what's that song called?

May 9, 2005 9:52 PM

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.
posted by n o i s e s to computers & internet (14 comments total)

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.
posted by fandango_matt at 10:00 PM on May 9, 2005

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.
posted by gaelenh at 10:07 PM on May 9, 2005 [1 favorite]

> 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.
posted by mrbill at 11:35 PM on May 9, 2005

Do any of your CDs show track names on the display?
posted by cillit bang at 2:51 AM on May 10, 2005

(oh no!) mrbill - can you elaborate? Just copy the songs to a new folder and then burn them?
posted by jperkins at 3:54 AM on May 10, 2005

ignore that. shouldn't have posted tired.
posted by jperkins at 5:48 AM on May 10, 2005

Another work around/use for Toast is you can get rid of the annoying gaps between songs.
posted by terrapin at 6:44 AM on May 10, 2005

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).
posted by omnidrew at 7:22 AM on May 10, 2005

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.
posted by Dr. Wu at 7:42 AM on May 10, 2005

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!
posted by n o i s e s at 8:14 AM on May 10, 2005

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?
posted by n o i s e s at 8:19 AM on May 10, 2005

& b#gger me gaelenh, welcome to mefi!
posted by n o i s e s at 8:22 AM on May 10, 2005

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...?
posted by omnidrew at 8:30 AM on May 10, 2005

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.
posted by gaelenh at 6:12 PM on May 10, 2005