[linuxkernelnewbies] SoX - Sound eXchange | HomePage

Thu, 10 Sep 2009 17:51:34 -0700

http://sox.sourceforge.net/

Welcome to the home of SoX, the Swiss Army knife of sound processing programs.

SoX is a cross-platform (Windows, Linux, MacOS X, etc.) command line utility that can convert various formats of computer audio files in to other formats. It can also apply various effects to these sound files, and, as an added bonus, SoX can play and record audio files on most platforms.

The screen-shot to the right shows an example of SoX first being used to process some audio, then being used to play some audio files.

For the list of all file formats, device drivers, and effects supported in the latest release, click here. To see the complete set of SoX documentation, click here.

If you find SoX to be useful, please consider supporting the project with a donation. We can accept PayPal donations through the SourceForge donation system, although currently a SourceForge login ID (or an openID), is required. Creating a SourceForge ID takes only a few seconds—click on the Paypal logo below to make a donation.


An example SoX session

Latest News

SoX 14.3.0 was released on June 21, '09. Highlights include:
  • New filter effects: `sinc', `fir', `biquad'.
  • Other new effects: `stats', `overdrive', `vad'.
  • New audio device handler for OpenBSD.
  • Fixed problems with temporary file on Windows.
  • Can now enable automated clipping protection for most effects.
  • Automatically `dither' as needed.
  • Improvements to AIFF, WAV, FLAC, MP3 handlers.
  • ALSA driver now supports 24-bit.
  • `spectrogram' effect enhancements including multi-channel support.
  • `synth' effect enhancements including new `pluck' type.
  • More gain/normalise options.
  • Now uses CPU multi-core to speed up some effects.
  • SOX_OPTS environment variable for setting default options.
  • Interactive playback volume control (on some systems).
  • More `soxi' options, including multi-file total duration.
  • Can now auto-detect file-type even when inputing from a pipe.

The complete list of changes can be viewed here.

Bugs and workarounds associated with recent releases can be found here.

Download

SoX 14.3.0 downloads:

Source code and executables for older versions of SoX are available here.

Some third-party pre-built (usually older) versions of SoX are available via the links page.


Using gnuplot with SoX

Technical Information

   

SoX is often used to convert an audio file from one sampling rate to another rate (e.g. from DAT to CD rates). SoX's resampling algorithm is highly configurable; some notes on selecting options for resampling are available here.

If you're interested in the format of various audio files then you will be interested in the Audio File Format FAQ which I also maintain.

Support and Development

SorceForge.net Most of the SoX project's resources are provided by Soureforge. There is a SoX project web site that can be of use when working with CVS and its mailing list.

There is a low volume mailing list set up that you can subscribe to or read online located at the SoX-users Mailing List web site.

Development of SoX is done using CVS. It is possible to view the files checked in to CVS using a CVS web interface as well as find additional information on SourceForge's CVS webpage.

If you have CVS installed on your system then you may obtain a snapshot of the latest source by performing the following commands. The commands will log you in and check out a copy of the sox module and place it in the subdirectory it was run from. 

 cvs -d :pserver:anonym...@sox.cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/sox login
 cvs -z3 -d :pserver:anonym...@sox.cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/sox co -P sox

The anonymous CVS account does not need a password. When prompted for a password by the cvs command, enter nothing and hit Enter.

To merge in future updates you may run the following command (from inside the sox directory that was created from your checkout): 

 cvs update -P

If you make any changes to SoX that you would like to be included in future releases then you may use the following command to make an easy to read diff. 

 cvs diff -uw

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