MINGW64: Build a static SoX (.exe) for Windows, DLL-independent with MP3 de-/encoding support (libmad and Lame encoder)

build-instructions.md

MINGW64: Build a static SoX (.exe) for Windows, DLL-independent with MP3 de-/encoding support (libmad and Lame encoder)

Here are my personal notes on compiling SoX with MINGW64. Maybe, my situation isn't representative for everyone. Or maybe, I could have achieved my goal easier. But this is the way I succeeded.

I need to build SoX as a static .exe file with MP3 de- and encoding support, to be able to normalize an existing MP3 file and save it as MP3.

I used Windows 11 Pro and MINGW64. I did another successful test with Windows 8.1.

Goal

My main goal is to be able to normalize and save back MP3 files. So I need SoX for normalization and libmad / Lame for MP3 de-/encoding. At best, I would like to port my target .exe file to other systems without the need of any depending DLL or other file.

Prerequisites

• MSYS2 (https://www.msys2.org)
• SoX 14.4.2 (https://sourceforge.net/projects/sox/files/sox/14.4.2/sox-14.4.2.tar.gz/download)
• libmad 0.15.1b (https://sourceforge.net/projects/mad/files/libmad/0.15.1b/libmad-0.15.1b.tar.gz/download)
• Lame 3.100 (https://sourceforge.net/projects/lame/files/lame/3.100/lame-3.100.tar.gz/download)

Start MSYS2 MINGW64 from the Windows Start Menu.

System update:

pacman -Syu

Install necessary build tools:

pacman -S gcc make patch autotools

Install toolchain for independent Windows exe:

pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-toolchain

Lame Encoder

Build Lame

./configure --prefix=/mingw64 --enable-static --disable-shared --disable-frontend
make
make install

libmad

Necessary patches / fixes

• https://www.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/view/svn/multimedia/libmad.html

patch -Np1 -i ../libmad-0.15.1b-fixes-1.patch
sed "s@AM_CONFIG_HEADER@AC_CONFIG_HEADERS@g" -i configure.ac
touch NEWS AUTHORS ChangeLog
autoreconf -fvi

Build libmad

./configure --prefix=/mingw64 --enable-static --disable-shared
make
make install

SoX

Build SoX

The options are just my personal preference. You can change them to whatever you like or dislike. Only the "--with-mad" and "--with-lame" are required.

./configure --prefix=/mingw64 --enable-static --disable-shared --disable-openmp --without-magic --without-png --without-ladspa --without-gsm --without-lpc10 --without-oss --with-mad --with-lame
make
make install

Strip final executable

If you wanna lose about 1/3 of the file size, you can strip afterwards! :-)

strip /mingw64/bin/sox.exe

compile-static-sox.sh

#!/bin/sh

COMMON_ARGS="--prefix=/mingw64 --enable-static --disable-shared"
LAME_ARGS="--disable-frontend"
SOX_ARGS="--disable-openmp --without-magic --without-png --without-ladspa --without-gsm --without-lpc10 --without-oss --with-mad --with-lame"

tar xf lame-3.100.tar.gz
cd lame-3.100
./configure $COMMON_ARGS $LAME_ARGS
make
make install

cd ..

tar xf libmad-0.15.1b.tar.gz
cd libmad-0.15.1b
patch -Np1 -i ../libmad-0.15.1b-fixes-1.patch
sed "s@AM_CONFIG_HEADER@AC_CONFIG_HEADERS@g" -i configure.ac
touch NEWS AUTHORS ChangeLog
autoreconf -fvi
./configure $COMMON_ARGS
make
make install

cd ..

tar xf sox-14.4.2.tar.gz
cd sox-14.4.2
patch -Np1 -i ../sox-gdve-build.patch
./configure $COMMON_ARGS $SOX_ARGS
make
make install

strip /mingw64/bin/sox.exe

sox-gdve-build.patch

--- sox-14.4.2-orig/src/sox.c	2014-10-06 04:02:30.000000000 +0200
+++ sox-14.4.2/src/sox.c	2023-01-18 12:54:05.831594500 +0100
@@ -1821,8 +1821,9 @@
 #endif
   const sox_version_info_t* info = sox_version_info();
 
-  fprintf(file, "%s:      SoX v%s%s%s\n",
+  fprintf(file, "%s:      SoX GdvE Build (%s %s) v%s%s%s\n",
       myname,
+	  __DATE__, __TIME__,
       info->version,
       info->version_extra ? "-" : "",
       info->version_extra ? info->version_extra : "");