CHEAT SHEET
-----------

This is a cheat sheet of examples using SOX to do various common 
sound file conversions.  The file format examples are starting
to become dated.  Any offers to update this document to explain 
the ends and outs of each format would be appreciated.

In general, sox will attempt to take an input sound file format and
convert it to a new file format using a similar data types and sample
rates.  For instance "sox monkey.au monkey.wav" would try and convert
the mono 8000Hz u-law .au file to a 8000Hz u-law .wav file.

If an output format doesn't support the same data types as the input
file then Sox will generally select a default format to save it in.
You can select a data type of your choice using command line options.
You can also override data type values to have a output file of
higher or lower percision data (and thus higher or lower file size).

Most file formats that contain complete headers will automatically
convert to a similar format.  This means .wav, .aiff, and .voc files
will readily convert to each other without the need of complex
command lines.

If you create a sound file and you can not play it, check to make
sure your sound card to play a file using this data type.

SOX is great to use along with other command line programs.  The
currently most used example is to use mpg123 to convert mp3 files
in to wav files.  The following command line will do this:

mpg123 -b 10000 -s filename.mp3 | sox -t raw -r 44100 -s -w -c 2 - filename.wav

The SUN examples below all assume you have the old SUN voice-quality 8khz 
u-law hardware.  If you do then you will want to have all your .au
files in this format so that you cat do thinks like
"cat soundfile.au > /dev/audio" and you will hear a good file.
If the .AU file doesn't have a proper header, then you'll need the second 
command line to let sox know the values.  If the .AU has a proper
header then you can remove the "-r 8000 -U -b" in front of 
"file.au".

SUN .au to Mac .snd:

	sox file.au -r 11025 -t ub file.snd
or:
	sox -t ul -r 8000 file.au -r 11025 -t ub file.snd

When you copy the file to the Mac, you'll have to set
the sample rate by hand.

Mac .snd to SUN .au

	sox -r 11025 -t ub file.snd -r 8000 -U -b file.au

The Mac file might also be at sample rates 5012, 22050, or 44100.

PC .voc to SUN .au

	sox file.voc -r 8000 -U -b file.au

SUN .au to PC .voc 

	sox file.au file.voc 
or:
	sox -r 8000 -t ul file.au file.voc 

SUN .au to WAV - without clipping
	
	sox file.au -s -w file.wav
or:
	sox -t ul -r 8000 file.au -s -w file.wav

WAV to SUN .au
	
	sox file.wav -r 8000 -U -b file.au

WAV to VOC
	sox file.wav -u -b file.voc

VOC to WAV
	sox file.voc file.wav

Any file to SUN .au

sox -t auto file.X -c 1 -t aiff - |  sox -t aiff - -r 8000 -U -b -t au file.au

Just convert file format without making a disk file.
Example: convert input stream in AIFF format to output stream in WAV format:

sox -t aiff - -t wav -

Some people try to put this kind of command in scripts.

It is important to understand how the internals of Sox work when
working with compressed audio, including u-law, a-law, ADPCM, or GSM.
Sox takes ALL input data types and converts them to uncompressed
32-bit signed data.  It will then convert this internal version into
the requested output format.  This means unneeded noise can be introduced
from decompressing data and then recompressing, such as would happen
when reading u-law data and writing back out u-law data.  If possible,
specify the output data to be uncompressed PCM.

Under DOS, you can convert several using something similar to the
following command line:

FOR %X IN (*.RAW) DO sox -r 11025 -w -s -t raw $X $X.wav

Good luck!

