I currently use the Windows Media Player (WMP) to create playlists and burn CD’s using .mp3 files exported from Cubase. This method served my purpose for many years but now, from what I read, Windows 10 will not include a copy of the Media Player. I’m sure Microsoft is justified leaving the WMP out of Win 10 but that decision puzzles me and makes think that I am probably WAY behind the times when it comes to performing this function. Honestly, I just started using “SoundCloud” for posting to the web. Most of my stuff is on “MySpace” and “SoundClick”. But that’s another topic.
Hence my question: What methods/software, other than the WMP, do you use to create playlists and burn CDs?
I checked out Wavelab and it is way more software than I need at this time.
I have a home studio and make about 50 projects per year. These are songs made with friends and myself. Using Cubase I do the best I can to get a good final mix at an appropriate similar volume for each song. This process takes quite a bit of time as I adjust it and export it many times to listen on (4) of my “trusted” audio devices. The song needs to sound good (to me) on all (4) devices before I lock the project and email and post to the Internet what I consider to be the final product. Once I get enough songs to fill a CD (about (3) or (4) times a year) I’ll create one using the Windows Media Player. Even though I get the volume of each song pretty close using Cubase, the Media Player has an option to equal out each tracks volume during the burn process. It does a pretty good job of that and that’s what I will miss if I ever update to Windows 10.
As suggested I will start my quest and search the Internet for something that will do something similar to what I described. I’m even willing to spend some cash for this. Even the approx $500 for Wavelab 8.5 would be considered but, it is just too much software for my needs.
So I would appreciate any other suggestions. Free or costly, it doesn’t matter to me. I will investigate them all.
It really depends upon whether you are trying to achieve professional CD mastering level (that is Red Book, AND optimised for actual buyers), or just to be able to play a list of tracks anywhere for your own purposes.
The issue comes to whether you can insert the extra spacing for gaps, which can be different after each track, depending how you are grouping the tracks.
For our CD, I used Nero, as it allowed those figures to be entered, enabling the tracks to be sets, with about one bar between tracks in a set, and an extra bar between sets.
The strange thing was that the setting was a strange amount of 75 for each second, rather than just plain ms or something that made sense like that!
Unfortunately, these days, MP3 players (phones et al) tend to insert a short gap between tracks, so being able to rely on track cross-blending, as was typically done for concept albums, working properly on anything other than a CD is just not possible anymore.
Toast does a good job of burning discs. What I don’t like about it is, there’s no elegant, integrated way to print a track listing within the application. Heck, even iTunes can print a variety of track listing templates from within the app. What’s up with that, Roxio?
My original post was to ask about another programs to burn CDs because (I thought) Windows 10 would not include the Windows Media Player (WMP) that I currently use to burn my CDs. Well, I was wrong about that.
WMP is still included with Windows 10 (which I installed on a laptop not associated with my music/audio stuff). So, if Steinberg ever gives us the green light to upgrade to Windows 10 I will do it and still be happy to burn my CDs using the WMP.
BTW… If you can not find the WMP anywhere in Windows 10 (I could not find it in mine?), just type "wmplayer.exe’ in the search field and press enter. That will start the WMP, then you can right click the icon in the taskbar to “pin it” to the taskbar (and now for me, it shows in the start menu too).
