NAME

       butt - multi OS streaming audio tool easy to use

SYNOPSIS

       butt [option] <path_to_file>

DESCRIPTION

       butt  (broadcast  using this tool) is an easy to use, multi OS streaming tool. It supports
       ShoutCast and IceCast and runs on Linux, MacOS and Windows. The  main  purpose  of  is  to
       stream  live  audio  data from your computers Mic or Line input to an Shoutcast or Icecast
       server. Recording is also possible. It is not  intended  to  be  a  server  by  itself  or
       automatically stream a set of audio files.

       It Works with SHOUTcast and Icecast.

       It runs on all three major operating systems. Mac OS X, Linux and Windows.

       It supports aac+, mp3, ogg/vorbis, ogg/opus and flac for streaming.

       It supports aac+, mp3, ogg/vorbis, ogg/opus, flac and wav for recording.

       It is able to connect to a server after starting up automatically.

       It is able to start a recording after connecting to a server automatically.

       Recording can be split after a user defined amount of time.

       Current song can either be updated manually or automatically by reading a file.

       Configuration files can be imported and exported.

       Status display shows infos about the current state (click on it).

       Automatically reconnects in case the connection was interrupted.

       It has a VU Meter with peak hold.

       It is able to attentuate and amplify the input volume.

       It has a 5-band EQ.

       It can read song names from different apps in MacOS and Linux.

       Display colors can be changed as desired.

QUICK START

       When you start butt the first time, it will create a default configuration file in in your
       home directory (~/.buttrc) on Linux.

       In order to connect to a server, you need to add a new server in the config  window.  Just
       open  the settings window and click on [ADD]. Now fill in the input fields with the server
       data and click on the new [ADD].

       Adding Stream Infos is not necessary for connecting to a server.

INSTALL AAC LIBRARIES

       Install libfdk-aac from your linux distribution repository

       Enjoy AAC Streaming

CONFIGURATION

       The  command  line  option  -c  <path_to_file>  allows  you  to  define  a  new   standard
       configuration  path.  This  makes  it  possible  to have multiple instances with different
       configurations running. In case the file does not exists, butt will create a default file.

               [Save]: Saves your current settings to the standard configuration file or to the file that was passed to the -c option.

               [Export]: Saves your current settings to the given file.

               [Import]: Loads the selected file and applies the settings.

       Caution If you use the -c command line option and import  another  configuration  file  by
       using  the import function, pressing [Save] will overwrite the file that was passed to the
       -c option.

MAIN WINDOW

       The dot matrix display shows you the current state of the butt software. The  states  are:
       idle, streaming, recording. When in streaming and/or recording state you can cycle through
       the information by clicking on the display. You can choose between online  duration,  data
       sent, recording duration and data recorded.

               The [>] symbol shines yellow if butt is connected to a server.

               The [O] symbol shines orange if the [start rec. when connected] checkbox is activated.

               The [O] symbol shines red if butt is currently recording.

       The  coloured  LED lights (vu-meter) indicate the current input volume. For best listening
       experience for you listeners I suggest to have the input volume below or within the orange
       LEDs. Never let the volume go up to the red LEDs, they indicate saturation.

       Gain  slider:  The  slider  is  only  visible when the little [more/less] button below the
       [settings] button was clicked. With this slider you can attenuate and  amplify  the  input
       signal  between  -24dB and +24dB, respectively. Double clicking the slider resets the gain
       to 0dB. Use this slider only to fine tune your  input  signal.  It  does  not  change  the
       operating  systems  input  volume  setting. Instead, the input signal is multiplied by the
       given factor. Thus adding to much gain will also add lots of noise.

STREAMING

       To start streaming just klick the play symbol. butt will try  to  connect  to  the  server
       until you press the stop symbol.

       You  can  stream  with  3  different codecs: mp3, ogg/vorbis and ogg/opus. In case opus is
       selected the samplerate is always upsampled to 48kHz. Upsampling needs lot of  CPU  power.
       You  can  change  the  upsampling algorithm in the [Advanced] settings on the [Audio] tab.
       Upsampling is deactivated if you select 48kHz as sample rate.

       Unfortunately, it is not possible to update Stream Infos  while  streaming.  You  need  to
       reconnect for updating the Stream Infos.

       However,  at  least  you can update the current song on the fly. You only need to type the
       song into the Song Name input field at the [Stream] tab and hit Enter or click [OK].

       butt can also update the song automatically from a text file. The first line of  the  text
       file  must be the name of the song. As soon as butt detects that the file has been changed
       it updates the name of the song on the server. A plugin for the amarok audio player can be
       found  in the player_plugins/ directory. Do not hesitate to write a plugin for other audio
       players. Just mail them to me and I’ll add them to the butt package.

       Stream infos:

               In the [main] settings window you can add stream infos. This allows you to deliver more details of your stream station. For example the genre of your music, description of your station, web address etc.

RECORDING

       butt is able to record and stream simultaneously in different bit rates. For  example  you
       can  stream with 96kbit and record with 192kbit. Recording is possible in mp3, ogg/vorbis,
       ogg/opus, FLAC or wav.

       In case opus is selected the samplerate is always upsampled  to  48kHz.  Upsampling  needs
       lots  of  CPU power. You can change the upsampling algorithm in the [Advanced] settings on
       the [Audio] tab or disable it by selecting 48kHz as sample rate. Not all sound  interfaces
       support a samplerate of 48kHz, though.

       To  record  you first need to select the destination folder and specify a file name in the
       [Rec] tab. butt will replace the variables %d, %m and %y with the current day,  month  and
       year. e.g. rec_(%m_%d_%y).mp3 → rec_(03_28_2008).mp3. Other possible time variables are %H
       (hours) %M (minutes) %S (seconds).

       With the %i variable you can add an index number  to  your  file  name.  This  means  with
       rec_%i.mp3  butt  first  tries  to open rec_0.mp3. If that file already exists, butt tries
       rec_1.mp3 and so on…

       If the start recording when connected checkbox is  activated  butt  starts  the  recording
       immediately after being connected to a server.

       To manually start the recording press the record symbol. To stop recording simply click on
       the record symbol again.

       You can also tell butt to split your recording into separat files every  n  minutes.  Just
       enter  a  number  higher than 0 into the Split file every [..] minutes field. Let’s assume
       your  file  name  is  rec_(%m_%d_%y)_%i.mp3  Then  the   first   file   is   expanded   to
       rec_(03_28_2008)_0-1.mp3,  the  second  after  n  minutes to rec_(03_28_2008)_0-2.mp3, the
       third to rec_(03_28_2008)_0-3.mp3, you got it. If  the  sync  to  full  hour  checkbox  is
       activated the automatic file splitting is synchronized to the full hour. That means if the
       time is 8:55 and file splitting is set to 15 minutes, the second file starts at  9:00  and
       the third at 9:15.

AUTHOR

       The BUTT was written by Daniel Noethen <butt@danielnoethen.de>.

       This manual page was written by Paulo Henrique de Lima Santana (phls) <phls@debian.org.br>
       for the Debian project (but may be used by others).