Making labels & tracks work with CDs

[Nawdry]

I've been learning to make my first recording of an LP into a project and hopefully into a CD. I've been creating labels for each track, numbering sequentially as 001, 002, etc. I want to make sure to get this right before I burn a CD.

Is just creating a label sufficient to tell a CD player that this is a track with that number, or am I missing an additional step? Anything else I should be doing before I finalize and go to burn CD?

Any advice appreciated — Lyndon

[jademan]

Is just creating a label sufficient to tell a CD player that this is a track with that number, or am I missing an additional step? Anything else I should be doing before I finalize and go to burn CD?

When you are happy with your recording, Export Multiple should do it. Be sure to export as .WAV files so you don't lose any quality. It should create 1 file per label. Make sure you have a label at the beginning.

Also, double-check the labels are in alphanumeric order as your CD burner software may burn them in that sequence. Audacity can do that for you if you select Name Files > Numbering before Label/Track Name.

I hope this helps.

[DVDdoug]

IMO - The best solution is to use a Cue Sheet. With a cue sheet there's no need to split the files, or if you have separate files from both sides of an LP or tape, that will work too.

One big file is great if you have a "live" recording and you don't want gaps between songs. I think I blended/crossfaded both sides of a live LP once so there was no gap.

I usually start with one of the cue sheet examples (or an existing cue sheet that I already have) and edit it (with Windows Notepad).

I'm not sure if all burning applications support cue sheets. I've been using ImgBurn for a long time.

There's no need for the album/artist/title information unless you're using CD-Text. CD-Text wasn't part of the original CD specification so it's not that common and many CD players don't support it.

Normally, when you play a CD on your computer it takes a "fingerprint" of the CD and finds the album/artist/title/artwork from an online database. But of course, your homemade CD isn't in the database.

[Nawdry]

Is just creating a label sufficient to tell a CD player that this is a track with that number, or am I missing an additional step? Anything else I should be doing before I finalize and go to burn CD?

When you are happy with your recording, Export Multiple should do it. Be sure to export as .WAV files so you don't lose any quality. It should create 1 file per label. Make sure you have a label at the beginning.

Also, double-check the labels are in alphanumeric order as your CD burner software may burn them in that sequence. Audacity can do that for you if you select Name Files > Numbering before Label/Track Name.

I hope this helps.

Wow, I'm glad I asked. Thanks for the advice. I was thinking the entire recording could be exported as a single file and the labels alone would identify the tracks to CD players.

First, should my Export Multiple use 16-bit or 32-bit?

Am I correct in understanding that if I burn, say, 10 WAV files onto a CD, CD players will read the tracks just as they do from a commercially made CD? In other words, if no individual track or track range is specified, the CD player will play all the tracks (files) on the CD without stopping at the end of each track?

I'm creating the labels in numerical order as 001, 002, 003,... etc. I'm using Ashampoo as burner software. Do you think this is enough so that the program will burn them in proper sequence?

Thanks — Lyndon

[steve]

"Gapless" audio CDs require that the CD write drive supports "DAO" mode (disk at once). If the hardware does not support DAO (or if DAO is not enabled) there will always be a short gap between tracks, even if you set the gap between tracks to zero.

Most modern CD burning apps can automatically create Cue Sheets on the fly, invisible to the user (Examples: Nero, CDBurnerXP, many others), so you just need to create your compilation as a list of WAV files, select "audio CD" as the type of disk, and burn the disk.
(I've never used Ashampoo, so check the docs)

should my Export Multiple use 16-bit or 32-bit?

16-bit 44100 Hz sample rate.
Even if the CD burning app supports other formats, Audacity probably converts to 16-bit 44100 Hz in higher quality.

[jademan]

I'm creating the labels in numerical order as 001, 002, 003,... etc. I'm using Ashampoo as burner software. Do you think this is enough so that the program will burn them in proper sequence?

Ashampoo (Burning Studio?) will likely present you a list of files. Double-check the list before burning..

Also, be sure to read DVDdoug's suggestions...

[Nawdry]

IMO - The best solution is to use a Cue Sheet. With a cue sheet there's no need to split the files, or if you have separate files from both sides of an LP or tape, that will work too.

One big file is great if you have a "live" recording and you don't want gaps between songs. I think I blended/crossfaded both sides of a live LP once so there was no gap.

I usually start with one of the cue sheet examples (or an existing cue sheet that I already have) and edit it (with Windows Notepad).

I'm not sure if all burning applications support cue sheets. I've been using ImgBurn for a long time.

There's no need for the album/artist/title information unless you're using CD-Text. CD-Text wasn't part of the original CD specification so it's not that common and many CD players don't support it.

Normally, when you play a CD on your computer it takes a "fingerprint" of the CD and finds the album/artist/title/artwork from an online database. But of course, your homemade CD isn't in the database.

Thanks for these tips. I was already proceeding without a cue sheet and was not sure if Ashampoo would support this, so I used the multi-export file method. However, I have switched to CDBurnerXP which definitely does support cue sheets and may try this out at some point.

I don't have a use for the album etc. info but I do enter some of it when the window pops up during export. As for finding this info on the Internet, I would not expect this with most of these particular classical, Greek, etc. LPs from the 1950s-1970s.

Lyndon

[jademan]

Glad to hear you've got everything going. Thanks for the update. And Merry Christmas.

[DVDdoug]

As for finding this info on the Internet, I would not expect this with most of these particular classical, Greek, etc. LPs from the 1950s-1970s.

It NEVER works with homemade/burned CDs. Or sometimes you get totally-wrong information.

I haven't actually tried it with copy of a (popular) CD but I think there are differences (not related to the actual audio data which should be identical if nothing goes wrong) that will cause the identification to fail.

[Nawdry]

Glad to hear you've got everything going. Thanks for the update. And Merry Christmas.

Thanks to you and to all that helped with advice. And especially to the excellent documentation for Audacity. I succeeded in burning my first CD from an LP and it went amazingly, exceeding my expectations. To my ear, sounds as good as a commercial AAD, and works as an audio CD should. Shifting to CDBurnerXP also helped a lot. Also some tips from my wife. She has burned a lot of CDs herself, using a commercial program (that no longer seems to work on Win10), but no experience with LP-to-CD conversion.

Thanks again, and Happy Winter Solstice + season's best wishes to everyone.

Lyndon