FLAC Splitter (flacsplit.sh)

A bash tool for splitting single FLAC files with CUE sheets into individual, properly tagged tracks with album art.

Features

• Splits a single FLAC file into individual tracks using CUE sheet
• Handles Cyrillic and other non-ASCII characters (converts CUE from Windows-1251 to UTF-8)
• Tags tracks with metadata from the CUE file
• Automatically searches for and embeds album cover art from:
  1. MusicBrainz/CoverArtArchive (primary source)
  2. Last.fm (secondary source)
  3. Suggests a Google Images search link if no cover is found automatically
• Uses unique filenames for cover art to avoid conflicts between albums
• Handles URL redirects from cover art sources
• Supports both ffmpeg and metaflac for embedding cover art

Requirements

• shnsplit (from the 'shntool' package)
• cuetag.sh (usually comes with 'cuetools')
• jq for JSON parsing
• file for MIME type detection
• ffmpeg (recommended) or metaflac for embedding cover art

Install dependencies on macOS:

brew install shntool cuetools jq ffmpeg

On Debian/Ubuntu:

apt-get install shntool cuetools jq ffmpeg

Usage

1. Place the script in a directory with a single FLAC file and its corresponding CUE sheet
2. Make the script executable: chmod +x flacsplit.sh
3. Run the script: ./flacsplit.sh

Options

• -f, --force: Force re-splitting even if tracks already exist

How It Works

1. File Detection:

   • Locates a CUE sheet and the corresponding FLAC file in the current directory
   • Converts the CUE sheet from Windows-1251 to UTF-8 encoding

2. Track Splitting:

   • Checks if tracks have already been split; if so, skips splitting unless --force is used
   • Uses shnsplit to separate the FLAC file into individual tracks
   • Names tracks using %n - %t format (track number - track title)

3. Metadata Tagging:

   • Uses cuetag.sh to apply metadata (artist, album, track names, etc.) from the CUE file

4. Cover Art Retrieval:

   • Creates a unique filename for the cover based on artist and album name
   • Searches for cover art from MusicBrainz using exact artist+album query
   • If not found, tries alternative MusicBrainz search methods
   • If still not found, attempts to retrieve cover from Last.fm
   • As a last resort, provides a Google Images search URL for manual download

5. Cover Art Embedding:

   • If ffmpeg is available, uses it to embed cover art with proper metadata
   • Otherwise falls back to metaflac for basic cover art embedding

Examples

Basic usage:

./flacsplit.sh

Force re-splitting:

./flacsplit.sh --force

Troubleshooting

• No cover found: If automatic cover search fails, the script will provide a Google Images search URL. Download the cover manually with the filename shown in the output.
• Wrong cover: Delete the cover image and re-run the script, or find a cover manually.
• Encoding issues: Make sure your CUE file is properly encoded (script attempts to convert from Windows-1251 to UTF-8).

Notes

• The script creates temporary files that are cleaned up upon completion
• Original FLAC file and CUE sheet are preserved
• Cover art images are retained after script execution