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Welcome to the AATB wiki!

Audio Archive Toolbox is released under the GPL, and is free to use as you see fit. Coments and code changes welcome.

The wiki uses Markdown syntax.

Project Members:

• Christopher J Cantwell (admin)

[Christopher J Cantwell]

Once you have edited your recording to adjust volume, edit clips, add fades, etc, and then track the recording, the tracks should be located in a subfolder with the same name as the bitrate (ie, 16-44 for 16 bit, 44 Khz). If you wish to save the raw (unedited) audio files they should be located in a subfolder called "Raw". If you use this convention, AATB will be able to compress them to FLAC to take up less space.

Basic audio file structure:
Artistname_yyyy-mm-dd[.stage]
16-44 (16-44 tracks)
24-48 (24-48 tracks)
:
Other bitrate formats (16, 24 bit, 44, 48, 88, 96Khz)
Audio (optional, unedited "raw" files)

Compressed subfolder naming format:
artistname_yyyy-mm-dd.bitrate.<.stage>.compressionformat

Examples:
artistname_yyyy-mm-dd.24-48.oggf
artistname_yyyy-mm-dd.16-44.mp3f
artistname_yyyy-mm-dd.24-48.flacf

Example usage.
In Windows Explorer, shift-right click on the parent folder and select Open Powershell window here, or open a Command Prompt here
aatb --compress --aac=16-44 -p
Compresses all audio tracks in the 16-44 subfolder with the AAC (Apple Audio Codec). A playlist will be created containing the compressed tracks. You can also use "-c" shorthand for --compress
aatb --compress --ogg=24-48 -p
Compresses all audio tracks in the 24-48 subfolder with the OGG (Ogg-Vorbis Codec). A playlist will be created containing the compressed tracks.
aatb --compress --flac=all
Compresses all audio tracks in all subfolders (including "Audio") with the FLAC (Freeware Lossless Audio Codec).
aatb -x --wav
Deletes all wav audio files in subfolders, providing the files have previously been backed up to FLAC format.
aatb -d --flac=24-44
Decompress FLAC encoded files in the subdirectory ending in .flacf and having a bitrate of 24-44 (e.g., <artist>_<date>.24-44.flacf. This format is how the program determines what files to operate on. The files will be decoded and placed in another subdirectory labeled "24-44". If this subdirectory does not exist it will be created. If the corresponding wav files are already in that subdirectory, they will not be overwritten, unless you specify the "-o" overwrite flag.</date></artist>

Note that although ALAC is lossless like FLAC, ALAC is treated like a lossy format, and decompression is limited to FLAC files. This is because FLAC is an open source format and will always be supported by the audio community, making ALAC decompression unnecessary and redundant. This policy also reduces code complexity, as the program code doesn't need multiple paths for decompression.

[Christopher J Cantwell]

Track metadata can be read from either an information file [info.txt] or cuesheet file [info.cue].
If you have a text information file that has the concert information, aatb will read in this information and tag each track with it's title, up to 99 tracks. Use the -i|--info option to do this. Concert identifying information is located in the header at the top.

Default info.txt header formats:
(1) Without stage information, with the date on the 4th line:
<artist_name>
<venue_name>
<location> (city, state, country)
<date> (yyyy-mm-dd)</date></location></venue_name></artist_name>

(2) Using stage information, with the date on the 5th line:
<artist_name>
<venue_name>
<stage_name>
<location> (city, state, country)
<date> (yyyy-mm-dd)</date></location></stage_name></venue_name></artist_name>

Alternate header format, using labels. You can use this format in either the information or cuesheet file, the labels are the same. This means the information doesn't have to be on a specific line. Only PERFORMER, and either TITLE (commercial recording) or DATE (live recording) are required entries.
PERFORMER <artist_name>
TITLE <album name="">
VENUE <venue_name>
EVENT <event_name>
STAGE <stage_name>
LOCATION <city, state,="" country="">
DATE <date> (yyyy-mm-dd)</date></city,></stage_name></event_name></venue_name></album></artist_name>

Track list formats: Track numbers can be one or two digits with an optional period, followed by at least one space, then the track title.
01 Title for track 1
02 Title for track 2 (comment/songwriter) [artist info for this track]
:
99 Title for track 99

You can have more than one line for each track, but more than one line is not read. AATB doesn't keep track of the track number in the info file, it just reads the titles in numerical sequence, and matches them up with actual tracks found in that folder to tag the tracks. If the number of tracks found in the info.txt file does not agree with the actual number of tracks in the [bitrate] directory, then the track list is ignored and the track names are used instead.
Any comments enclosed in parentheses is ignored.
By default the "Album Artist" property in Windows will be tagged as the artist for each track. A track artist may be annotated within square brackets. If this field is present then the track will be tagged with this information as the artist for that track. You can use it as the entire track artist, or just an additional guest.
e.g.: Track 5, Title: "More Dip", Album Artist: "Joe Bag 'o Chips, feat Pickled Herring"
05 More Dip [Joe Bag 'o Chips feat. Pickled Herring]