International Standard Recording Code
w:International Standard Recording Code
An ISRC can identify musical recordings independent from the distribution media, i.e. independent from a specific CD and independent from a digital music store.
Music recordings with the same ISRC can appear on different CDs. So if you suggest to a DJ he should play a specific recording you could do this via ISRC. He himself can then figure out from which CD to obtain it.
Recent CDs contain the ISRC's directly and they can be read with software.
Example
The following cue sheet was generated from a Reliquias Canaro CD (http://eng.tango.info/00724354169229) : 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.
How to obtain
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.de)
- Download, install, configure, and run EAC.
- Press F9 then go to Tools tab
- Check the "Retrieve UPC / ISRC codes in CUE sheet generation"
- Load a cd in EAC
- Press Alt+S to generate the CUE sheet