soundgrab

Soundgrab is a valuable tool designed to assist you in breaking down lengthy audio files (defaulting at 44.1 kHz, 2 channel signed sixteen bit little endian) and saving selected sections to other files. This software provides you with a command line interface resembling that of a cassette player, allowing you to use commands such as ff, rw, and jump to move the player head while playing or stopped. Visual names to sections between the mark and the current position of the player head can be provided, using commands like mark and name (similar to emacs mark and point concept). Then, the export command can be utilized to transfer the named sections to other files in wav, cdr (CD mastering), or raw format, or ogg or flac format if the appropriate encoder binaries exist on your system. While the online help is simply explained, more detailed information can be found in the man page.

Soundgrab originates from the Perl department of the Maximegalon Museum of Diseased Imaginings. In order to work, the software requires access to several other resources, such as perl5 or later Term::ReadLine::Gnu and Time::HiRes from the comprehensive perl archive network (CPAN). The Time::HiRes component comes preinstalled with the base Perl distribution from version 5.8.0 and onward, and both that and the rawrec program are included in the package for your convenience. The sox program is fairly standard and can be found in most distributions. The GNU readline4 library is already installed on most systems, but in order to function soundly, some command line utilities, which are standard everywhere, are required.

The latest release of Soundgrab introduces support for Ogg format volumes, permitting dissection. Additionally, code has been streamlined and the software no longer relies on rawrec/rawplay as a dependency.