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I am pulling my hair out over here!
I have a friend who wants my songs on CD and it has literally been 20 years since I burned audio CDs! So, here is where I am so far...
- I rendered 10 songs as WAVs at 44.1kHz/16 bit
- next I tried to add metadata but it wouldn't work until I realized I had rendered the files on a FAT drive instead of NTFS
- so I rendered them again to an NTFS drive and was able to add metadata
- but when I then burned them the metadata was missing
- then I read online that FLAC is better than WAV for 2 reasons, 1) smaller, lossless files and 2) they are more metadata-friendly
- so I rendered all 10 songs again as FLAC
- I added metadata in the Reaper Media Explorer
- but I found that Reaper Media Explorer doesn't support some metadata stuff like an image
- so I then loaded each song into mp3tag and added the image and a few other bits that were not available in Reaper
- then I used Windows 11 "Windows Media Player Legacy" app to burn my audio CD
- the CD burned fine and the metadata was there but it was missing album-level metadata for stuff like album name, genre and date
- I cannot see any way to add this to Windows Media Player Legacy app before burning
- so I downloaded Ashampoo free CD burning software but it was also missing the album-level metadata plus it lost all of the track metadata
- so I switched back to Windows Media Player Legacy and settled for missing album metadata
- I also noticed some track metadata that I entered is not being included even in Windows Media Player Legacy
Can anyone tell me, step-by-step, how to make an audio CD with complete metadata and show me what I am doing wrong? Or, if what I am trying to do just isn't possible? Thanks in advance for any help!
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Hmmm, I don't have the answers exactly, I've used Nero Burning ROM in the past but not sure about meta-data. However, Audacity can burn CD's and has a discussion on meta-data. Check this page: https://manual.audacityteam.org/man/burning_music_files_to_a_cd.htmlAlso, note the included paragraph on that page which states: "Metadata and CD-Text Even if you use Audacity's Metadata Tags editor to add metadata such as Title, Artist and Genre to your exported WAV files, that metadata does not get automatically burned to the CD. You can set Apple Music/iTunes and some other burning applications (but not Windows Media Player) to burn metadata to each track as separate CD-Text. Providing your CD burner supports CD-Text, a standalone CD player that supports CD-Text will then be able to display each track's metadata. You can also use a Cue Sheet to add CD-Text in burning applications that support Cue Sheets. " Hope this helps (a little...)
BIAB & RB2026 Win.(Audiophile), Windows 10 Pro & Windows 11, Cakewalk Bandlab, Izotope Prod.Bundle, Roland RD-1000, Synthogy Ivory, Session Keys Grand S & Electric R, Kontakt, Focusrite 18i20, KetronSD2, NS40M, Pioneer Active Monitors.
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Give Burnaware a try. It's been around for a long time and is still updated today. https://www.burnaware.com/Here is a snippet from the Audio CD portion of the online help file. Read the "Write CD-Text" portion of the text below. Audio CD An Audio CD is a CD that contains music files and can be played using all standard CD players. To compile an Audio CD, source files with different audio formats are automatically converted into Audio CD format before being burned. To create an Audio CD, proceed as follows: 1. Click on the Audio CD icon in the Main Window. The project layout will be displayed in separate window. 2. Click on the Add Tracks button, to select audio files you want to burn on the disc, or simply drag tracks from Windows Explorer. - Tracks can be in MP3, WAV, WMA, OGG, M4A, AAC and FLAC audio formats. - You can also choose an M3U playlist as a source. 3. Click on the Burn button, to start a recording process. - Some CD players cannot play CD-RWs. Use CD-R discs to burn Audio CDs. Options Write CD-Text writes an extra information to Audio CD which allows newer style CD players to display the CD title and the names of the tracks and artists. Your recorder must support this function and the CD must be burned in the "Disk-at-Once" mode. Disc-at-once writes the whole medium is written in one go without deactivating the laser. Track-at-once writes every track individually, which means that the laser is switched off after every track. Pause sets pause between tracks in second. Use 0 to remove pause.
BIAB2026
Windows 10 Pro (Never Windows 11!)
WA6NCB
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Important tid-bit from JL above -
Your recorder must support this function and the CD must be burned in the "Disk-at-Once" mode.
I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome
Make your sound your own!
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John,
I believe you can edit metadata and burn CD with Windows Media Player or Windows Media Player legacy.
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Google is your friend. It is possible to burn Red Book compatible CDs in Win 11. Tons of how-to videos and Microsoft has support docs. You are no longer able to enter metadata, though—that was removed a year ago IIRC. Many of us use dedicated mastering apps for the purpose—far more convenient and most are not very expensive. These apps walk you through entering your metadata, ISRC and bar codes. The ones I use are Mac only but there are plenty available for Windows. I also print small runs to inkjet compatible CD/DVD blanks. Although commercial disk printers are still available, there is only one new reasonably priced all-in-one printer on the US market anymore. The Epson XP 7100 is quite good and works with a number of graphic apps. It is also a very good photo printer. I bought it after my trusty Epson c309a popped an error message and I found broken plastic parts on the shelf below.
Last edited by Mike Halloran; 04/19/26 09:54 AM.
BIAB 2025 Audiophile Mac
24Core/60CoreGPU M2 MacStudioUltra/8TB/192GB Sequoia/Tahoe, M1 MBAir, 2012 MBP
Digital Performer11, Logic, Finale27/Dorico/Encore/SmartScorePro/Notion6/Overture5
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Thank you AudioTrack, Joseph Land, rharv, Rustyspoon and Mike Halloran! And of course, Google, where I wasted hours to find inaccurate and outdated info galore!
I've learned a lot more about this topic than I ever wanted to know! (And a lot of it was remembering what I had learned 20 years ago and forgotten!)
- the audio CD standard was not designed to have embedded metadata in the same way we embed it into mp3s
- WAV files do not seem to reliably accept/retain metadata
- there are a TON of metadata tags you can use once you know about them
- these can be embedded using certain types of software
- Windows File Explorer handles metadata inconsistently and I'd say very poorly
- you can embed metadata in one program and then it won't show up in another program
- Windows takes Publisher and shows it as Producers
- there is something called CD-Text that can record some metadata
- BUT, after your best efforts, there are CD players out there that will ignore your meticulously crafted metadata
So, below is what I ended up doing for my songs,
- decided ALL of my songs will be rendered as FLAC since 1) it is lossless, 2) it has smaller filesizes and 3) it supports metadata
- used MP3Tag to add all of the metadata I want. It is super powerful allowing you to add a ton of metadata fields that simply don't appear in other tools I was using before. I even added embedded lyrics in each of my songs!
- I used the free burnaware to allow me to add metadata for the album via CD-Text
- now I have this set of songs on an audio CD that will display metadata if the CD player handles it
- and I have a set of files I can submit to Bandcamp as FLAC that will have metadata so anyone who downloads them should be able to access that metadata
Thanks to everyone for the advice!
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Wonderful that everyone teamed together to help you find a viable solution.
It is one of the reasons why checking the PGMusic Forum is a daily activity when I have my morning coffee.
BIAB2026
Windows 10 Pro (Never Windows 11!)
WA6NCB
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