I decided to face head on the biggest problem when ripping my audio CDs to FLAC. The two "copy protected" CDs that I have.

I remember when I first ripped these. I needed to use some alternative multi-session-aware Linux CD ripper which specifically ignored the completely bogus 2nd session on the CD with garbage data and read the first session TOC. (The trick is that bog-ordinary redbook CD players don't care about the 2nd session, but computer CD-ROM drives and apps do.) I had forgotten the name of the program and I was like "oh shit, I'm forgetting some old nerd lore here."

...I hit "cdparanoia -B" and both of the CDs extracted just fine with no complaints.

#MusicBrainz Picard identified both of the discs just fine.

I *guess* I would have had problems if I had tried to extract this with K3B as I usually do, because it identified the disc and then the drive started going haywire. Don't always trust GUI programs!

#cd #audiocd #music #drm

Today I started the biggish job of ripping all of my #music CDs to #FLAC format.

My previous ripping style: I ripped the music to Ogg Vorbis or something as I went. No real concern for metadata accuracy and stuff.

Anyway, now, the idea is to rip the CDs to FLAC (which can then be converted to whatever I need with no compounding quality loss), making sure all files get the actual real #MusicBrainz release data (and not just "close enough" matches). I guess I should also archive the Enhanced CD content.

So far it's going great! 28 CDs down, and only 2 have had MusicBrainz problems (one missing album cover art, one seemingly entirely missing release of an album that does exist in the database). ...I get the vague feeling that the missing album art was missing last time when I was ripping this stuff. Should fix that.

Don't mind the music selection in the screenie, this was just random stuff from the shelf.

#cd #audiocd #archival

Mein altes Thinkpad T500 kann CDs digitalisieren, bei denen deutlich neuere (externe) CD-Laufwerke gestolpert sind.

Ich denke, ich kann längst verloren geglaubte CDs ins digitale Zeitalter retten und freue mich gerade ein bisschen.

Nutzen tue ich dafür Linux Mint mit asunder und bearbeite das dann mit mp3tag und musicbrainz picard ggf. nochmal nach.
#musik #navidrome #thinkpad #linux #mp3tag #musicbrainz

We released a fourth alpha for #MusicBrainz Picard 3. If things go well we will next release a beta version for broader testing.

https://blog.metabrainz.org/2026/03/20/picard-3-alpha-4-released/

#ThursdayFiveList this week is #Fatherhood My list deals with father issues, some tongue in cheek, one very intense. "Dad" by NoMeansNo is about abuse and is explicit in how it's presented.

Dad - NoMeansNo
Ballad of My Old Man - Killdozer
My Old Man's a Fatso - Angry Samoans
father/ELOHIM - le butcherettes
My Father's Dreams - Articles of Faith

#MusicBrainz https://listenbrainz.org/playlist/a704c0ac-d5ab-48af-8f70-a124320c0942/
#AppleMusic https://music.apple.com/us/playlist/father-thursday-five/pl.u-3XDytj6Xq

once upon a time somebody had concerns about a #GSoC proposal to #MusicBrainz and whether they were going to be receptive to a flood of vibe-coded edits to the database.

i just saw that they have published a very clear statement. fwiw. emphasis theirs

We discourage the use of AI tools in communications and contributions.

The goal of GSoC is for you to learn and improve your skills, not just to finish your project at any cost. However, if you do use any AI or LLMs, you must disclose their use in your PRs and/or conversations with your mentor. Additionally, you must fully understand and be able to explain any AI-generated code you submit. Any undisclosed use of AI or Large Language Models, or inability to explain AI-generated contributions, will be grounds for instant disqualification.

https://wiki.musicbrainz.org/Development/Summer_of_Code/Getting_started#Getting_feedback

I've moved my Internet Archive Metadata plugin for Picard out into its own repo and updated it to work with Picard v3 alpha 3. Probably limited enough in functionality that it's not useful to anyone but me (since the metadata on IA is pretty freeform and it likely only really works with the specific tracks I wrote it to help sort), but if you want to load Internet Archive meta.xml files as metadata in Picard, this may be a good starting place:

https://codeberg.org/SamWhited/picard-iametadata

#Picard #Musicbrainz