CD Recording Software

As with CD-R drives, the market is full of CD recording software, but not all of it is suitable for audio applications. Even within the audio-savvy packages, some are primarily designed for consumer applications such as creating compilation CD-Rs from existing CDs, while others are targeted toward musicians and audio engineers who want to create their own professional discs. The fundamental purpose of the software is to create a CD-Audio compliant disc image and control the writing of that image to the CD-R by the drive. However, some packages, such as CeQuadrat Just Audio, also help the user with the preparation of artwork for the CD label and jewel box insert.

Gear Audio reads tracks or sampled WAV files and includes integrated de-click and de-scratch filters. (See a larger image)

The biggest factor determining your choice of software will be the type of computer you are using, because few audio-oriented CD-R software products are designed to be cross-platform. Products for Windows include Gear Software Gear Audio, Sonic Foundry CD Architect, and CeQuadrat's Just Audio. Popular choices for Mac OS are Adaptec Jam (based on the former Toast CD-DA software) and Digidesign MasterList CD.

Unless you are buying the CD-R drive and software together in a bundle, you'll need to confirm that a given software package and drive can work together. You'll also need to check that the software supports the interface (SCSI, IDE, USB) through which your drive is connected. And, of course, support for Disk-at-Once writing mode is a must.

If you're working in a digital audio workstation (DAW) environment, you're probably most interested in burning CDs of mixes from your hard drive. But some software, such as Gear Audio and Just Audio, also reads tracks from CD. You'll want to compare the user interfaces of the various packages to see which you find most intuitive for assembling your source materials in the desired order and timing. CD Architect, for instance, lets you change the amount of time between songs with simple click-and-drag mouse operations.

Just Audio's Editor screen offers a simple interface for building the content of a CD-R from source material on hard drive or CD.

Several programs allow you to edit the audio internally (CD Architect), or to remove noise and glitches (Gear Audio and Just Audio). Others allow you to easily work with an external editor (Jam ships with BIAS Peak LE, and MasterList CD allows import of regions from Digidesign Pro Tools). Jam and MasterList CD also allow you to import playlists that include non-destructive cross-fades, volume changes, and fade-in/fade-outs. You can also create cross-fades directly in programs such as CD Architect, and Jam and MasterList CD allow you to non-destructively boost or cut the volume of individual tracks.

Professionally-oriented CD-R software (MasterList CD, CD Architect, and Jam) will allow you to edit your CD's PQ subcodes. This gives you not only the ability to place track IDs and index points, but also to dig into such goodies as the UPC code (unique product identifier) for the disc, and ISRC (International Standard Recording Code) for each track (identifying information about the author, country of origin, and year of production). Subcodes also specify the pre-emphasis and copy-prohibit status for each track.

Other factors to consider include whether the software supports a test-write mode (to confirm that you've created a valid disc image before writing it to CD-R), and if it verifies the disc after writing.

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