Wednesday, December 21, 2011

How to Convert APE+CUE to MP3

There is no a single tool to convert a APE file to a number of mp3 tracks. We are going to convert ape file to wav first, than wav to mp3 (a single file) and finally cut a single mp3 file into several (per CUE file). We need several packages. Two of them (libmac2 monkey-audio) are from debian-multimedia, choose mirror from the following list. You need to install debian-multimedia-keyring package. In my case I have obtained it from here:
http://mirror.yandex.ru/debian-multimedia/pool/main/d/deb-multimedia-keyring/
Download debian-multimedia-keyring_2010.12.26_all.deb file (in your case the file can be newer) and install:
dpkg -i debian-multimedia-keyring_2010.12.26_all.deb
Once above is done we need to add debian-multimedia repository location to apt source list and update it:
echo "deb http://mirror.yandex.ru/debian-multimedia/ testing main non-free" \
    >> /etc/apt/sources.list
apt-get update
Install required packages:
apt-get -y install libmac2 monkeys-audio shntool \
    lame mp3splt
Here is a script that does the rest (file ape-mp3.sh):
#!/bin/sh

# Convert APE to WAV
shnconv -o wav CDImage.ape
# Convert WAV to MP3 VBR
lame -h -v --preset cd CDImage.wav CDImage.mp3
rm CDImage.wav
# Split file
mp3splt -a -d mp3 -c CDImage.ape.cue -o \
    @a/@b/@n-@a-@t CDImage.mp3
rm CDImage.mp3
Drop that file into a directory that has two files input CDImage.ape and CDImage.ape.cue. Run the script and in few minutes you will get a mp3 directory with your tracks.

Troubleshooting: mp3splt does not set ID3 tags

As of this writing Debian testing comes with mp3splt version 2.2.5-1. The problem has been fixed since version 2.3. So in order to install latest version you need to add the following to /etc/apt/sources.list:
echo "deb http://mp3splt.sourceforge.net/repository wheezy main" \
    >> /etc/apt/sources.list
apt-get update
Note that you need remove previously installed packages related to mp3splt:
apt-get remove libmp3splt-mp3 libmp3splt-ogg \
    libmp3splt0 mp3splt
Install latest:
apt-get install libmp3splt0-mp3 libmp3splt0-ogg \
    libmp3splt0 mp3splt

2 comments :

  1. Thank you! Very useful information, you saved me :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. You may also try iDealshare VideoGo to convert APE to MP3, WAV, AAC, AIFF, WMA etc. Here is the easy guide http://www.idealshare.net/audio-converter/ape-to-mp3-converter.html

    ReplyDelete