disc-forge

Automated CD burning for macOS via cdrdao. Two modes:

• Audio CD (default) — Red Book, plays in any CD player, 80-min capacity, CD-Text from ID3 tags
• MP3 data CD (

  --mp3-disc

  ) — plays in MP3-capable stereos (most 2005+ car head units), 700 MB capacity, ISO9660+Joliet filesystem

Turns "burn the BSG soundtrack to a CD" or "make an MP3 disc of these mantras" into a single command.

When to Use

• User asks to burn an album, soundtrack, or playlist to an audio CD for a car stereo / home stereo
• Source music lives on Hoodrat HDD (Mac Mini) or in a local folder
• A USB CD burner is plugged into the current Mac
• User wants either a Red Book audio CD or an MP3 data CD

Out of scope: DVD burning, CD ripping (use XLD — see

~/.claude/agent_docs/music.md

Quick Start

Burn a full album from Hoodrat HDD with one command:

python3 ~/.claude/skills/disc-forge/scripts/burn_audio_cd.py \
  --source "mac-mini-ts:/Volumes/Hoodrat HDD/Musica/BSG.S1 - OST/" \
  --name BSG-S1

That runs the full pipeline: preflight → tar-over-SSH stage → duration check → parallel WAV conversion → TOC build with CD-Text → cdrdao write at 16x → cleanup → eject. Takes ~5–7 minutes for an 80-minute disc. cdrdao streams its own progress to stdout; a 10-second countdown precedes the actual burn so

Ctrl-C

Before the first burn, make sure a blank writable CD-R or CD-RW is in the drive —

preflight.py

The Pipeline

burn_audio_cd.py

Shared stages (both modes):

preflight.py

cdrdao

ffmpeg

drutil status

cdrdao drive-info

Unsupported

stage_tracks.py

mac-mini-ts:/path

cp

mp3

cdrdao write

--speed 16 --eject

Audio CD stages (default):

check_duration.py

convert_to_wav.py

build_toc.py

CD_TEXT

--gaps

<name>-wav/

<name>/

MP3 data CD stages (

--mp3-disc

build_data_toc.py

hdiutil makehybrid -iso -joliet

CD_ROM

TRACK MODE1

DATAFILE

--name

<name>.iso

<name>/

Scripts

All scripts support

--help

~/.claude/skills/disc-forge/scripts/

~/burn-staging/<name>/

preflight.py         # preflight.py [--json]
stage_tracks.py      # stage_tracks.py --source <path|host:/path> --dest <name> [--format mp3]
check_duration.py    # check_duration.py <staging-dir> [--ceiling 80] [--json]
convert_to_wav.py    # convert_to_wav.py <staging-dir> [--output <wav-dir>] [--jobs N]
build_toc.py         # build_toc.py --wav-dir <wavs> --source-dir <mp3s> --output <toc> [--gaps]
build_data_toc.py    # build_data_toc.py --source-dir <dir> --volume-label <label> --iso-output <iso> --toc-output <toc>
burn_audio_cd.py     # burn_audio_cd.py --source <path|host:/path> --name <name> [--mp3-disc] [--speed 16] [--gaps] [--dry-run] [--keep-wavs] [--ceiling 80]

Key

burn_audio_cd.py

• --mp3-disc

  — burn an MP3 data CD (ISO9660+Joliet) instead of a Red Book audio CD. 700 MB capacity, plays in MP3-capable car stereos (most 2005+ head units).

• --data-ceiling N

  — MP3 data disc capacity ceiling in MB (default 700, only with

  --mp3-disc

  ).

• --dry-run

  — runs everything through TOC generation, skips the cdrdao write. Use to validate the whole pipeline on a disposable run.

• --gaps

  — 2-sec spacers between tracks (pop albums). Default is gapless (right for OSTs, film scores, live albums). Audio mode only.

• --speed N

  — cdrdao write speed multiplier. Default 16. Drop to 10 for maximum reliability on cheap media.

• --keep-wavs

  — preserve the intermediate WAV staging dir (audio mode) or ISO (data mode) after the burn.

• --ceiling N

  — audio CD capacity in minutes for the fit check. Default 80. Set to 74 for older 74-min media.

Recipes

Burn a full soundtrack from Hoodrat HDD (the canonical path):

python3 ~/.claude/skills/disc-forge/scripts/burn_audio_cd.py \
  --source "mac-mini-ts:/Volumes/Hoodrat HDD/Musica/Blade Runner - OST/" \
  --name BladeRunner-OST

Burn from a pre-staged local directory (when tracks are already on the laptop):

python3 ~/.claude/skills/disc-forge/scripts/burn_audio_cd.py \
  --source ~/burn-staging/BSG-S1 \
  --name BSG-S1

The orchestrator detects that source == staging dir and skips the stage step.

Dry-run the pipeline (validate without burning a coaster):

python3 ~/.claude/skills/disc-forge/scripts/burn_audio_cd.py \
  --source ~/burn-staging/BSG-S1 \
  --name BSG-S1 \
  --dry-run

Runs every stage through TOC generation. Prints the cdrdao command you'd run next and the

cdrdao show-toc

MP3 data CD for a modern car stereo (2005+ head units, ~700 MB capacity):

python3 ~/.claude/skills/disc-forge/scripts/burn_audio_cd.py \
  --source ~/burn-staging/mantras \
  --name mantras \
  --mp3-disc

Volume label derives from

--name

01 Foo.mp3

02 Bar.mp3

.mp3

Pop album with 2-sec gaps (Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, etc.):

python3 ~/.claude/skills/disc-forge/scripts/burn_audio_cd.py \
  --source "mac-mini-ts:/Volumes/Hoodrat HDD/Musica/Dark Side Of The Moon/" \
  --name DSOTM \
  --gaps

Cherry-picked mixtape (tracks from multiple albums):

Stage tracks manually into a single folder first, then point the orchestrator at it:

mkdir -p ~/burn-staging/my-mixtape
scp "mac-mini-ts:/Volumes/Hoodrat HDD/Musica/Blade Runner - OST/01 Main Titles.mp3" ~/burn-staging/my-mixtape/
scp "mac-mini-ts:/Volumes/Hoodrat HDD/Musica/Inception OST [2010]/01 Half Remembered Dream.mp3" ~/burn-staging/my-mixtape/
# ... rename files with numeric prefixes to force desired order ...
python3 ~/.claude/skills/disc-forge/scripts/burn_audio_cd.py --source ~/burn-staging/my-mixtape --name my-mixtape

Track order is determined by

sorted()

01_

02_

Critical Reminders

Full expansions (with why) live in

references/gotchas.md

• SMB is not reachable over Tailscale. Port 445 is refused on

  mac-mini-ts

  ; only port 22 works. Use SSH transport.

  stage_tracks.py

  already does this.
• Apple's bundled

  rsync

  (openrsync 2.6.9) splits remote paths on spaces.

  stage_tracks.py

  uses tar-over-SSH instead. Never use

  rsync

  for Hoodrat HDD.
• cdrdao 1.2.6 rejects MP3 input directly. The binary contains the literal string

  "AIFF and MP3 not supported by cdrdao"

  . WAV conversion is mandatory —

  convert_to_wav.py

  handles it. (Burn.app is the alternative if you want to skip WAV conversion — see

  references/burn-app-fallback.md

  .)

• drutil

  "Unsupported" label is a red herring for cdrdao. It only affects Apple's DiscRecording framework (Finder burn / Music.app burn / Burn.app), not cdrdao.

  preflight.py

  surfaces the label as a warning, not an error.
• CD-Text must come from source ID3 tags, not WAVs. PCM WAV has no tagging container.

  build_toc.py

  reads tags from the original file, references the matching WAV in

  AUDIOFILE

  .
• macOS Sequoia killed Music.app and Finder's burn-to-disc. Don't fall back to them.

References

references/gotchas.md

references/cdrdao-toc-format.md

CD_TEXT

cdrdao show-toc

references/hoodrat-layout.md

~/.claude/agent_docs/music.md

references/burn-app-fallback.md

Dependencies

• cdrdao

  —

  brew install cdrdao

• ffmpeg

  +

  ffprobe

  —

  brew install ffmpeg

• SSH access to

  mac-mini-ts

  (only when sourcing from Hoodrat HDD)
• A USB CD burner that speaks MMC. The ASUS SDRW-08U9M-U works despite drutil labeling it Unsupported.