Newbie Question - Exporting to Audio CD

Cubase
1

Hi, folks. I tried exporting a finished project song to a CD, but the MP3 track appears to be unplayable in any normal CD player. This might sound really stupid, but is there a special file format other than MP3 that regular audio CDs use?

I checked the Cubase 7 manual and could not find anything specific to burning a track to an audio CD.

Any suggestions?

Thanks.

(Macbook Pro, Cubase 7.0.7, OS X 10.10.2 Yosemite)

2

Audio CDs use .wav files.

3

I beg to differ: Audio CDs use PCM-audio of the 44.1kHz/16 bit variety, but you can’t really say they use .wav files. A .wav file burnt on a CD won’t play in a CD-player just like the mp3 doesn’t. You need to author an audio CD according to the red book standard, and you can’t do this directly from Cubase. I don’t know anything Mac, but in Windows the media player or explorer can do this - and the best source file for it will indeed be .wav.

4

Thanks for the correction. When I burn audio CDs I use .wav but I didn’t realize Windows was “converting” them automatically. If I remember, with other formats, it would tell you it is converting them when burning audio CDs.
Also, and correct me if wrong, I seem to remember, when I insert a regular music CD into the drive and open Windows Explorer, the song files show up as .wav. Is this just Windows?

5

I never burn audio CDs with Windows directly, but the ‘conversion’ must be taking place, since an Audio CD is a constant stream of audio from the center of the disk to the outside, with the index (including track positions and length etc.) being written first. That’s why a failed burn may still show as a complete CD with all tracks listed. When burning from 44-16 files, there is no real conversion in the data, so maybe that’s why it won’t show - while with mp3 decoding to 44-16 must be done. And IIRC, Windows shows all tracks as Track01.cd etc., but I may be remembering only the older Windows versions…

6

I think you are right about the .cd. That seems to spark my memory now that you mention it. I don’t know where I got to thinking .wav were on CDs. I haven’t put an actual music CD in a computer or CD player in quite a while!
I stand corrected. I will stop now…
:blush:

7

Oh but don’t let me shut you up, that was not my intention… I was merely trying to put the .wav in perspective, since a data CD with .wav is also possible. And apart from ripping my commercial Audio CDs to mp3, I hardly use the format anymore either…

8

So Cubase cannot create an Audio CD on its own? Additional software for authoring a Red Book standard CD is required?

Is that correct?

If so, is there a “standard” software package for Mac that pro studios use to accomplish that task?

Thanks.

9

Yes, Cubase can’t create Audio CDs directly. I don’t know anything Mac, but do use Wavelab myself which is available for Mac as well. For just burning CDs Wavelab may be a bit overdone though… Recommendable software anyway!

10

The more basic Wavelab Elements does the job for me, also allows me to do stuff such as define gap lengths between tracks, fades + crossfades, CD titles, track titles etc, and has a bunch of other “mastering” type uses.

11

Thanks Arjan P and Ian S.

That’s the clear answer I needed.

Cheers!