[Abcde-users] Abcde -W option

[josh]

On Wed, 4 Feb 2026 at 10:42, Dry Martini Holding Company via
Abcde-users <abcde-users at lists.einval.com> wrote:
>
> On 2/3/26 17:31, josh via Abcde-users wrote:
> > Besides the track numbering, if the -W option is set then there will
> > be some metadata tags written, especially flac and mp3
> >
> > Cover art selection is primitive but still not too bad for a command
> > line script.
>
> Regarding cover art and metadata, I searched for the ffmpeg command to
> embed image art, but it does not work. My workaround is to use Kid3-qt
> to embed the album art.
>
> Speaking of embedding art and metadata, when Kid3 grabs data from
> Musicbrainz, it includes a lot more than the standard band, album titles
> and date. Like you, I find this information useful and would like to
> embed it as well, but using abcde to do it automatically. I have messed
> with editing the script file itself, by adding additional fields, nut so
> far I have not been successful. How are you embedding the metadata?

Thanks for the Kid3 pointer. I wish it could rip CDs!

Embed cover art using abcde with the -B switch. My current testing
command line looks like:
abcde -V -o flac -d /dev/sr0 -G -B

-G to download cover art, -B for embedding cover. No need for ffmpeg
to rip and encode but ffmpeg is my favourite tool to review the
metadata:
ffmpeg -i 01.Everybody\ On\ The\ Floor\ -\ Pump\ It.flac
Input #0, flac, from '01.Everybody On The Floor - Pump It.flac':
  Metadata:
    ARTIST          : Tokyo Ghetto Pussy
    ALBUM           : Everybody On The Floor (Pump It)
    TITLE           : Everybody On The Floor - Pump It
    DATE            : 1994
    GENRE           : Electronic, House, Trance, Euro House, Hard Trance
    track           : 01
    TRACKTOTAL      : 04
    CDDB            : 1505b604
  Duration: 00:03:38.00, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 883 kb/s
  Stream #0:0: Audio: flac, 44100 Hz, stereo, s16
  Stream #0:1: Video: mjpeg (Baseline), yuvj444p(pc,
bt470bg/unknown/unknown), 300x300 [SAR 1:1 DAR 1:1], 90k tbr, 90k tbn,
90k tbc (attached pic)
    Metadata:
      comment         : Cover (front)

<please excuse the following brain dump on metadata ;-o

Metadata is more complicated. I'm looking to create an archive of my
CD collection, not just a hit and run for songs. I've used abcde to
rip probably more than 1000 cds and trying to find the balance between
accuracy, detail and productivity (how long it takes to completely
process each disc). Enough info to be useful to a music player and
references to the databases for further info if wanted. I care about
metadata integrity to represent the disc and cover I have in hand, and
consistency of my collection (so that I don't end up with 16 different
artist name variations, eg Salt-n-Pepa, Salt-N-Pepa, Salt 'N' Pepa,
Salt 'n' Pepa and uhh unicode variations!)
I use the munge functions to set the artist and titles to capitalise
the first letter of every word, as per Discogs standards.
My order of authority for disc metadata is the disc in hand, CD-Text,
Discogs, Musicbrainz and gnudb. I check them all and always say yes at
the 'Edit selected CDDB data [y/N]?' prompt, whichever source I use as
my starting point. Then I set the original release date, copy paste
the genres from Discogs. And if I find any interesting tidbits along
the way, I might paste those into the EXTD and EXTT fields of the CDDB
record.
The available metadata sources for abcde, (musicbrainz, gnudb, cd-text
and local CDDB), are not accurate enough that I would trust automatic
tagging (metadata tags and dir/file naming). I've wondered about
trying to import from Discogs and using AI to merge all the sources
into an average. Tools like kid3 are better suited to detailed tagging
if wanted.
In addition to the tags above, I'll be adding the musicbrainz ID tag
in a future release.

I hope this helps :)