Introduction

This is a port of Monkey's Audio Codec to Unix-like systems. It provides a command line utility and a library that can be used by other programs.

Monkey's Audio Codec is a lossless compressor for audio files. Files in this format can typically be recognized by the .ape extension. Other popular lossless compression formats are Xiph.Org's FLAC and Apple's ALAC.

This port is based on Monkey's Audio Codec version 3.99 and integrates patches for shntool compatibility. Silly licensing restrictions have hampered the development of a healthy ecosystem around this codec. Using it for anything other than decoding existing files is thus discouraged.

Usage

To encode an audio file:

$ mac input.wav output.ape -c2000

To decode an audio file:

$ mac input.ape output.wav -d

See mac(1) for more information.

Installing

The easiest way to install Monkey's Audio Codec is through Homebrew. There is a formula for Monkey's Audio Codec in my Homebrew tap.

If you're compiling from source, you'll need:

• CMake
• Yasm (optional)

To compile and install:

cd /path/to/source
cmake .
make install

Credits

Monkey's Audio Codec was created by Matthew T. Ashland. It was ported to Linux and further developed by Frank Klemm and SuperMMX. This port is now being maintained by Fernando Tarlá Cardoso Lemos.

License

Monkey's Audio Codec is available under an unorthodox license. See the LICENSE file for more information.