International Standard Recording Code

w:International Standard Recording Code

The problem: You talk with a friend about a song, same year, same orchestra, same singer. But how do you know he really has the same track and not a re-mastered one? You complain about clicks, but he cannot hear them.

The solution: ISRC. An ISRC can identify songs on recent CDs and also songs obtained digitally (e.g. via iTunes).

Recent CDs contain the ISRC directly and can be read with software. The following cue sheet was generated from a Canaro CD: http://x.tango.info/cue/00724354169229.cue

It starts with

REM GENRE Tango
REM DATE 2002
REM DISCID FC0D3214
REM COMMENT "ExactAudioCopy v0.95b4"
CATALOG 0724354169229
PERFORMER "Francisco Canaro Y Su Orquesta"
TITLE "Sus Éxitos Con Ernesto Famá - Reliquias"
FILE "Range.wav" WAVE
  TRACK 01 AUDIO
    TITLE "Francisco Canaro - Ernesto Famá / Tormenta"
    PERFORMER "Francisco Canaro Y Su Orquesta"
    ISRC ARF040200386
    INDEX 01 00:00:00
  TRACK 02 AUDIO
    TITLE "Francisco Canaro - Ernesto Famá / Mala Suerte"
    PERFORMER "Francisco Canaro Y Su Orquesta"
    ISRC ARF043900001
    INDEX 00 02:34:02
    INDEX 01 02:37:47

The ISRC are

• ISRC ARF040200386 (AR-F04-02-00386)
• ISRC ARF043900001 (AR-F04-39-00001)

Both songs were issued in Argentina (AR), both from the same organisation (ARF04), the first has a year marker of for 2002 (02) the second one for 1939 (39). Some recordings have the year marker from the year the song was recorded originally, other from the year were they were re-made for the CD.

There seems to be no public ISRC database, but tango.info has generated cue sheets for some Reliquias CDs. http://x.tango.info/cue/

read from CD with EAC

(EAC = http://www.exactaudiocopy.com)

1. Download, install, configure, and run EAC.
2. Press F9 then go to Tools tab
3. Check the "Retrieve UPC / ISRC codes in CUE sheet generation"
4. Load a cd in EAC
5. Press Alt+S to generate the CUE sheet