Press play on who you were ten years ago.

A season, gathered onto a disc.

For a long time, I have made music archives by year and quarter. They bring together the popular songs of that period, the music I played repeatedly, and pieces I wrote myself. Sounds that passed through my life at the same time stay together.

Choosing and sequencing them gradually gives a season its outline. What the world was listening to, what fascinated me, and what I was trying to make become audible beside one another. Returning later, I can hear the distance between those things, and the ways they influenced each other.

Limited space suits this practice. Which tracks should stay? What should follow what? Those small decisions give a collection its character. Years later, they also give me a reason to take that particular disc off the shelf.

Enough room for the files. A way back to the time.

A single computer can now hold thousands upon thousands of songs. That convenience is remarkable. But finding “what my ears were living in ten springs ago” is a different task from searching for a title. Keeping a file and having a reason to listen to it again can be surprisingly far apart.

There is no universal number of years an HDD or SSD will last, and an MD is not a permanent medium either. Original recordings and project files still need multiple backups. Alongside those, an MD gives me a way to keep a period of music as a collection I can return to and hear as a whole.

Cassettes and CDs each have their appeal. MD is digital, smaller than a CD, protected by its cartridge and easy to put away. I enjoy the sound. For the particular way I choose, keep and revisit music, this little format still fits exceptionally well.

Old sounds can open the next song.

Music sometimes moves like fashion: a sensibility leaves the foreground, then returns in another form. The swing of a rhythm, the texture of a synthesizer, the space around a vocal can become compelling again. There is no fixed timetable, but hearing an earlier recording in a new context can reveal possibilities I had missed.

Listening back also reconnects me with earlier creative decisions. How would I develop that passage now? Could the sound that once fascinated me work somewhere quite different? A small question can be enough to get a stalled piece moving. This connection to making music is a large part of why I keep using MD.

The people who use a tool can carry it forward.

MD, once a familiar part of listening in Japan, has moved out of the mainstream. Sony ended downloads of SonicStage CP in 2013 and production of recordable MD media in February 2025. The official paths for continuing to use these machines with newer computers have grown much narrower.

A community of developers has helped bridge that gap by studying the devices and sharing its work. asivery’s Web MiniDisc Pro, together with the projects behind NetMD and Hi-MD support, makes it possible to keep making discs on current computers. MD Studio depends on that accumulated work.

My contribution concentrates on the everyday recording workflow, the interface, and access for AI assistants. MD Studio retains the upstream credits and licensing and is itself released under GPL-2.0-only. Sharing the improvements leaves a starting point for the next person who still has a use for these machines.

More time choosing music. Less time typing labels.

One unexpectedly laborious part of making an MD is entering its labels. Track titles, disc names and group names all need attention. With Japanese music, I also want half-width katakana readings for the standard titles and the original Japanese, including kanji, in the full-width fields. Source tags vary; sometimes all I have is a filename.

MD Studio exposes this work through MCP and CLI, so a compatible AI client can participate directly. I can tell an assistant such as ChatGPT where the local music is and how I want it arranged, then ask it to organize the titles, readings, order and groups. The included Skill explains MD text and field rules, including the distinction between standard MD and Hi-MD.

The important change is being able to begin with one ordinary request and connect it to many small operations. Unusual names and uncertain metadata still deserve a check. AI prepares a plan; I review and adjust it, then ask for the recording. The same order and progress remain visible in the app, keeping attention on the collection I want to make.