crip  
Charlton's RIP, encode, and tag script for making music files under Linux/UNIX.
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Q: What rules/guidelines did you follow for .ogg file tagging?
A: The guidelines I follow can be found here:
http://reactor-core.org/ogg-tagging.html

Q: Why isn't MP3 still supported in the latest crip?
A: MP3 is an old format that a lot of people just happen to still be using. I discourage people from making their fresh files to MP3 format (the only people I know that have a semi-legitimate excuse is because someone gave them an ipod or something that doesn't support .ogg, which in my opinion they should take it back!).
Currently crip v1.0 does everything one would ever need to make MP3s perfectly, and the script as far as I know never needed improving. So if you absolutely have to make MP3s just download and use crip v1.0.
So many people have asked me to include MP3 support back into crip that I might just merge the old crip v1.0 code into v4.0 when it's available for release. Also I plan on releasing the big feature of more customizable filenames (such as $artist/$album/ (directories)) in v4.0...
Update: It appears MP3 has been making improvements in their tagging mechanisms, so this might make it easier to support lame as a codec in future releases of crip. As of 2007, the latest/best MP3 encoder (lame-3.97) still cannot compete with the latest/best Ogg Vorbis (aoTuV-1.0/b4.51) on quality-to-bitrate, and it is likely that it never will, so I still recommend encoding to Ogg Vorbis.

Q: Where can I get info on the latest-and-greatest encoders?
A: Here are some interesting and helpful links on this topic:
HydrogenAudio wiki: Listening Tests
HydrogenAudio wiki: Ogg Vorbis
HydrogenAudio wiki: Recommended Ogg Vorbis (encoders/settings)

Q: Which version of CDDB_get should I use?
A: I've been packaging an old version of the CDDB_get.pm file with crip but this was before I realized that the author has been updating this module all along. Both the latest version of this module as well as the old version should work.

Q: Should I normalize (change the volume of the .wav data) before encoding?
A: When I used to make MP3s I'd always normalize. But normalizing .wav data is semi-destructive of the information from the original rip. With Ogg Vorbis there is vorbisgain (adds boost-info inside the ogg tag) so normalization is not necessary, and I no longer recommend it during the encoding process.

Q: Should I turn on silence trimming?
A: This is a matter of personal preference and is up to you. It is safer to leave it off. I however use crip with it on. Note that if you have specified a grouping of tracks it will only trim from the beginning of the first track and the end of the last track. If you run crip to do each track separately it will trim any silence off the beginning and end of each track. I default the sox silence-trimming arguments to something pretty conservative, but this can also be tweaked if you know what you are doing.

Q: Do I need to install sox as a dependency for crip?
A: If you are not going to normalize .wav data or trim silence (both default to off), you do not need sox. If you turn either on while configuring crip, crip will test for a proper version of sox in your path at runtime.



Related Links:

Ogg Vorbis page
FLAC page
LAME page
cdparanoia page
sox page
CDDB_get page




charlton@dynet.com


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