Comments on: what's that song called?

Question: what's that song called?

n o i s e s — Mon, 09 May 2005 21:52:42 -0800

is there *any* way that i can burn a cd using itunes (or other itunes compatible os x app/script) which will also write the album name/artist & song titles so that when i play my, ahem, cd backup copies in my car i don't just get: 'untitled' & 'track 1' etc on my fancy sat navi display? thank you.

By: fandango_matt

fandango_matt — Mon, 09 May 2005 22:00:11 -0800

When you insert the original CD, in iTunes, go to Advanced >Get CD Track Names. That should title the CD and the tracks, if they don't show up automatically.

By: gaelenh

gaelenh — Mon, 09 May 2005 22:07:15 -0800

Unfortunately iTunes does not support the feature you are refering to, CD-TEXT. I think it has something to do with CD-TEXT disc's not being kosher CD's. Roxio makes a program called Toast that does support CD-TEXT. It's the best program for burning other types of discs on a Mac- bin/cue, VCD, iso, dmg. It can also mount discs images to the desktop without having to burn them.

By: mrbill

mrbill — Mon, 09 May 2005 23:35:05 -0800

> It's the best program for burning other types of discs on a Mac- bin/cue, VCD, iso, dmg.

I'm a fan of Dragon Burn myself.

> It can also mount discs images to the desktop without having to burn them.

OS X can do that natively in the finder without Toast.

By: cillit bang

cillit bang — Tue, 10 May 2005 02:51:08 -0800

Do any of your CDs show track names on the display?

By: jperkins

jperkins — Tue, 10 May 2005 03:54:38 -0800

(oh no!) mrbill - can you elaborate? Just copy the songs to a new folder and then burn them?

By: jperkins

jperkins — Tue, 10 May 2005 05:48:02 -0800

ignore that. shouldn't have posted tired.

By: terrapin

terrapin — Tue, 10 May 2005 06:44:21 -0800

Another work around/use for Toast is you can get rid of the annoying gaps between songs.

By: omnidrew

omnidrew — Tue, 10 May 2005 07:22:30 -0800

AFAIK, (other than the mysterious CD-TEXT) audio CDs do not carry any artist/title information.

When you put a disc in your Mac, itunes queries the CDDB (aka gracenote) database based on the total time and number of tracks. The results are stored in the iTunes library. This info is part of the ID3 tag that is incorporated into any MP3s you rip from that disc, but it isn't stored on the audio CD (original or burned copy).

By: Dr. Wu

Dr. Wu — Tue, 10 May 2005 07:42:16 -0800

onmidrew, that is correct: a friend just confirmed this regarding a mix CD I burned for her. I did the gracenote bidness, and burned using Toast, but her computer could not see any song info. So, yeah, I'd like to find a way to do this, too.

By: n o i s e s

n o i s e s — Tue, 10 May 2005 08:14:13 -0800

thanks to all who responded, esp. gaelenh.

you know, funnily enough i've been ummming & ahhhing over whether to buy toast in order to get the most out of my superdrive.

but errr, now dr wu says it doesn't work! & mrbill: i'll read more about dragon burn in the morning before i make a decision on toast, but do you happen to know if dragon burn converts the cddb data to cd text?

cilit bang & omnidrew: yes, track names/artist etc show on most cd players on most of the cd's which people have bought for me recently. you know, omnidrew: i googled `cd text` which gaelenh mentioned, & it really does exist. funnily enough itunes still seems to query cddb even on my cd texted cds.

beats me why apple hasn't added cd text functionality to itunes. silly b%ggers!

By: n o i s e s

n o i s e s — Tue, 10 May 2005 08:19:55 -0800

gaelenh, do you think dr wu is doing something wrong? are there 10001 preferences & advanced preferences in toast which need to be configured to burn cd text sourced from cddb?

By: n o i s e s

n o i s e s — Tue, 10 May 2005 08:22:40 -0800

& b#gger me gaelenh, welcome to mefi!

By: omnidrew

omnidrew — Tue, 10 May 2005 08:30:01 -0800

Interesting re CD-TEXT -- I'll have to look into it some more; I have a disc player in my car now which displays ID3 tag info for MP3 discs... can someone link to a page that lists commercial CDs that have CD-TEXT data?

n o i s e s, I think you will find Toast pretty easy to use.

However, I just opened it up though to look at the CD-TEXT implementation. In the Audio tab, there's a checkbox to enable it, but nothing in the help to indicate where the data comes from...?

By: gaelenh

gaelenh — Tue, 10 May 2005 18:12:49 -0800

The discs need to burned DAO. TAO will not support CD-TEXT. The CD-TEXT box needs to be checked in the left hand options panel. Also the burner needs to support CD-TEXT, but I don't think that will be an issue.

To tag the tracks, first add all the tracks to the record list. Double click the first track and a menu will pop up. Go to Disc->Get Track Info in the menus also works. It'll give two choice tabs, Disc and Track. You can set Disc Title and Disc Artist under that tab. Under the Track tab, you can set the Track Title and Track Artist. The little arrows to the left of Okay/Cancel will navigate through all the tracks. You only need to set the Disc settings once.

I tried to test this, but realized I don't have car radio that will support it anymore. I don't think most computer programs look for CD-TEXT information and instead go the cddb/gracenote route. That could be a reason why the previous posters friend didn't see any title/track info.

Just a little heads up, Toast will burn iTMS aac files, but they will be inaudible. Also, you can change the delay between tracks at the tracklist screen. The default is two seconds.