Project:

Convert audio files to MP3 (copyDirToMP3)

This is a perl based application developed to run in UNIX that is essentially a wrapper for several audio conversion programs. I wrote it so that I can keep all my bought music and ripped CDs as raw audio files in a secure location, along with associated music art work, in one place. The program (copyDirToMP3) copies the entire directory structure to a new location and converts audio files to a specific MP3 format suitable to our iPods and other MP3 players.

In the process of creating the mp3 files it converts the largest jpeg file in each directory into album artwork so that iTunes and MSoft Media Player will display the art work.

It is written to run as a perl script for UNIX, but could be ported to run on MSWindows.

Installation

The following all works on ubuntu 8.10 and should also work on Fedora and other Linux distributions. In May 2011 I reinstalled it on Ubuntu 10.04 and updated the documentation.

1. Install LAME, this is critical because LAME is used to create the mp3 files, eg
   # sudo apt-get install lame
2. Install eyeD3, this is used to add the album artwork
   # sudo apt-get install eyeD3
3. Install ImageMagick, this is used to convert Folder.jpg to 200x200. I found that Windows Media Player and iTunes preferred this size otherwise it would not display the artwork.
   # sudo apt-get install imagemagick
4. Install FLAC, this is optional, it is needed if you have audio files in the .flac extension, eg
   # sudo apt-get install flac
5. Install FAAD, this is optional, it is needed if you have audio files in the .m4a (mpeg4) extension, eg
   # sudo apt-get install faad
6. Install MPLAYER, this is optional, it is needed if you have audio files in the .wma extension, eg
   # sudo apt-get install mplayer
7. Install imagemagick, it is needed to convert the image files to the correct size (http://www.imagemagick.org).\n"; # sudo apt-get install imagemagick
8. Install the Perl Module "File::Find", it is used in the main loop to look at each file
   # perl -MCPAN -e 'shell'
   cpan[1]>install File::Find
9. Install the Perl Module "MIME::Lite", it is used to send an email report (if you have a problem running perl try deleting "rm ~/.cpan/" first
   # perl -MCPAN -e 'shell'
   cpan[1]>install use MIME::Lite
10. Download copyDirToMP3 and put it in your executable path, eg
    # sudo mv copyDirToMP3 /usr/sbin/copyDirToMP3
11. Make copyDirToMP3 executable, eg
    # sudo chmod a+x /usr/sbin/copyDirToMP3
    

Usage

copyDirToMP3 [-f] [-o OWNER] [-g GROUP] [-s SOURE-DIR] [-d DESTINATION-DIR] [-V0 | -V1 | -V2 | -V3 | -V4 | -V5 | -V6 | -V7 | -V8 | -V9 |-b BITRATE] [-S] [-e ] [-a]

Usage example 1

sudo copyDirToMP3 -o www-data -g www-data -s /multimedia/music-raw -d /multimedia/music-mp3

The above does the following:
- looks in /multimedia/music-raw
- Creates the same directory structure starting at /multimedia/music-mp3 using a owner of www-data and a group called www-data
- Copies all the files to the new location.
- Converts any audio files to mp3 VBR V0 (maximum quality/size).
- If there isn't a Folder.jpg it will create a 200x200 pixel image from the largest available .jpg or .jpeg file so that MSWindows Explorer, MSoft Media Player, and iTunes (and thus iPOD) will display the album art work.
- Outputs what it does to each file as it goes.

Usage example 2

This is how I use the application.

1. I create a samba share as \data\music-raw writeabe only by a specific user, eg a user called musicAdmin.
   
   I create another samba share \data\music-mp3 which is writeable only by a specific user, eg again musicAdmin, and readable by everyone.
   
   
2. I use MSoft's Windows Media Player to rip my CDs and create the directories. I like MSoft's Windows Media Player because it appears to create clean directory structure and provides the album artwork for free. Also very importantly I get MSoft's Windows Media Player to rip the audio files as raw wav files so there is no losses. I use the same specific user musicMaker.
   
   Specific setup of MSoft's Windows Media Player are:
   Tools : Options : Rip Music
   Rip Music to this location: \data\music-raw
   Format: WAV (Lossless)
   
   Tools : Options : Library
   Enabled Rearrange music in rip music folder
   
   
3. I can add music manually by creating a directory using the artists name, then a sub directory using the name of the album.
   
   
4. I set up a cron job for root to run once a day that looks at /data/music-raw and copies the entire directory structure and files to /data/music-mp3 converting any audio files to mp3 format., here is the crontab entry I use:
   
   sudo crontab -e
   01 02 * * * copyDirToMP3 -o www-data -g www-data -s /data/music-raw -d /data/music-mp3 -S
   
   The above crontab entry does the following:
   - looks in /data/music-raw
   - Creates the same directory structure starting at /data/music-mp3 using a owner of www-data and a group called www-data
   - Does it all silently
   
   If I want to create the mp3 files manually I would run:
   
   sudo copyDirToMP3 -o www-data -g www-data -s /data/music-raw -d /data/music-mp3
   
   
   

Versions

License

copyAudioDirToMP3 is free software and distributed under the GNU General Public License (GPL) Version 3.

copyDirToMP3 uses the following applications:

- LAME is a high quality MPEG Audio Layer III (MP3) encoder licensed under the GNU GPL. Specifically to convert audio files to mp3 using:

- FLAC is Free Lossless Audio Codec and is a common audio format, and frac utility is licensed under the GNU GPL. We use frac to convert the audio file to a WAV format before getting lame to convert to mp3.

- imageMagick is really a software suite to create and edit image files. It is used to resize the album artwork to 200x200 jpeg that MSWindows Media Player and iTunes want. It is license is compatible with GNU.

- MPLAYER is really a movie player that has a good command line, but I am using it here to decode .wma formatted audio to wav. It is licensed under GNU Version 2. To decode .wma I also had to install the w32codecs.

- eyeD3 is used to edit the ID3 tags in the mp3 files. It is used to convert the IDE to version 2.3 and to add the album artwork to each mp3 file.

Author and copyright

Stephen.Kingham <at> kingtech.com.au

Comments and suggests are welcome