Burning straight to CD in Reaper ?

[ARP]

Hi, I've just joined this forum, and was wondering if anyone here new how to burn straight to CD from Reaper, without leaving the program, and also how to insert track ID's, if that's possible ? It would be good to use Reaper for a whole project from start to finish, without having to use an external burning program.

I would appreciate your help !?

ARP.

[Shredder]

Originally Posted by ARP

Hi, I've just joined this forum, and was wondering if anyone here new how to burn straight to CD from Reaper, without leaving the program, and also how to insert track ID's, if that's possible ? It would be good to use Reaper for a whole project from start to finish, without having to use an external burning program.

I would appreciate your help !?

ARP.

ARP, Welcome to the REAPER forum..

Maybe the following will help:

1. Render all the music to wav files
2. Create new project and move the wav files to this project
3. Add each wav file to REAPER
4. Create Marker for each one (http://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=30358)


5. Repeat 3 and 4 until all wav files have been added per the following:


6. Put a blank CD-R into your CD writer (ignore the following prompt)


7. File->Reader (NOTE: Set up as per the example here)

8. Then click on the Render button

9. When the Render has finished the following will be displayed - make sure to select the correct "Method" per the following:

10. Click the Burn button

11. Done

[Shredder]

ARP - I recommend you read the RepearUsersGuide for more details that I did not include.. But this should get you started

[labyrinth]

Shredder,

That tutorial should be added to the WIKI manual.

[ARP]

Thank you very much Shredder, you've been a life saver ! much appreciated, I did all the things you said and it works fine. I'm trying to make Reaper my main music program, and I gradually learn new things every day by trial and error, but sometimes you just have to ask !

Thank's a lot..

ARP.

[Shredder]

It never hurts to ask. Someone is always here to provide as much help as possible.

[Milt]

Good one, Shredder!!

[bigwoody]

I just used this method for the first time and it worked great, but I have a couple of questions. In the past I have rendered to wav files then burned using the SW that came with my computer. This burn SW will only accept 16 bit files so I did have to render down from 24bit, which is an extra step.

Question 1, With this in mind does this direct method of burning result in higher quality?

Question 2, Once I have the cue/bin files how do I burn more copies without rendering again?

Question 3, Is both Noise Shaping and Dithering alwayse the best way to go, or better to choose one or the other??

Many thanks.

[scottc]

[QUOTE=bigwoody;272646]
Question 2, Once I have the cue/bin files how do I burn more copies without rendering again? /QUOTE]

Can a "number of copies to be burned" option be added? so all you have to do is keep putting discs in the burner?

[labyrinth]

You always should use both Noise Shaping and Dither together, if you are converting from 64, 32, 24, or 20 bits to 16 bits.

[Tedwood]

[QUOTE=scottc;272663]

Originally Posted by bigwoody

Question 2, Once I have the cue/bin files how do I burn more copies without rendering again? /QUOTE]

Can a "number of copies to be burned" option be added? so all you have to do is keep putting discs in the burner?

Not exactly, but it 's not a problem.
When you have burned one copy you will be returned to the project window, all you have to do is reopen the "render" dialogue box and the settings should still be the same as the last time so just click "Render"

[mio*star]

Very useful thread, thanks.

Now, I can't make it work on Mac ... any input ?

[Kainer]

what can be wrong if the songnames (marker-names) are not shown on cd?
not in media explorer, not in vlc. not on any cd-player.

there´s only "track1, track2, track3...." and "unknown interpret".

I followed the steps shredder posted in this thread.
I get the tracks but no names. (and named the tracks in reaper aswell as the markers)

please help

thanx!

[Shredder]

Originally Posted by Kainer

what can be wrong if the songnames (marker-names) are not shown on cd?
not in media explorer, not in vlc. not on any cd-player.

there´s only "track1, track2, track3...." and "unknown interpret".

I followed the steps shredder posted in this thread.
I get the tracks but no names. (and named the tracks in reaper aswell as the markers)

please help

thanx!

Kainer - I think this is normal. Go take a look at some of your favorite artist CD's and you will not see any track names either. In some cases if you open those CD's in your media player the playlist will not show artist or song information as well, unless the media player has a connection to CDDB (Compact Disc DataBase). CDDB is where most publishing houses of record labels or artist submitted the specific CD or song information. Most media players will retrieve CD info from CDDB.

For most of us, there is a way to submit CD partial information to CDDB (Note: you need to be a publishing house or record label registered to upload full CD information). Open your CD in a media player such as iTunes or Winamp and enter the track info where you also can upload to CDDB.

Hope this helps to a certian extent..

[edit] Oh and BTW, I use ImgBurn (http://www.imgburn.com/), which allows me to burn the CD-Text along with the CUE file to my audio CD. Not all media players reads the CD-Text however.

[Art Evans]

A footnote to mention to newer users (I hear older users yawn) that an alternative CD burning strategy is to use "ReaBurn" and its associated freeware/donationware utilities.

It has certain advantages over Reaper-only burning, namely its handling of CD text (er - I actually forget how/whether Reaper does that itself) and it enables you to use compressed (Wavpack) renders of the project to save space. Also it provides for countdown markers/indexes in the finished CD.

Site - http://www.inside-audio.nl/download_reaper_addons.html (1765 hits now, heh!)

Here's how ReaBurn works - note that this is not how to use Reaper's own burning system which is very nicely documented earlier in this thread:-

SUMMARY

This utility reads markers from a Reaper project file and uses them to create a CD burning cue sheet for the rendered project. If you have Burrrn or EAC or Nero installed, it will use one of them actually to burn the CD. If you have CueListtool installed, ReaBurn can use it to write markers into wave files as cues (which will show up in Adobe Audition, Soundforge, etc etc) or it will use CueListTool for editing or playing cues.

[Note that Reaper actually now puts markers into files natively so this part of ReaBurn is probably no longer required.]

If you do not have these programs installed, ReaBurn will offer to open their web sites in your browser.

MARKERS

The markers in the project file must have the character # in the marker name in order to be treated as CD track markers. You should have such a marker at the very start of the project.

The markers in the project file must have the character * in the marker name in order to be treated as index countdown markers. You can place such countdown markers a few seconds before a track marker, and they will cause your CD player to count down to the upcoming track. You should use these if you want countdowns for some tracks and not for others, or if you want to vary the length of countdown for each track. For instance, in a CD of classical music, you might have only track markers at the start of each movement of a work, but at the end of a work you might want to place an index coundown marker at the start of the silence before the next new work.

If you use * markers in your project, ReaBurn will not offer you the option to have a fixed gap between each track. If you are offered that option and request a gap larger than zero seconds, there will be that number of seconds of silence between each track and the CD player will count down to the next track during that period.

Other markers (those not having names including # or *) will be ignored by ReaBurn, so you can use them for other purposes.

Any text after the # character will be used to create a CD text label for the track, if your burner supports this function.

Examples of marker names:-

#
[That marker name would cause a CD track to be created with no CD text]

#Beethoven Symphony
[That marker name would cause a CD track to be created with CD text "Beethoven Symphony"]

Beethoven #Symphony
[That marker name would cause a CD track to be created with CD text "Symphony"

No hash in this name
[That marker would not cause a CD track to be created as there is no # character in the name]

*This is an index countdown marker
[That marker would not generate CD text as index markers do not display it]

Each CD track continues to the next marker which includes a # character, or to the end of the file if there are no more such markers. If you want silence between the CD tracks, insert it in the project file itself - Reaper makes it easy to do that.


USING REABURN

When you run ReaBurn you will first be asked to select the project file.

Then you will be asked to select either a wave file or a wavpack file which you have already created by rendering the whole project file to 44.1/16/stereo. (If the length of the rendered file is shorter than the length of the project file, such as when you render only the loop selection area in Reaper, problems may arise.) This audio file name can be different from the project file name.

The name of the cue sheet file will be the same as the name of the audio file, except with a ".cue" extension. If such a cue sheet file already exists, you will be asked if it is ok to overwrite it - the default is "no". The cue sheet file will be created in the same directory as the audio file, and the two should be kept together if you move your files around later.

Now you will be asked to provide an Artist Name, if you want that to appear in the cue sheet and in the CD text.

Then you will be asked to provide a CD Title, for the same purpose.

If you do not have * markers in your project, you will be asked to enter the number of seconds between every track. Leave the figure as zero if you want gapless burning (eg a CD of a live concert).

Now you will see a dialog of options displayed.

You can choose to "Insert markers into wave file as cues". This will only work if you have CueListTool installed - if you choose the option but do not have that program, ReaBurn will offer to take you to the CueListTool home page.

You can also choose to "Edit cue sheet" - this also requires CueListTool to work. CueListTool has a useful player built in which you can use to check that the cues are in the right place, and an editor to adjust them with, and a cue list generation option to save the changes in the cues. Read the CueListTool help file for details.

The next choice in this dialog is "Play/convert cue sheet in VUPlayer" - VUPlayer can play the cue sheet for checking purposes (including Wavpack files), or convert the audio to other formats (selected tracks in the cue sheet or all).

If you have the "Burrrn" CD burning program installed in something like C:\Program Files\Burrrn, you will be asked if you want to burn the CD right away using that program.

Burrrn is donationware from www.burrrn.net and makes simple work of CD burning. It can also handle wavpack lossless compressed files, so you can reduce your CD master files to half their normal size with no quality loss. When called from ReaBurn, you may only need to click on the "Burrrn" button in Burrrn to start writing the CD - it's as simple as that. Burrrn displays the track layout for you to check first.

If you have "EAC" installed, again, you'll be asked if you want to use that to burn. EAC is pretty fussy about the layout of cue sheets and under some circumstances you may find that it displays its cue sheet editor with an error message, if it doesn't like the cue sheet layout generated by ReaBurn. For instance, it doesn't like quotes within CD text.

If you have "Nero" installed, you can choose that instead. Nero can be handy for burning an image file for checking, using its "ImageDrive" facility, rather than possibly wasting a real CDR.

If you choose none of these then that's it - you can use the cue sheet created in the same directory as the audio file with any other cue-sheet-aware software.


Enjoy!
"Art Evans"

[Shredder]

Thanks Art - this is good stuff you provided!

[Xasman]

Originally Posted by scottc

Can a "number of copies to be burned" option be added? so all you have to do is keep putting discs in the burner?

I agree that this option would be very helpful (together with the option to go back afterwards at any time and burn subsequent copies without having to re-render).

I have already submitted this as a feature request. Feel free to vote for it here: http://forum.cockos.com/project.php?issueid=353

Cheers.

[earlabs]

Originally Posted by Art Evans

A footnote to mention to newer users (I hear older users yawn) that an alternative CD burning strategy is to use "ReaBurn" and its associated freeware/donationware utilities.

It has certain advantages over Reaper-only burning, namely its handling of CD text (er - I actually forget how/whether Reaper does that itself) and it enables you to use compressed (Wavpack) renders of the project to save space. Also it provides for countdown markers/indexes in the finished CD.

Site - http://www.inside-audio.nl/download_reaper_addons.html (1765 hits now, heh!)

Here's how ReaBurn works - note that this is not how to use Reaper's own burning system which is very nicely documented earlier in this thread:-

Art,
I respect your work very much and also the support you give on this forum, so I am a bit hesitant to bring the following forward. I asked about reaburn a week ago or so and hleen pointed me to the right file. I used reaburn and indeed it works exactly the way you write. I was however a bit disappointed with what it actually does. In fact you present a sort of wizard which guides me through the hoops. But the fact that I need to have the whole project rendered first is a bit of a spoilsport for me.

I have a suggestion which will hugely improve reaburn. Shan's Autorender is able to render wav/mp3/flac/etc files from regions in a project. It is also built with AHK. I guess you could paste your code into Shan's script. That will yield a much better workflow, in my opinion. How about it?

[Diogenes]

Not dissin' on anybody or anything... but I have to ask;

Why not use a program designed for authoring CD's? I usually do my final tweaks in Adobe Audition and burn from there. Before Audition, I used Nero. I mean, my old DAW had CD burning built in and it always felt and acted like a "tacked on" feature that sort of worked but not really... I let Reaper do what it does best and use other tools for authoring the CD.

Really, I'm just curious why some of you guys are jonesin' for this to be built into Reaper? It's not that big a deal to fire up a CD authoring proggie is it?

D

[earlabs]

Originally Posted by Diogenes

Not dissin' on anybody or anything... but I have to ask;

Why not use a program designed for authoring CD's? I usually do my final tweaks in Adobe Audition and burn from there. Before Audition, I used Nero. I mean, my old DAW had CD burning built in and it always felt and acted like a "tacked on" feature that sort of worked but not really... I let Reaper do what it does best and use other tools for authoring the CD.

Really, I'm just curious why some of you guys are jonesin' for this to be built into Reaper? It's not that big a deal to fire up a CD authoring proggie is it?

D

Well, it's just plain laziness, I guess, just like 90% of all things automated . I like to get the project done, hit a button and drive down proper-cd-burning avenue. Earlier I didn't care much for well defined track details but now I do.
btw: can I edit the cue sheet in Audition?

[Diogenes]

I have Audition 1.5 BTW... I think they are at V3 now? Anyway, you can set up cues and edit them in the edit view by going to "Window > Cue list" or pressing Alt+8. Alternatively, you can have the Play List window open and jump to the Cue List from there.

I usually have a bunch of wavs I just drop in the CD Project View and setup what data and gaps I want using the "Track Properties" dialog. Working with a long continuous project, I imagine I would make use of the markers and Cue List.

There may be new stuff in AA V2 and/or V3 but 1.5 serves my humble needs so I haven't bothered upgrading.

D

[Art Evans]

Art,
I respect your work very much and also the support you give on this forum, so I am a bit hesitant to bring the following forward. I asked about reaburn a week ago or so and hleen pointed me to the right file. I used reaburn and indeed it works exactly the way you write. I was however a bit disappointed with what it actually does. In fact you present a sort of wizard which guides me through the hoops. But the fact that I need to have the whole project rendered first is a bit of a spoilsport for me.

Heh, please do not hesitate to comment!

ReaBurn I have to say was intended to suit my own workflow, which is 90% preparing live classical concert recordings for FM broadcast. So I'm going to be rendering the whole thing anyway - what's in the session file is what is going to be on the CD end to end. I want to keep that render in wavpack format in case further copies are needed. Furthermore I'm wanting always to check before burning (especially track layout), so in ReaBurn I always tick the "VU Player" and "Burrrn" boxes - having closed VUPlayer after checking, then Burrrn starts up and does the burn from the Wavpack render.

The excellent Autorender is targetted at a different workflow requirement, I believe. Possibly the two could be combined, but I'm not going to try it because I've now forgotten how 'AHK' works. But I think the AHK script for ReaBurn is in the ReaBurn download zip, and anyone who wants to modify it to suit other requirements is more than welcome to use the code to do so. Let's face it, part of the code I borrowed from someone else anyway!

[Xasman]

Originally Posted by Diogenes

Not dissin' on anybody or anything... but I have to ask;

Why not use a program designed for authoring CD's? I usually do my final tweaks in Adobe Audition and burn from there. Before Audition, I used Nero. I mean, my old DAW had CD burning built in and it always felt and acted like a "tacked on" feature that sort of worked but not really... I let Reaper do what it does best and use other tools for authoring the CD.

Really, I'm just curious why some of you guys are jonesin' for this to be built into Reaper? It's not that big a deal to fire up a CD authoring proggie is it?

D

OK. In answer to your questions:

1. Well, to begin with, I'm not asking for the CD burning feature - Reaper already has in-built CD burning, so why not use it? IMO it's definitely much more convenient than firing up another application. It also means that Reaper is more self-contained (a good thing, again IMO). The in-built CD burning already works well anyway (it's not as if it feels tacked-on or behaves flakily - it doesn't). All that's needed to make it really great IMO is to add the ability to burn multiple copies and subsequent copies without re-rendering (see the FR link in my earlier post).

2. I just don't see the point in installing over-bloated software like Nero if I can burn audio CD's more conveniently in Reaper.

3. In general, I don't want any more software than necessary installed on my studio machine.

[Shredder]

Originally Posted by Xasman

OK. In answer to your questions:

1. Well, to begin with, I'm not asking for the CD burning feature - Reaper already has in-built CD burning, so why not use it? IMO it's definitely much more convenient than firing up another application. It also means that Reaper is more self-contained (a good thing, again IMO). The in-built CD burning already works well anyway (it's not as if it feels tacked-on or behaves flakily - it doesn't). All that's needed to make it really great IMO is to add the ability to burn multiple copies and subsequent copies without re-rendering (see the FR link in my earlier post).

2. I just don't see the point in installing over-bloated software like Nero if I can burn audio CD's more conveniently in Reaper.

3. In general, I don't want any more software than necessary installed on my studio machine.

+1
I agree!

[Billoon]

1. It is more than flaky here, just doesnt work.

2. Imgburn is tiny, like reaper.

3. Imgburn doensnt need to be installed, you can get a portable version and run it straight of your desktop or a usb key if you like and its free.

[Diogenes]

Originally Posted by Xasman

OK. In answer to your questions:

1. Well, to begin with, I'm not asking for the CD burning feature - Reaper already has in-built CD burning, so why not use it? IMO it's definitely much more convenient than firing up another application. It also means that Reaper is more self-contained (a good thing, again IMO). The in-built CD burning already works well anyway (it's not as if it feels tacked-on or behaves flakily - it doesn't). All that's needed to make it really great IMO is to add the ability to burn multiple copies and subsequent copies without re-rendering (see the FR link in my earlier post).

2. I just don't see the point in installing over-bloated software like Nero if I can burn audio CD's more conveniently in Reaper.

3. In general, I don't want any more software than necessary installed on my studio machine.

All excellent points. But in my case, I have Audition installed and configured as an external editor for Reaper... and I am more used to the easy CD authoring tools in AA. I guess it doesn't really matter if the end product is what you want right?

I have Samplitude Music Studio 14 as well as all the "free" versions of Samp given away by CM Magazine. All of them have built-in CD burning. I still use Audition. Maybe it's just familiarity that makes me stick with it huh?

D

[Xasman]

Originally Posted by Diogenes

I guess it doesn't really matter if the end product is what you want right?

Quite so - no argument there. Of course there's no question that it's your choice if you're already used to another prog that does CD burning and you'd rather use that. All I'm saying is that for those who don't (or don't want to use a separate program), it's good that Reaper already has the facility built-in. Personally I find it very convenient, and certainly wouldn't want to see it removed.

Originally Posted by Billoon

1. It is more than flaky here, just doesnt work.
2. Imgburn is tiny, like reaper.
3. Imgburn doensnt need to be installed, you can get a portable version and run it straight of your desktop or a usb key if you like and its free.

1. Then perhaps I'm just lucky that Reaper's CD burning works perfectly with both my burners. If some users are finding CD burning doesn't work for them (as in your case) then maybe the devs just need to add support for a wider variety of drives?

2. & 3. OK, OK, I'm sure Imgburn is great. Personally though I'd still really just rather use one app and keep it in Reaper. Also (and quite probably this is just me being flaky ) for some reason I just don't find Imgburn all that intuitive to use (don't shoot me!).

EDIT: Billoon - Now that I've used Imgburn a little more, I must admit that it's growing on me. I certainly agree with you that it's a very good app indeed (I think the unfamiliarity of the UI initially put me off, although I actually rather like it now that I'm more used to it!). Thanks for the heads-up.

[Anton Farmer]

Originally Posted by Diogenes

Not dissin' on anybody or anything... but I have to ask;

Why not use a program designed for authoring CD's? I usually do my final tweaks in Adobe Audition and burn from there. Before Audition, I used Nero. I mean, my old DAW had CD burning built in and it always felt and acted like a "tacked on" feature that sort of worked but not really... I let Reaper do what it does best and use other tools for authoring the CD.

Really, I'm just curious why some of you guys are jonesin' for this to be built into Reaper? It's not that big a deal to fire up a CD authoring proggie is it?

D

Well thank God it's not just me thinking this!

Don't get me wrong I love REAPER through and through but surely you would be better using a specialised CD mastering programme such as 'Sony CD Architect'

This is really the best way to produce a proper 'Red Book Standard' CD suitable for commercial release - it has everything you need built in

Cheers
Anton

[mabian]

Originally Posted by Anton Farmer

Well thank God it's not just me thinking this!

Don't get me wrong I love REAPER through and through but surely you would be better using a specialised CD mastering programme such as 'Sony CD Architect'

This is really the best way to produce a proper 'Red Book Standard' CD suitable for commercial release - it has everything you need built in

Cheers
Anton

Hi,

what's wrong in having Reaper build a BIN/CUE file and then burning it externally? I'm just thinking to replace CD Architect with Reaper/ImgBurn indeed.

Isn't the bin/cue file produced by Reaper perfectly red book compliant?

Thanks,
Mario

[Anton Farmer]

Hi there

Well in any toolbox there many different tools!

You can drive a screw into a plank of wood with a hammer but it would be far better to drill a small pilot hole with a drill and then drive the screw in with a screwdriver - if you see what I mean

Cheers
Anton

[jamesp]

Originally Posted by mabian

Isn't the bin/cue file produced by Reaper perfectly red book compliant?

As I understand it, you can't insert ISRC's within Reaper - you have to manually insert them in the .cue file.

There are also no error testing and verification functions within Reaper.

Cheers

James.

[357mag]

So Reaper can actually burn discs? What version do you have to have?

[Diogenes]

Originally Posted by 357mag

So Reaper can actually burn discs?

No. Read Post #15 for the skinny...

http://forum.cockos.com/showpost.php...0&postcount=15

D

[357mag]

If Reaper can't burn your song to a disc then why did Shredder outline those steps in post #2 saying it could?

[Shredder]

Originally Posted by 357mag

If Reaper can't burn your song to a disc then why did Shredder outline those steps in post #2 saying it could?

Heheh - some people never learn I suppose

[357mag]

If Reaper can't burn to disc I'll just stick to using Nero then.

[Shredder]

I think what is going on here is that it seems there are folks who did not know REAPER's CD burning capabilities. And some would prefer to use third party apps to do that, which is fine if that is their preference - nothing wrong with that.

However, the original post (#1) was simply a question if REAPER had the ability to burn to CD. And as a matter of course, I responded with the steps to demonstrate the burning capabilities of REAPER using the method to burn a full audio CD to be played in almost any CD and DVD player.

So post (#2) is legit! Personally, I use it for my stuff as well to share my music with friends and family.

It may not be the best, but why pay for something else if the bottom line is that it works!

[Tedwood]

Originally Posted by 357mag

If Reaper can't burn to disc I'll just stick to using Nero then.

It can.

Use whatever software you like but be aware that you can lay out your audio tracks in a single REAPER project and do it all without having to open another application and possibly getting the track order wrong or some other file related mistake.

Shredder's Toot is the Beez Kneez

I don't know whether it meets the red book standard. Worry about that if you need it.

[Kiview]

Did anyone ever had problems with little cracks, when fading two tracks together and burning them with reaper? No problem for the fade when I hear it in the sequencer, but after burning, there's sometime this little crack as soon as the track is switching.