Adding metadata to CD creation

WaveLab
1

Basic Audio CD window is open, all 13 audio tracks have been added to the list and I’m able to create a CD from them.
When I first played the CD I noticed that the Windows Media Player showed ‘Track1’ ‘unknown artist’ and ‘unknown Album [actual creation data and time]’'. Oh! I exclaimed, I forgot to add the metadata… So I went back to the audio files interface, clicked on each of the 13 open files, double-clicked the Metadata tab above and up comes the list of meta fields. There is no field for Album I dutifully filled in the Title: and Artist: field on each file and saved it.

I assumed that the list of entries in the Basic Audio CD window were just pointers to the actual files that were dragged there earlier. I kinda confirmed this by increasing the level of one of the files and burning a CD which resulted in the level of the selection reflecting what I did to the file. I did save the .cd file after changes were made too. Do I have to delete and re-drag/time all the tracks into the tool whenever they change?

So, I burned another ‘test’ CD … and played it again with the Windows Media Player … and I Still* get the same ‘unknown artist/album’ and ‘Track#’ messages.

A) Where do I enter the Album title info? Even iTunes (which is free) can do this, surely for $400 WL7 can, right?

B) Why aren’t my changes to the metadata of the files being included in the data when creating the CD? Do I need to create a DDP image for the metadata to attach properly?

Oh, and your [expletive deleted] help file states that you can use the little arrow/questionmark icon (the one that only shows up on the menu bar if you stretch the window to almost full screen size) to get more info on the metafile fields … well, it doesn’t work with a pop-up menu (File Attributes (WAV-BWF)) so there is no clarification as to what Time and Originator Reference are based on, for example.

I continue to be frustrated with my WL7 investment.

2

Basic audio cd does not support cd text. Instead, use a montage and enter cd text there. Burn that montage.

3

Like PG said, you have to burn CD-Text with the CD using the montage. It’s part of the CD Red Book standard that way. But even then WMP won’t read it! It takes data from an internet database, recognizing and identifying the CD that’s in your drive. Hence, your burnt CD needs to be in that database first. You’ll see that players that do work with CD-Text (most car CD players for instance) will show what you entered.

4

So, I followed the advice provided and created the CD using the Audio Montage. Fortunately WL7 was able to import the previously created .cd file into the montage directly, so I didn’t need to play with track delay timing.

I also downloaded a plug-in for Windows Media Player that allows the reading of CD-Text. So, I had two CDs with no CD-Text info, one made with Basic Audio CD with the metadata filled out, and one with the Audio Montage and everything (including album title) filled in.

I first tried the Montage one … all the track names came up with times - sweet!
Out of curiosity, I tried the one made with Basic Audio and the metadata … same result. Cautious that perhaps the Media Player had just buffered the info, I cleared the display … and the titles came back.
So, then I tried the CDs where I had provided no metadata … and the titles all displayed. So, play a proper CD once, and the titles are stored in the plug-ins’ database/library for future use.

I then put on the parka and consulted the CD player in the car.
First ‘dumb’ CD, Track 1, no text
Second ‘dumb’ CD, Track 1, no text
Basic Audio CD with metadata filled in, Track 1, no text … forward to other tracks, still nothing. So the WMP plug-in definitely stores the data and provides the impression of a proper CD when one without the data is recognized.

Audio Montage CD with CD-Text - Three nice lines of information: Song title, Performer/Artist, Album title
I then noted that, at least for the unit in my 2010 Buick La Crosse, the display was limited to 32 characters per line.
Perhaps the CD-Text tool should count characters or split the field white/grey so one can easily ‘see’ what most players will display vs the max data stored in the field…

All is well, back to correcting the CD-Text data to ‘fit’ in the display field properly.

Thanks again for the help.