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Topic: Recommend me some Linux audio apps... (Read 15645 times) previous topic - next topic
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Recommend me some Linux audio apps...

Hi everybody! I've recently found an interest in Linux. Installed Slackware on my old box, and I'm planning to start using Ubuntu on my new rig when my case arrives.
I've been lurking around, trying to find out wich apps to use. Unfortunately, the Ubuntu community's knowledge about computer audio isn't as good as HA's, so I'll ask here.
Basically, there's three apps that I need:
A player
A ripper
A tagger
An app for applying replaygain
Since I'm gonna use Gnome I'd prefer GTK2 apps over QT ones.

I was thinking about using the following setup:

Player: Rhythmbox. Integrates nicely with gnome and seems to have a nice UI.
Questions: Can Rhythmbox play mp3s gaplessly? Does it support Replaygain?

Ripper: I'm looking at grip and SoundJuicer.
Questions: Can I use cdparanoia with these apps? Can I encode directly to LAME 3.96.1 -aps? Any other rippers I should take a look at?

Tagger: I was looking at EasyTag. Looks nice.
Questions: Can it rename mp3's from their tags? Any other taggers I should take a look at?
Replaygain: I have no idea for what to use here. Any tips?

All your help is greatly appreciated!
I apologize for any spelling errors.

Recommend me some Linux audio apps...

Reply #1 –
Hi !

Welcome to linux 

For replaygain processing on mp3 files, you can use mp3gain.

Easytag is the best I've found - it has a GTK2 interface, and does file renaming from tags. It seems very standards-compliant too, as I had no problems with APE2, european accents etc 

Recommend me some Linux audio apps...

Reply #2 –
I use Fedora Core3.

I use grip with cdparanoia for ripping and flac for compressing.

I've ripped and compressed all of my CD's  and would prefer to buy wav's or flac's online (instead of buying a cd, then ripping and compressing it), but nobody with a reasonable catalog of music offers this yet.

My only bad experience (but it is BAD): My cd device driver seems to occasionally hang grip and the only way to get rid of the process is to reboot (not even kill -9 gets rid of it).  My cd is very brand-X, though.

I'll ditto the good experience of NumLOCK with Easytag.

I don't personally screw around with gain, though I may look into it for normalizing MP3's that I make to play in my car. I currently commute 4 hours twice a week and mostly burn books-on-cd to mp3 and listen to those.

I listen with a squeezebox on my music system which connects to slimserver software on my box. My music is in a shared folder, and my wife listens on her XP box using Winamp with the flac plugin (?).

I listen at the computer (different room from music system) with xmms, but mplayer and several other apps work too.

So, on linux I use:

grip
cdparanoia
flac
lame
easytag
xmms
slimserver

Mark

Recommend me some Linux audio apps...

Reply #3 –
Quote
Hi everybody! I've recently found an interest in Linux. Installed Slackware on my old box, and I'm planning to start using Ubuntu on my new rig when my case arrives.
I've been lurking around, trying to find out wich apps to use. Unfortunately, the Ubuntu community's knowledge about computer audio isn't as good as HA's, so I'll ask here.
Basically, there's three apps that I need:
A player
A ripper
A tagger
An app for applying replaygain
Since I'm gonna use Gnome I'd prefer GTK2 apps over QT ones.

I was thinking about using the following setup:

Player: Rhythmbox. Integrates nicely with gnome and seems to have a nice UI.
Questions: Can Rhythmbox play mp3s gaplessly? Does it support Replaygain?

Ripper: I'm looking at grip and SoundJuicer.
Questions: Can I use cdparanoia with these apps? Can I encode directly to LAME 3.96.1 -aps? Any other rippers I should take a look at?

Tagger: I was looking at EasyTag. Looks nice.
Questions: Can it rename mp3's from their tags? Any other taggers I should take a look at?
Replaygain: I have no idea for what to use here. Any tips?


hi!

rhythmbox is not able to play mp3s gaplessly and doesn't support replaygain(tags) either, AFAIK. I am not sure, whether there is one player for linux which does both (or even one of those features)...

you can use cdparanoia with both of them but if I were you, I'd have a look at abcde, too. (really nice feature, like ripping and compressing your audio into several formats in one step and everything automatically..)
of course you can use lame 3.96.1 aps!

easytag does renaming by using tag-fileds, yes. you could have a look at ex falso, too - which is not that feature-rich as easytag, though.

concerning your question about replaygain - I have no idea.
have a look at www.rarewares.org at their debian-section (ubuntu is debain-based, so you can use those repositories), adapt your sources.list and search for replaygain.

apt-cache search gave me this:

"apt-cache search replaygain
crip - terminal-based ripper/encoder/tagger tool
quodlibet - audio library manager and player for GTK+
vorbisgain - add suggested volume level for .ogg files as .ogg comment
musepack-replaygain - audio volume manipulation utility - musepack variant
wavegain - provides replaygain functionality for wav audio files"

so there doesn't seem to be any app which has replaygain as a feature. you can use mp3gain for your mp3s with appropriate syntax, of course!

Recommend me some Linux audio apps...

Reply #4 –
Use Quod Libet. It support replaygain, gapless playback, musepack, tagging and is gtk2.
Perfect application for your needs
It's a 'Jump to Conclusions Mat'. You see, you have this mat, with different CONCLUSIONS written on it that you could JUMP TO.

Recommend me some Linux audio apps...

Reply #5 –
Thanks for all the replies!
EasyTag seems to be the best alternative.
Conserning replaygain I found this thread
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....showtopic=29210
and the HA wiki
http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?ti...laygain#MP3Gain
It seems that xmms is capable of gapless playback too:
http://perso.crans.org/~krempp/xmms-mad/
So, xmms appears to be the player for me.
Not decided on the ripper jet, I think I'll just download both of them and try them out myself.
If anybody has any other views on this, please share them!

Recommend me some Linux audio apps...

Reply #6 –
well, thank you too! I'll have a look at your links.

I'd strongly recommend abcde. it's by far the best ripper IMO. it uses cdparanoia and every encoder you can get for linux. it's rather a script then an app. you use it with your preferred shell.

Recommend me some Linux audio apps...

Reply #7 –
Lefungus: Thanks a lot! I actually saw the webpage a couple of weeks ago but I had totally forgotten about it! Appears to be the perfect choice! No need for a tagger also.

neomoe: I'll try abcde too. Seems to be a nice little app, and everybody knows that you are more 1337 if you use commandline apps

Recommend me some Linux audio apps...

Reply #8 –
Quote
and everybody knows that you are more 1337 if you use commandline apps wink.gif


yeah, but wait with being pleased as punch, because the syntax is very easy - you only have to type "abcde" 

Recommend me some Linux audio apps...

Reply #9 –
Lefungus, why does quod libet look so much like rhythmbox? do both have the same features?

Recommend me some Linux audio apps...

Reply #10 –
I got foobar2000 working through Wine

Some tips:
1) Use the foo_columns component, otherwise it won't work
2) Switch off any visualizations (even the spectrum meter), because it takes up almost all of your processor power under Wine

Recommend me some Linux audio apps...

Reply #11 –
I am using Fedora Core predominantly.
I use Grip for ripping/converting. I use XMMS, MPlayer, and VLC for playback.

Recommend me some Linux audio apps...

Reply #12 –
I'm using Kubuntu and am very happy with XMMS as player.
"We cannot win against obsession. They care, we don't. They win."

Recommend me some Linux audio apps...

Reply #13 –
foobar2000!
it seems with todays cvs they finally fixed the bug that caused it to hang when using multiple playlist tabs at once... i'm still testing it, but all my test cases that had failed on previous versions passed today

and for ripping, of course, eac still is the best and... works well in wine  just make sure both of these use a native msvcrt.dll and it should be all great.

also, another vote for easytag... it simply kicks ass!

[span style='font-size:8pt;line-height:100%']edit: eac + easytag[/span]

Recommend me some Linux audio apps...

Reply #14 –
Quod Libet is a god alternative, and it develops fast.
Another one is amaroK. I know you prefer gtk applications, but amaroK is great. I run it myself with xfce4. It dont support replaygain, but it has gapless playback if you use the xine engine (witch, at least for me, works best annyway).
amaroK is the app I miss the most if I have to use windows.

Recommend me some Linux audio apps...

Reply #15 –
Quote
Quod Libet is a god alternative, and it develops fast.
Another one is amaroK. I know you prefer gtk applications, but amaroK is great. I run it myself with xfce4. It dont support replaygain, but it has gapless playback if you use the xine engine (witch, at least for me, works best annyway).
amaroK is the app I miss the most if I have to use windows.
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=302484"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


Seconded. I've just moved my server to Linux (FC3) and am using it to mess around with Linux audio apps. amaroK is fantastic, especially the 'recently added albums' panel. Can't get album art to work though.

I'm trying to write a cron job to automatically convert to .mpc, tag, replaygain and resize the album art of lossless files in a given directory, but my skills aren't up to it. When it's done it'll be nice and seamless in a way that windows apps never can be.

Recommend me some Linux audio apps...

Reply #16 –
You can run

foobar2000 (wma won't work)

&

Winamp5 (Disable the modern skin)

on wine

Recommend me some Linux audio apps...

Reply #17 –
To all recommending a WINE solution: Thanks for the suggestions, but I prefer to runt native apps, otherwise I could just use Windows.
Concerning amaroK: I'm actually considering to download kubuntu instead. If i use the Lipstik theme it'll actually look quite good. Decisions, decisions...
Any good rippers/taggers for KDE/qt?

Recommend me some Linux audio apps...

Reply #18 –
KDE is actually pretty cool... by default the KDE multimedia apps and integrated CD-ripper all use cdparanoia libraries by default... so everything should be ripped well. They will also all use MAD as the decoder and LAME as the encoder, also by default (assuming your distro built with them... mine did, but I rolled it from scratch). For burning I highly recommend K3B, a very slick native KDE/QT application.

EDIT: This is at least as of KDE 3.4... not sure about less recent releases.

Recommend me some Linux audio apps...

Reply #19 –
Basically, there's three apps that I need:
A player
A ripper

Check out Xine and mediaplayer: mplayer. I use to use them before, They never sucked. Worked real great , until I had to format my hard-disk. Its both good players and rippers. Download codecs from the site itself

Recommend me some Linux audio apps...

Reply #20 –
player:
xmms/bmp, lamip

ripper:
k3b, grip

burner:
k3b

Recommend me some Linux audio apps...

Reply #21 –
For me (on Debian AMD64):
Music Player - Amarok
Media Player - Xine or gmplayer
Burner: K3B (there's a reason everybody uses this - it's really good)
Ripper: abcde (yes, it's command line, but it's still really easy to use)

Recommend me some Linux audio apps...

Reply #22 –
I'm hoping to find an audio player with support for reading zip archives (that's how all my albums are bundled up), ape tags, and multimedia key assignment.  I like the looks of amaroK, but can't find much information on plugins.  I wonder if anyone has a suggestion of how I can fulfil most of my wishes?

I should mention I'm trying to avoid use of Foobar2000 under WINE, I'd prefer a linux native app.

On a side note, if I can't find an audio player with archive support, it seems like it should be easy enough to create an operating system wide archive reader that gives you the option of viewing archives as folders.  (It would be especially nice if the feature could be loaded and unloaded at will)  Has anyone ever heard of anything like this?

Recommend me some Linux audio apps...

Reply #23 –
Quote
Basically, there's three apps that I need:
A player
A ripper


For a player, xmms is the de-facto standard. plugins exist for every encoding type i've come across (mp3, ogg [built in], flac, ape, mpc, m4a, etc) and it's pretty easy to use and configure. Most importantly, lots of people use it, and therefore you should be able to get some help should you run into a problem.

For a ripper-frontend, 'Grip' is excellent. Very simple interface, simple but in-depth config options. Can be configured to use any program to rip or encode. Since i personally don't care about tags (the filename & dir are enough for me anymore) I can't comment about tagging. Consider this another vote for grip 

Regarding the actual ripping process, cdparanoia is good. investigate the man page for it and find out what options you want (-z & -X for example). Lame 3.96.1 & Flac are recommended of course. MAC (monkey audio codec) stuff can be compiled easily on any linux distro. I say this because I've not come across one yet which has a MAC package already in the distribution, so don't be alarmed -- it's easy to compile (note: MAC does not work on gnu/linux-x86_64 yet).

cheers.

Recommend me some Linux audio apps...

Reply #24 –
Ubuntu is an excellent choice of linux distros. I recently switched from Suse and was amazed at how much more of a desktop-oriented distro it was. Very streamlined and excellent integration, with a lot of features working "out of the box". That being said there are some issues you will run into if you are demanding feature for feature equivalents to the key window apps (foobar2000, EAC, etc.)

I tried to get rhythmbox to work to my ends (basically I wanted it to have the ability to play back all of the formats that Foobar would. Gstreamer is great in theory but in practice it has a ways to go. Especially with the debian based distros, all of the decent gstreamer plugins are compiled against a newer C runtime than the rest of the system, so bringing them in with apt from the experimental repositories broke my system the first time I screwed with it. I got most of the plugins working but for the life of me could not coax the mpeg4 plugin to work. Therefore forget playing your m4a files through rhythmbox. If they resolve that, rhythmbox is great. XMMS/Beepmedia are good choice for plugin selection and winamp skins but its still buggy as hell even after all these years. I started with it and it would randomly segfault during playback which was real annoying. LAMIP was more work than it was worth. Ultimately I got foobar working flawlessly through Crossover Office Wine. Purists may want to avoid that solution but you can't complain with results. It integrated into nautilus quite well. Personally I switched to Linux for the platform not the apps, most of the apps suck.

Grip works well for most purposes too, its highly configurable and has error correction, although its not as good as EAC. Don't have any further opinion about rippers since I'm running ubuntu on my laptop and i rip on my windows desktop with EAC.

As far as a general media player for Dvds and videos, ubuntu comes with totem which again relies on gstreamer, which is fine if you don't mind the plugin hell. Mplayer and Xine are great but they are complex and have their own plugin architecture they rely on separate from gstreamer, so you will be duplicating your efforts by going with them. I ended up going with VLC since all the formats are supported "out of the box" without having to worry about plugins, and you don't have to worry about compiling in your DeCSS libraries. Its simple, clean, and flexible.

Another thing you will want to consider which hasn't been mentioned yet is web browser plugins. Again Crossover office is great for all those plugins that just don't exist in Linux yet. Do not fear WINE, it has come a long way and it is your friend if used properly.

Just my two cents.