Steinberg WaveLab 3 Operation Manual

21
Burning an audio CD 

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Introduction
For a description of how to create a DVD-Audio disc, see “Creating a DVD-
Audio compatible disc” on page 589.
This chapter describes the basic CD burning process, as well as some 
general reference information about the CD format. 
It does not, however, describe the necessary preparations for creating a 
CD from a basic audio CD or an Audio Montage. In other words, this 
chapter assumes that the respective preparations have been completed, 
and that you...

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Testing a basic audio CD before burning
There are two ways to check a CD before burning:
Check
The “Check” command on the CD menu scans through the basic audio 
CD and checks that the settings conform to the CD standard. For Mon-
tages this command is on the Functions menu (CD tab selected). This 
command does not access the CD-R recorder in any way, it only checks 
the setting in the list against a set of rules. These rules are described in 
the help for the Check...

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Writing a CD
Once you have set up the basic audio CD or Montage, we suggest the 
following work order for burning the CD. These steps are not mandatory 
though, just a recommendation.
Please observe the precautions indicated in the Troubleshooting chapter in 
the online documentation before writing your first CD!
1.Listen through the CD once more, from the basic audio CD window or 
from the Montage, to check that all starts, ends and transitions are OK.
2.Select Check...

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CD-Extra support
When writing an audio CD as described above, it is possible to prepare it 
for CD-Extra support. CD-Extra is comparable to Mixed Mode CDs in that 
both of these formats allow for the writing of both audio and data on a sin-
gle CD. However, unlike Mixed Mode CDs, the audio on CD-Extra CDs is 
placed on the first track(s) of the CD and the data follows subsequently. 
This means that the audio will start to play immediately when the CD is 
used in a...

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Validating an audio CD after burning
With a few easy steps, you can verify that an audio CD created from an 
Audio Montage was burnt correctly on CD – i.e. you can check what was 
burnt and compare it to what should have been burnt to see if there are 
any discrepancies. Of course, you can also do this as a test before the fi-
nal burning process.
This is done with the help of CD images and cue sheets and WaveLab’s 
ability to extract full CD images complete with all...

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8.Select “Compare Audio CD images…” from the Tools menu.
The “Compare CD-images / cue-sheets” dialog opens.
9.Click the folder buttons to the right of the two text fields to open the cue 
sheets you created in step 3 and step 7 above, respectively.
The cue sheet you created in step 3 describes the contents of the CD as it should have 
been burnt, and the cue sheet created in step 7 describes the CD as it was burnt.
10.Click “Compare”.
The two cue sheets are now...

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Red Book CD is not a real file format
Those of you who are computer literate might know about file formats. 
Please note that Red Book CD is not a real file format. All the audio on the 
CD is stored in one big chunk, one file if you will. This is different from 
hard disks, for example, where each file is stored separately. Understand-
ing the fact that all the audio is in fact one long stream of digital data is 
something that will probably help you better...

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But frames aren’t the smallest block of data on a CD. There is also some-
thing called “small frames”. A small frame is a container of 588 bits. 98 
small frames together make up one regular frame. In each small frame 
there is actually only room for six stereo samples, which means that a lot 
of space is left for data other than the actual audio. There is information 
for encoding, laser synchronization, error correction and the PQ data (so 
called because it is...

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UPC/EAN codes
UPC stands for “Universal Product Code”. Some CD/DVD-R units allow 
you to specify this code, which is a thirteen-digit catalog number for the 
disc. Also known as EAN.
Pre-emphasis 
Pre-emphasis works by boosting (or pre-emphasizing) high frequencies 
before burning the CD, and cutting (de-emphasizing) them when playing 
back. The theoretical result of this is that the desired audio is returned to 
normal sound, but any other high frequency content...