Ape files (Monkey's Audio): How to create them under Trusty and Xenial?

Question

I have seen plenty of useful information on Ask Ubuntu about how to play Monkey's Audio or APE files. However I would like create these files from a collection of wav files using either command line or GUI.

Answer 1

Best way under Trusty Tahr or Xenial Xerus is to use the Monkey's Audio Console Front End of Matthew T. Ashland. mc3man holds a package in his PPAs for either Trusty or Xenial. Add the required PPA and install this application as follows:

1. Installation for Trusty Tahr

Use the following commands from a Terminal window to add this PPA and install the monkeys-audio package:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mc3man/trusty-media
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install monkeys-audio

2.Installation for Xenial Xerus

Use the following commands from a Terminal window to add this PPA and install the monkeys-audio package:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mc3man/xerus-media
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install monkeys-audio

3. Usage

Installation instructions are fairly basic and can be seen by running mac -h. For a single file the following would work well:

andrew@ilium~$ mac luckynight.wav luckynight.ape -c4000
--- Monkey's Audio Console Front End (v 4.11) (c) Matthew T. Ashland ---
Compressing (extra high)...
Progress: 100.0% (0.0 seconds remaining, 1.2 seconds total)          
Success...
andrew@ilium~$ 

And for a collection of wav files the following loop would also work quite nicely:

mkdir ape && \
for j in *.wav
do 
mac "$j" ape/"${j%.wav}.ape" -c4000
done

And now enjoy your Monkey's Audio music :).

References:

• PPA: Ubuntu Multimedia for Trusty
• PPA: Ubuntu Multimedia for Xerus