Drop your podcast .wav into a shiny MP3 with metadata, cover art, and all

Jivedrop takes your mixed podcast audio (WAV/FLAC) and outputs RSS-ready MP3 files with optimized encoding, embedded artwork, and complete ID3 metadata. One command, distribution-ready output.

• 🎵 CBR 112kbps mono MP3 optimized for podcast distribution
  • 🎚️ 44.1kHz resampling with automatic mono downmix
  • 🎼 20.5kHz lowpass filter for clean high-frequency rolloff
  • 🏆 LAME quality preset 3 excellent quality, reasonable file size
• 🏷️ Complete ID3v2 metadata
  • Episode title, number, album, artist, date, comment
  • Embedded cover artwork (PNG)
  • Podcast enclosure stats for duration and bytes
• ♊ Dual-mode workflow
  • 📝 Hugo mode read metadata from episode markdown
  • 🎙️ Standalone mode specify metadata via flags
• 🚀 Single binary Just drop and encode
  • 🐧 Linux (amd64 and aarch64)
  • 🍏 macOS (x86 and Apple Silicon)

For podcasts using Hugo static site generator and the something like Castanet, Jivedrop reads metadata from episode markdown:

Hugo mode automatically:

• Reads episode title and number from frontmatter
• Locates cover art from podcast_image field
• Applies Linux Matters defaults (artist, album, comment)
• Outputs frontmatter-ready values for podcast_duration and podcast_bytes
• Prompts to update Hugo frontmatter

# Basic encoding
jivedrop LMP67.flac episode/67.md

# Override Hugo defaults
jivedrop LMP67.flac episode/67.md --artist "Ubuntu Podcast" --comment "https://ubuntupodcast.org"

Standalone mode features:

• Required flags: --title, --num, and --cover
• Optional metadata: --artist, --album, --date, --comment
• Smart filename generation: {artist}-{num}.mp3 or episode-{num}.mp3
• Album defaults to artist value if not specified

For podcasts without Hugo—specify metadata via flags:

# Minimal (title, episode number, and cover art required)
jivedrop audio.flac \
  --title "Terminal Full of Sparkles" \
  --num 66 \
  --cover artwork.png

# Full metadata
jivedrop audio.flac \
  --title "Terminal Full of Sparkles" \
  --num 66 \
  --artist "Linux Matters" \
  --album "All Seasons" \
  --date "2025-10" \
  --comment "https://linuxmatters.sh/66" \
  --cover artwork.png

Usage:
  Hugo mode:
    jivedrop <audio-file> <episode-md> [flags]
  Standalone mode:
    jivedrop <audio-file> --title TEXT --num NUMBER --cover PATH [flags]


Arguments:
  [<audio-file>]  Path to audio file (WAV, FLAC)
  [<episode-md>]  Path to episode markdown file (Hugo mode)


Flags:
  -h, --help  Show context-sensitive help.
  --title     Episode title (required in standalone mode)
  --num       Episode number (required in standalone mode)
  --cover     Cover art path (required in standalone mode)
  --artist    Artist name (defaults to 'Linux Matters' in Hugo mode)
  --album     Album name (defaults to artist value if omitted)
  --date      Release date (YYYY-MM-DD format)
  --comment   Comment URL (defaults to 'https://linuxmatters.sh' in Hugo mode)
  --output-path  Output file or directory path (default: STRING)
  --stereo  Encode as stereo at 192kbps (default: mono at 112kbps) (default: BOOL)
  --version  Show version information (default: BOOL)

• Hugo mode: LMP{num}.mp3 (or {artist}-{num}.mp3 with --artist override)
• Standalone mode: {artist}-{num}.mp3 (or episode-{num}.mp3 without --artist)

• Mono: 112kbps CBR, 44.1kHz, quality 3, 20.5kHz lowpass
• Stereo: 192kbps CBR, 44.1kHz, quality 3, 20.5kHz lowpass

• TIT2: {num}: {title}
• TALB: {album} (omitted if not provided)
• TRCK: {num}
• TPE1: {artist} (omitted if not provided)
• TDRC: {date} (defaults to current YYYY-MM)
• COMM: {comment} (omitted if not provided)
• APIC: Cover art (PNG, front cover)

Jivedrop uses ffmpeg-statigo for FFmpeg static bindings.

# Setup or update ffmpeg-statigo submodule and library
just setup

# Build and test
just build        # Build binary
just test         # Run tests
just test-encoder # Test encoder

FFmpeg's CLI can absolutely encode podcast-ready MP3s with metadata. But getting the incantation right with CBR encoding, mono downmix, ID3v2 tags, embedded artwork, correct lowpass filtering-requires a sprawling command line you'll never remember. And if your podcast uses Hugo? Now you're scripting frontmatter parsing on top.

Jivedrop wraps the fiddly bits into a single binary that speaks Hugo natively. Drop your WAV, point at your episode markdown, get a distribution-ready MP3 with duration and byte counts ready to paste back into your frontmatter.