Handling APE CUE Images with K3b

success2.pngI had a music album containing only a .cue file, a (big) .ape file and a .LOG file. I knew K3b is great for ripping separate tracks off cue + wav files, and I’ve also tried with FLAC and it worked. But Monkey’s Audio (APE) failed with a “File Format Not Supported” error.

After a little bit of Google-centered research, I found out that Monkey’s Audio is not packaged for Debian systems (on which K/Ubuntu is based on). So I downloaded it from the K3b download page (direct link to download). Here’s what I did next:

  1. Unpack the downloaded file:

    tar -xjf k3bmonkeyaudioplugin-3.1.tar.bz2
    cd k3bmonkeyaudioplugin-3.1

    The directory we cd into is created by tar.

  2. Their configure script seems to be broken. It finishes OK although not all dependencies are found. I needed to install the following packages to get it to compile:

    sudo aptitude install nasm libk3b-dev libhal-dev

  3. The remaining steps are easy (make sure you’re in the k3bmonkeyaudioplugin-3.1 directory):

    ./configure
    make
    sudo make install

    If make spits out an error, look into it and see what other deps you may be missing. I’m on Kubuntu Edgy here.

ogg-4ever.pngAfter this, K3b recognises APEs easily. Start it, click ‘New Audio CD Project’, locate the CUE file in the browser pane and double-click it. You can play the tracks from within K3b and rip the files by clicking the blue arrow button. I strongly suggest that you use a free, open-source codec like OGG or FLAC, as they have better compression and speed than the proprietary ones like MP3 and APE itself.

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 10th, 2007 at 16:59 and is filed under KDE, Linux, Screenshots. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

18 Responses to Handling APE CUE Images with K3b

  1. zambiado says:
    February 28, 2007 at 06:44

    I have the follow problem when execute ./configure to install k3bmonkeyaudioplugin-3.1 in Ubuntu:

    user@host:~/tmp/k3bmonkeyaudioplugin-3.1# ./configure
    /*…*/
    checking for C compiler default output file name… configure: error: C compiler cannot create executables
    /*…*/

    Searching on the web, I found library/package ‘build-essential’ that is not default in Ubuntu. To install this, run the follow:

    sudo apt-get install build-essential

  2. zambiado says:
    February 28, 2007 at 06:56

    And, if you have the follow problem:

    checking for X… configure: error: Can’t find X includes. Please check your installation and add the correct paths!

    run the follow line:

    apt-get install kdebase-dev

  3. Constantin says:
    February 28, 2007 at 13:39

    Thanks! On a “clean install” of Ubuntu your advice come in handy. Those packages were already installed on my system (probably when I compiled something else).

  4. Ted Parvu says:
    March 10, 2007 at 16:05

    Thanks for the list of dependent packages! Saved me a lot of time and grief in trying to figure that one out. Not to mention letting me know there is an ape k3b plugin. :)

    I’m burning ape files as we speak!

    –Ted

  5. hvthao says:
    March 21, 2007 at 18:04

    Thanks! I’m using ubuntu, and I must install lots of dependent packages before I can install the plugin.

  6. Mithrilhall says:
    April 6, 2007 at 07:28

    Thank you. I’ve been looking for this.

  7. Antonio Moreno says:
    November 3, 2007 at 05:44

    Thanks for the tip! it helps me to get monkey audio working with K3B! Cheers!

  8. theo says:
    November 13, 2007 at 16:33

    Cool! Worked for my Ubuntu Gutsy. ./configure complained about missing Qt libs, so I did a
    sudo apt-get install libqt3-mt-dev
    and after this it complained about missing KDE, so I did
    sudo apt-get install kdelibs4-dev

    And now it works fine.
    THx!

  9. Aaron says:
    November 15, 2007 at 06:01

    Thanks a lot. Save me much time to look for dependencies.

    Is there any way to set the quality of transcode? Like to burning a 24 bit audio CD from ape/flac file?
    Thank you :)

  10. Constantin says:
    November 15, 2007 at 15:44

    Not sure about the bitrate thing, you may want to ask the devs of the plugin. Maybe use a conversion program instead?

  11. Juan says:
    May 18, 2008 at 20:05

    after the ./configure I get the following message
    checking for X… configure: error: Can’t find X includes. Please check your installation and add the correct paths!

    Please help!

  12. Constantin says:
    May 18, 2008 at 20:07

    Juan, check out zambiado’s comment above. Tell me if it works for you.

  13. Juan says:
    May 19, 2008 at 16:39

    Thank you both (Constantin & Zambiado). It’s worked and I’m a very happy bunny!!!!

  14. Pigeon says:
    May 22, 2008 at 19:01

    Many thanks for the recipe. I have had a command-line ape decompressor installed for some time but it is so much easier just to be able to fire up k3b and click on the cue file job done.

  15. Randy says:
    July 16, 2008 at 03:51

    Thanks for the helpful article! finally worked after I did this: sudo aptitude install nasm libk3b-dev libhal-dev

  16. colono says:
    November 22, 2008 at 21:38

    FYI: It is a good idea to always use checkinstall so that you get yourself a .deb – which you can reuse in a new or other system and also easily remove with dpkg.

  17. prezeus says:
    May 31, 2009 at 04:28

    All works fine until “make” it seems cant find the make file. Please help…

  18. Going crazy with Brasero opening cue sheets says:
    November 1, 2010 at 11:06

    […] every package mentioned in these links: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.p…ape+monkey%27s https://ascending.wordpress.com/2007/…ages-with-k3b/ But still there is problem. I have checked file k3bplugin.h and yes, it has line #include […]