User’s Guide
Introductory Tutorial
If you’ve never used sonice before, here’s how to get started with encode Ogg Vorbis files from .wav files.
Note: If you’re completely unfamiliar with command-line utilities and Ogg Vorbis encoding terminology, you might find that this tutorial is too fast-paced; have a look at the Ogg Vorbis FAQ
- Make a directory that sonice can use to store .wav files and encode .ogg vorbis files. Since we’re encoding “Before These Crowded Streets” by the Dave Matthews Band in our example, we’ll call the directory btcs. (Feel free to have a longer directory name when you’re ripping.)
- Now, make a directory in btcs called wav. This directory will hold all the .wav files.
- Use your favorite CD ripper and rip the CD into btcs/wav. Make sure that the filenames generated are in the same order as on the disc. (names like “track04.wav” are fine, “pantala_naga_pampa.wav” are not.)
- While your CD ripper is ripping, we can start on the metadata writing.
- make another directory in btcs called info.
- Create a new textfile called globalcomments.txt
and put in the comments you’d like all the tracks to have.
Here’s what I’d put:
artist: Dave Matthews Band album: Before These Crowded Streets producer: Steve Lillywhite date: '1998'
- Now, create another textfile and call it “comments.txt”
and fill it with track-specific data. Since
“Before These Crowded Streets” isn’t a very complex album,
our needs are fairly simple:
- title: Pantala Naga Pampa - title: Rapunzel - title: The Last Stop - title: Don't Drink the Water - title: Stay (Wasting Time) - title: Halloween - title: The Stone - title: Crush - title: The Dreaming Tree - title: Pig - title: Spoon
- When your CD ripping software finishes, open up a console window
and change the current directory to btcs. Then, run
this:
btcs $ sonice -k -q 4.5
Then, sit back and relax while a bunch of Ogg Vorbis files are encoded at quality 4.5 into the ogg directory. - If it didn’t work correctly the first time, here are a couple
things to consider:
- If the metadata didn’t come out right, maybe PyYaml is getting confused about what you’re sending it in the *comments.txt files. Have a look at the YAML Gotchas page to see if something’s screwing up.