AudioMove v1.14 6/2/2006
by Jeremy Friesner (jaf@lcsaudio.com)
Copyright 2004, 2005, 2006 Level Control Systems
This directory contains AudioMove, LCS's handy batch-mode file-conversion utility. You can use this utility to quickly copy files from one location to another, and optionally convert their format as part of the copy.
What can AudioMove do?
AudioMove can change the file's format from (any format that libsndfile can read) to WAV or AIFF format.
AudioMove can change the file's sampling rate from (any rate that libsndfile can read) to a number of output sampling rates, ranging from 11.025kHz to 192kHz.
AudioMove can change the file's sample width from (any width that libsndfile can read) to 8, 16, 24, or 32 bit, or floating point format.
How do I install AudioMove?
Just drag the AudioMove executable to wherever you want to keep it. That's all!
How is AudioMove licensed?
AudioMove is licensed under the GNU Public License. See the file COPYING for details. (Note that the code in the muscle subdirectory is also available under the BSD license)
How do I use AudioMove?
Follow these steps:
- Launch AudioMove by double clicking its icon
- Choose your desired output settings from the combo boxes at the top of the window. You may choose the output files' format (WAV, AIFF, or "Same as Source File"), their sampling rate, and the quality of the sample-rate conversion ("Good", "Better", or "Best"). Higher quality sample rate conversion takes longer, but the result sounds slightly better.
- Click the "Destination Folder" button and choose the folder that you want AudioMove to write its output files to.
- Click "Add Files" to choose the file(s) you want to convert via a file requester, or drag-and-drop the files or folders you want to convert into the white area of the window. (Folder you drag in will have their contents converted)
- Wait until all the transfer-stats rows have turned green. At that point, the file conversion process is complete and your output files are ready for use in the destination folder you specified above.
Can I use AudioMove from the command line, or call it from a script?
Absolutely! AudioMove will let you run it from the command line and specify arguments for what it should do when it runs. This is useful e.g. for running AudioMove from scripts or from other programs. To run it this way, open a shell, cd to the AudioMove directory, and type
./AudioMove (args)
or, on a Mac,
./AudioMove.app/Contents/MacOS/AudioMove (args)
But wait -- don't literally type (args)... instead, replace (args) with some or all of the keyword=value pairs specified below. Note that many of the keywords have several synonyms that are equivalent, for convenience. For any keywords that are not specified, the default setting that was active the last time AudioMove was quit will be used instead.
Keywords | Description
dir | Specify the directory that AudioMove should write
dest | its output audio files into. This directory should already exist.
destdir | e.g. dir=/Users/jeremy/MyConvertedAudioFiles
|
file | Specify an input audio file to read. This keyword may be specified
| multiple times if you wish to convert multiple files. Also, any
| command line arguments that you specify that don't have an equal sign
| in them are assumed to be file names. (Note that if you want to use
| wild card expansions, you must omit the file= prefix)
|
| e.g. file=/Users/jeremy/src/File1.aiff file=File2.aiff
| or: *.aiff *.wav congo.0.wav
|
format | Specify the output file format. Possible values are AIFF,
destformat | WAV, or Source. e.g. destformat=AIFF
|
rate | Specify the output files' sampling rate. Possible values are
destrate | 11, 22, 44, 48, 88, 96, 176, 192, or Source. e.g. destrate=44
|
width | Specify the output files' sample width. Possible values are
destwidth | 8, 16, 32, float, or Source. e.g. destwidth=Source
|
qual | Specify the sample rate converter's quality setting. Possible values
quality | are good, better, or best. e.g. qual=best conversionquality
|
pause | If specified, AudioMove will start up with in paused mode.
paused | In this mode, conversions will not start until you uncheck the
| "Paused" checkbox. e.g. pause=yes
|
threads | Specifies how many simultaneous processing threads AudioMove may maxthreads | launch. Available values range from 1 to 9. e.g. threads=5
|
quit | Specifies that AudioMove should automatically quit when it is done
autoquit | processing audio. Possible values are "no" (i.e. don't quit when
| finished, "yes" (which will cause AudioMove to quit when it is finished,
| except if there are errors), or "force" (which will cause AudioMove
| to quit when finished even if there are errors. e.g. quit=yes
Here is an example invocation of AudioMove from the command line under MacOS/X:
./AudioMove.app/Contents/MacOS/AudioMove /Users/jeremyfriesner/wtrxaudio/congo.0.wav /Users/jeremyfriesner/wtrxaudio/*.aiff dest=/Users/jeremyfriesner format=AIFF rate=48 width=float quit=yes
What does the "Create .lcsDisk" button do?
It iterates recursively over all the audio files in the current Destination Folder, extracting metadata (currently, the file name, file length, and number of tracks in the file) from each audio file. The metadata is saved into a compressed ".lcsDisk" file that can then later be used as a dummy substitute for the actual files, when working in an environment where the actual files are not available.
NOTE: To make use of the .lcsDisk file, you will need to have software that knows how to read it. As of this writing, the only software that knows how to read .lcsDisk files is Level Control Systems' VirtualLX program -- so if you aren't an LCS customer, this feature probably won't be very useful to you.
History
v1.14 6/2/2006 - Added a recently-selected-files list and customizable
directory-shortcut buttons to the AudioMove file dialogs.
- Updated the included libsndfile distribution to v1.0.16.
- Renamed the items in the "Width" combo box to be more
explicit about the sample formats they describe.
- Updated the included muscle distribution to v3.21.
v1.13 4/28/2006 - Updated the included libsndfile distribution
to v1.0.16pre2.
* AudioMove 1.12 was outputting WAV files in WAV/RIFX
(big endian) format. This was problematic because
most existing software doesn't know how to handle WAV/RIFX
format yet. So in this version WAV files are output in
normal WAV/RIFF (little endian) format once again.
v1.12 3/25/2006 - The background color of the items being processed now
doubles as a progress bar, giving a visual indication
of how far along the file-conversion process is.
- Updated the included libsndfile install to version 1.15.
- Updated the included muscle install to version 3.20.
- Updated the included libsamplerate install to version 0.1.2.
* AudioMove now detects clipping in the output file and
renormalizes the output file (if necessary) to avoid it.
(see the first question in the libsamplerate FAQ for
details: http://www.mega-nerd.com/SRC/faq.html#Q001 )
* Fixed a bug that would cause AudioMove to crash if you
quit AudioMove while file-conversions were ongoing.
v1.11 3/15/2006 - The "Destination" widget now turns pink whenever the
destination path is not a valid directory. The widget
is updated whenever its contents change, and also every 5
seconds (in case the file system changes).
* If the folder listed in the "Destination" widget does not
exist, all transfers will immediately fail. In previous
versions, the destination folder would be automatically created
in this case, but that turned out to be problematic because
if the destination referred to a mount-point which was not
currently mounted, a local directory would be created at the
mount-point's previous location.
v1.10 7/5/2005 - Added 16x16 window icon bitmap
- Updated the included libsndfile archive to 1.0.12pre7, primarily to add support for reading Sound Designer II format
- Updated the included muscle archive to v3.00.
- Added a "Create .lcsDisk" button that causes AudioMove to
scan the output directory and create a .lcsDisk file that
represents that directory. This feature is useful only for
people who also use LCS's VirtualLX and Wild Tracks products.
- Removed support for obsolete LCS audio format.
- Changed the default "Simultaneous Threads" value to 1.
v1.09 1/6/2005 - Added more sampling rate options to the Output Rate combo box,
including 192kHz, 176.4kHz, 96kHz, 88.2kHz, and 11.025kHz.
o Updated the included muscle folder to v2.62.
* Improved GUI presentation of sampling rate values.
v1.08 11/16/2004 * Tweaked the filename handling logic so that Japanese and
other non-ASCII filenames are handled properly under Windows.
v1.07 10/20/2004 - Arguments without equals signs are now interpreted as input
files. This allows you to use wildcarding to specify input
files (e.g. "./AudioMove *.wav")
* Reorganized the GUI layout so that the controls appear in
the order you are most likely to want to use them.
v1.06 9/01/2004 - Installed the official AudioMove icon.
- Fixed a bug in the recursive drag-and-drop routine -- the created folder hierarchy wasn't rooted correctly.
v1.05 8/17/2004 o Conversion Quality options are now "good", "better", or "best".
- Directories can now be dragged in to the AudioMove window for recursive batch conversion of all subfolders and files.
- Default output directory is now the user's home directory.
v1.04 8/02/2004 o Changed the .pro file to statically link all libraries.
- Released AudioMove under GPL license.
v1.03 7/30/2004 - Added "Quality" combo box to the GUI, for choosing conversion quality.
- Integrated libsamplerate sample rate converter code.
- Made the GUI somewhat more space efficient.
v1.02 7/28/2004 - Added command-line argument parsing (see above for details)
- Fixed the bug that was causing silence gaps in the output of sample-rate-converted stereo files.
v1.01 7/19/2004 - Initial setup of files is now done in a separate thread, so that
the GUI doesn't freeze up after dragging in a lot of files.
- Only the active processes keep file handles open now.
- Other minor GUI tweaks and enhancements.
v1.00 7/14/2004 - Initial Release