[buug] Early summary [Was: "record" mp3/ogg?]

[Chris Waters]

On Thu, Dec 23, 2004 at 10:41:44PM -0800, Ian Zimmerman wrote:

> A quick run down the list of people's suggestions.

> 1/ I was unaware that general-purpose audio file editors like audacity
> can record line-in.  It certainly seems to contradict the "one job well"
> maxim, but I guess we've come a long way (toward hell, that is).

Well, actually, you can record using nothing but cat(1).  What you
can't do (at least not easily) with cat is set the sample rate and the
mixer/channel-select controls.  Once you've got something that can do
controlled playback of raw sound data, though, you're about 95% of the
way to making something that can record as well, So, while in general
I agree with you about the bloat issue, in this case I think it makes
sense to provide the extra feature.

The Linux sound card interface is dead easy once you look into it.

> 3/ ecasound seems like exactly what I am looking for.  It even has
> an Emacs interface :-)

I've actually edited raw sound files in emacs.  There's even a live
concert recording up on the Internet Archive now that has emacs in its
lineage, thanks to your truly.  :)

Uncompressed sound file formats are dead easy once you look into it.

> 4/ gramophile can detect and cut tracks,  but I really hate it's
> half-arsed curses UI (it doesn't even react to screen size change).
> It would have been much better off with a straight CLI like ecasound.

Bummer.  I've heard good things about it, but never actually tried
it.  The filters designed for clicks and pops (as often found on
vinyl) seemed like a pretty useful feature too.  Trapping SIGWINCH is
not difficult.  Did you send in a bug report?

One last thing I should mention: if you ever plan to burn your sound
files to audio CD, you should make sure the data is a proper multiple
of the audio CD sector size, or you may end up with coasters.  The
"--sector-align" option for FLAC is a good place to start.

-- 
Chris Waters           |  Pneumonoultra-        osis is too long
xtifr at debian.org       |  microscopicsilico-    to fit into a single
or xtifr at speakeasy.net |  volcaniconi-          standalone haiku