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This is the mp3cat home page. Download the latest release tarball mp3cat-0.4.tar.gz or (better) check out the current version from github: https://github.com/tomclegg/mp3cat

Documentation consists of this page and the README and INSTALL files included in the distribution.

mp3cat was written for FreeBSD. It also works in Linux. It probably works with other UNIX systems too.

© 2003-2017 Tom Clegg.

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.

There is no warranty. If you need a warranty, you cannot use this software. Sorry!

Summary

mp3cat reads and writes MP3 files.

$ mp3cat [options] - - < infile.mp3 > outfile.mp3
$ mp3cat [options] - outdir < infile.mp3
$ mp3cat [options] indir - > outfile.mp3
$ mp3cat [options] indir outdir

Installation

mkdir -p /usr/local/src
cd /usr/local/src
git clone https://github.com/tomclegg/mp3cat
cd mp3cat
make install

Filtering mp3 files

mp3cat can read a stream from standard input and write to standard output:

$ mp3cat - - < infile.mp3 > outfile.mp3

Writing to an mp3dir

Instead of standard output, mp3cat can store MP3 data across multiple files in a directory (an "mp3dir"). An mp3dir contains a number of files called tTIMESTAMP.mp3 (where TIMESTAMP is a UNIX timestamp) and one file called current.mp3. mp3cat appends MP3 frames to current.mp3. When current.mp3 exceeds a size threshold (default 1000000 bytes) while writing an mp3 frame, mp3cat renames it to tTIMESTAMP.mp3 (where TIMESTAMP is the current time) and starts a new current.mp3.

$ mkdir /var/log/mp3files
$ mp3cat - /var/log/mp3files < some-large-file.mp3
$ ls /var/log/mp3files
current.mp3
t1033516598.mp3
t1033516599.mp3

Control the size of mp3 segments with the --size parameter:

$ mp3cat --size 14745600 - /var/log/mp3files < some-large-file.mp3

You can make an audio logger by reading from your sound card and writing to an mp3dir. Scripts to set this up are included. If svscan is running in /service, you can set up a logging service like this:

# set up logging and cleaning services:
cd /var/service
pw useradd mp3log -d /nonexistent -s /usr/bin/true
pw useradd mp3logl -d /nonexistent -s /usr/bin/true
mp3log-conf mp3log mp3logl /var/service/mp3log /var/log/mp3log /dev/dsp 32

# start the services
chown root:mp3log /dev/dsp
chmod 660 /dev/dsp
ln -s /var/service/mp3log /service/
ln -s /var/service/mp3log-clean /service/

Exceptions:

• If tTIMESTAMP.mp3 already exists when the size threshold is reached, mp3cat keeps writing to current.mp3. Therefore, output files will be larger than expected if the size threshold is reached in less than one second.
• If a write fails (perhaps due to a full disk), mp3cat waits a second and tries again.

Reading from an mp3dir

Instead of standard input, mp3cat can also read MP3 data from an mp3dir. It reads from the end of current.mp3 just as tail -f would: when it reaches the end of current.mp3, it waits for more data to appear. While waiting for more data, if mp3cat detects that current.mp3 has been renamed and a new current.mp3 has been created, it closes the old file, opens the new one, and starts reading from the start of the new file.

You can turn your audio logger into an MP3 radio station by reading from the logger's mp3dir and writing to a network client. Here is a guide to using mp3cat to make an MP3 logger and MP3 streaming server.

Options

--noclean

Output entire input data, even if it contains stuff other than mp3 frames.

--size bytes

Set target size for mp3 files (mp3dir output only; default 1000000)

--tail bytes

How far from the end of current.mp3 to start reading (mp3dir input only; default 16384)

-v

Print more status information to stderr

Live example

This software was written for Kootenay Cooperative Radio, an FM station in Nelson, British Columbia. You can listen to KCR's MP3 stream at cjly.net/live. You can download segments from earlier this week at recent.cjly.org.

If you try mp3cat, I'm interested to know whether you can make it work and what you're using it for.

See also: dsprec for recording raw audio in FreeBSD and Linux.