Where do I enter the meta data information for a cd?

Hi,

Lets say I have lined up a couple of songs in a row on a track in an audio montage. I am going to burn the songs to a cd.
Where do I add the “meta data” information for each track? Track name, artist, composer etc?

I click on “functions” → “edit dc meta-data…” in the cd window, but it seems thats not the place to write in the information?

:confused:

I also wonder, which meta data information is “obligatory” or “standard” to enter for a track? Is it enough with artist name and song title?

Help please!

To keep things clear, CDs and DDPs can contain what’s called CD-Text (not metadata), and WAV/AIFF/mp3/AAC files can contain metadata. They are two different things that usually contain the same or similar info.

(see the attached picture)

You want to call up the CD-Text Editor box which is found in the CD Tab. It can also be called up with a shortcut. When the CD-Text box opens, you can enter in the artist name and album title on the first page. Then you can use the arrows off to the right to populate the rest of the tracks with that same name.

It’s also good if you have the CD track markers perfectly named because in one click, you can populate all the CD-Text Track names with the marker names.

The CD Tab also lets you enter in ISRC codes if you need to, as well as UPC/EAN. You can also use the CD Wizard to enter in the first ISRC code and have WaveLab automatically calculate the ISRC codes for the following tracks.

Regarding metadata for rendered WAV/AIFF/mp3/AAC files, you can use some handy metadata presets to automatically populate the ID3 metadata field tags with info you already entered once as CD-Text, as well as other useful things such as artwork and track number/track total.

That may be more than you need and would take longer to type out. Someday I’d like to make a video series about this stuff because it’s a common question that to me is an easy answer.

Thank you very much for the answer!! Super helpful!

[/quote]
Someday I’d like to make a video series about this stuff because it’s a common question that to me is an easy answer.[/quote]

It would be fantastic :wink:
Thanx Justin!

I got a question about this Justin. So CD-text are the information that CD’s and DDPs use, and thats the text that pops up on the screen on different stereos. And you write that metadata is for WAV/AIFF/mp3/AAC files.

I am going to do a cd of a couple of songs I have recorded, But in the cd tab, next to the "edit cd-text (T) button, there is a button called “edit cd meta data”. So what exactly is that? Is that metadata that are written in to each track of the CD, that only show if someone “rips” or import the cd tracks from the cd to their computer as WAV/AIFF/mp3/AAC files?

I also wonder, if I want to fill in that info, do I fill in the info (track, composer, year etc) at the column at the right called “value”? That has a blue pen on each row?

I am unsure if I shall fill in meta data or not when doing a standard CD. :S

Best Regards

For apps such as iTunes to recognize the info on a CD, the CD must be submitted to Gracenote Database. iTunes won’t read the CD-Text directly. There are other databases and other media players that use misc databases but Gracenote is the main one. Very few consumer media players can read the actual CD-Text, natively anyway. More here:

There is some value in tagging your rendered WAV/AIFF/mp3/AAC files with metadata in certain scenarios, but in reality, much of this info is entered again when you submit the master WAV files to the digital distributor. I do like being able to render reference mp3/AAC files for my clients from the montage that has all the artwork and metadata embedded and looks just as if it was purchased from a retailer though. Also, it might be good future proofing to also add this info to the WAV files I make so I do it because it’s pretty automatic.

No time today to explain it more but yes, that metadata tab near the CD Tab is where you start for that. I have a preset made that basically transfers all the CD-Text and basic info over to metadata for rendered WAV/mp3/AAC (I never try AIFF so I can’t speak about that) files. You can try to use it. Here it is:

Just try to “Organize Presets” in that metadata tab to see where WaveLab looks for these files on your system, and then put this file there and you should be able to call up this metadata preset in your montage.

I have a montage template saved with this preset loaded so I don’t even have to think about it anymore, it’s just always there, active, and works well.