sourceforge.net/
• tar -xzf lame3.70.tar.gz
• cd lame-3.70
• make
• mv lame /opt/bin
• mv mlame /opt/bin (Script to handle multiple files)
• mv auenc /opt/bin (Script to handle multiple files)
• mv doc/man/lame.1 /opt/man/man1
• mv doc/html /usr/doc/lame3.70 (Red Hat 6.x doc location)
  or
  mv doc/html /usr/share/doc/lame3.70 (Red Hat 7.x doc location)

The "bladeenc" command line MP3 encoder is used in the conversion of wav files to the MP3 file format.

• Download source from the BladeEnc home page: http://bladeenc.mp3.no/
• Click on "Sourcecode" (left frame)
• tar -xzf bladeenc-0.9x.x-src-stable.tar.gz
• cd bladeenc-0.9x.x
• ./configure --prefix=/opt
• make
• make install

• Fraunhofer - the developer and patent holder of the MP3 codec
  • MP3 licensing
• YoLinux.com Tutorial: Internet radio and MP3 streaming
• MP3-Tech.org - Info
• Ecasound - Record to a WAV file.