SOUNDGRAB(1)

NAME
soundgrab - interactively select and save sections of an audio file

SYNOPSIS
soundgrab [option]... file

DESCRIPTION

soundgrab is a perl script which runs the rawrec and sox and possibly the oggenc and flac executables to let the user play back a raw audio file and interactively select and export portions of the file to other files. By default, the input file should contain 2 channels of signed 16 bit little endian raw audio data sampled at 44.1 kHz.

OPTIONS

-b BITRATE, --bitrate=BITRATE
    indicates that the files exported in the Ogg Vorbis lossy compression format should use approximately BITRATE kilobits per second encoding.

-c CHANNELS, --channels=CHANNELS
    indicates that the file on which soundgrab is to operate contains CHANNELS-channel data. One channel is mono, two is stereo. Modern sound cards may support 4 or more channels. The default is 2.

-d DEVICE, --audio-device=DEVICE
    use DEVICE instead of the default /dev/dsp.

-f OFMT, --output-file-format=OFMT
    indicates that arguments to the export command (see online help) that do not end in a known dot extension should be saved in format OFMT in a file with the appropriate dot extension appended. OFMT may be one of the following strings:

        cdr CD mastering format. This is two
                   channel unsigned sixteen bit little
                   endian data with some blocking and
                   padding.

        flac FLAC lossless compressed format.

        ogg Ogg vorbis lossy compressed
                   format.

        raw Raw data samples in the format
                   specified with the input-sample-format
                   option at the sampling rate specified
                   with the sampling-rate option and
                   containing the number of channels
                   specified with the channels option.
                   If any of these options were not
                   specied the default for that option is
                   used.

        wav Micro$oft .wav format.

The default for this option is cdr. The flac and ogg formats are only available if the appropriate encoder in present on the system.

-i IFMT, --input-sample-format=IFMT
    indicates that the samples for the individual channels in the argument file are in format IFMT, where IFMT is one of the following strings:

        s16_le Signed sixteen bit little endian
                   format.

        u8 Unsigned eight bit.

-s SPEED, --sampling-rate=SPEED
    indicates that the data in the argument file was sampled at SPEED samples per second.

-t TIME, --time-of-start=TIME
    indicates that recording of the volume to be dissected was begun at TIME. If this option is used, it will be possible to jump to 'times' in the volume. The format of the time string is the same as the format described in the output of the online command 'help jump', except day offsets are not allowed.

-v, --verbose
    enable verbose operation.

--version
    print version information and exit.

INTERACTIVE COMMANDS

soundgrab acts like a tape player with almost instantaneous fast forward and rewind, the capability to jump to a particular point in the tape, and the capability to name and save sections of the tape to other files. You can also browse through large volumes of audio, playing only some number of seconds and then skipping some number of seconds. The few commands required to do all these things are all documented online, just fire up soundgrab on an appropriate file of raw audio data and type 'help'.

EXAMPLE

Use the at and rawrec programs to record your hour long two oclock radio show which airs March 5, go to work, then come home later and save your favorite bits with soundgrab:
  # Set mixer parameters to record from line in.
  aumix -f ~/.my_line_rec_settings -L
  echo 'rawrec -t 3600 two_oclock_show.raw' | at 14:00 Mar 5
  # I just wanna bang on the drum all day...
  # Set mixer parameters to allow playback of dsp data,
  # probably just by setting the gain for the line input
  # to 0.
  aumix -f ~/.my_dsp_play_settings -L
  # and dissect with soundgrab.
  soundgrab two_oclock_show.raw Of course you have to have a working /dev/dsp (sound driver), appropriate mixer settings (I recommend the aumix program), enough disk space, and a tuned receiver plugged into your sound card. But remember that setting that stuff up isn't work 'cause nobody is making you do it.

SEE ALSO
aumix(1), rawrec(1), sox(1), oggenc(1), ogg123(1), flac(1)

COPYRIGHT
soundgrab is Copyright (C) 2000 Britton Leo Kerin This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.

BUGS
There is no mpeg3 support because mpeg has a buggy license.

AUTHOR
Britton Leo Kerin (fsblk@aurora.alaska.edu)