I am so glad to use Nuendo. Just finished mastering a client’s album, and it was fun and easy to do it. Using markers, being able to tag wav and mp3s, and export the mixdowns in faster than real time is great!
I did not experience the playhead lag some people have been seeing, and jumping between the tracks to compare them was super fast. My tech specs are on my signature.
Now I have to make a dreaded DDP file. I might have to turn on my ancient Mac Pro tower, which has Waveburner Pro on it, and can burn compact discs. The Record Label needs both a CD Master and a DDP file.
Anyone prepare a DDP file in Nuendo yet? I read that this can be done in Reaper. Which I own, but am not looking forward to use, if I can get away with Waveburner Pro instead. If this was an unlimited budget type project, I’d buy Steinberg’s Wavelab Pro. but, it isn’t.
For the DDP, you might want to try Reaper. That’s what I used for the last CD project I worked on, even though the editing, mixing and mastering was done in Nuendo.
From the DDP help in Reaper:
The DDP format is used to prepare files for audio CD manufacturing.
Please set the render output format to 44100Hz, 16-bit, stereo.
This is the only format supported by audio CDs.
DDP output consists of many files, all of which must be sent to the CD manufacturer.
For standard CDs, the Red Book specification includes these limitations:
at least one track
INDEX0 is required for the first track, set to 0 seconds
INDEX1 for the first track must be set to 2 seconds or later
(audio content prior to 2 seconds will be ignored)
minimum track length is 4 seconds
(time between INDEX1 of one track and INDEX0/INDEX1 of the following track)
INDEX1 must be at least 1 frame (1/75 second) after INDEX0, if INDEX0 is defined
audio is padded with silence to be frame (1/75 second) aligned
Album and track metadata is set by project marker names:
markers starting with the “@” character represent album metadata
markers starting with the “!” character represent the INDEX0 position for the following “#” track
markers starting with the “#” character represent track metadata and the INDEX1 position
If there is more than one @ marker, each one overwrites the values defined by the previous marker.
If there are multiple ! markers in a single track, only the last marker prior to the # marker is used.
The number of # markers represents the number of CD tracks.
@ markers can be anywhere, but the most readable position is at the end of the album.
If the audio data is too short, ! and # markers positioned more than 10 seconds after
the end of the audio will be ignored.
Audio will be padded with silence and frame-aligned (1/75 second) until the last used marker.
Metadata is in “KEY1=VALUE1|KEY2=VALUE2|KEY3=VALUE3” format.
There can be any number of KEY=VALUE pairs. KEYs are case insensitive.
@ (album) markers support these metadata keys:
“CATALOG”, “EAN” or “UPC” for the same EAN/UPC number
“ALBUM”, “TITLE”, or no key (VALUE only) for the album title
“PERFORMER”
“SONGWRITER”
“COMPOSER”
“ARRANGER”
“MESSAGE”
“IDENTIFICATION”
“GENRE”, which may be any text, or as one of the predefined genres in the list below
“LANGUAGE”, which must be one of the defined languages in the list below
(track) markers support these metadata keys:
“ISRC”, international standard recording code for each track
“TITLE” or no key (VALUE only) for the track title
“PERFORMER”, which must also be included in the @ marker if used
(for example, the track marker might include “PERFORMER=Jane Doe”
and the album marker might include “PERFORMER=various”)
“SONGWRITER”, which must also be included in the @ marker if used
“COMPOSER”, which must also be included in the @ marker if used
“ARRANGER”, which must also be included in the @ marker if used
“MESSAGE”
! (index) markers will ignore any metadata, only the position is used.
The CD-TEXT file will be exported only if CD-TEXT metadata is included.
CD-TEXT metadata includes all keys except the “CATALOG”, “EAN”, “UPC” and “ISRC”.
They do not have enough budget for me to go and buy new software, learn to use it, and deliver the Masters by their deadline.
My current modern Apple laptop (2019) no longer burns audio compact discs or any physical media, that I know of. I am not going to waste time trying to find out if my system does this, as I already own an older Mac Tower which does do this right now. I am not going to research a compatible CD burner, purchase it, wait for delivery, and all this inside the label’s deadline. I do not work “on the edge.”
If I get more of this type of work, I’ll definitely consider Wavelab, and see if my Mac laptop can burn Red Book compact discs. As it is for this project, there is simply not enough time to figure all this out.
