User Manual HOFA CD-Burn.DDP.Master (App) HOFA CD-Burn.DDP.Master PRO (App) V2.5.4 Content Introduction

User Manual HOFA CD-Burn.DDP.Master (App) HOFA CD-Burn.DDP.Master PRO (App) V2.5.4 Content Introduction ...... 4 Quick Start ...... 4 Installation ...... 5 Activation ...... 5 Evaluation version ...... 5 Project window ...... 6 Audio file import and formats ...... 7 The Audio Editor ...... 8 Audio Editor Tracks ...... 8 Audio Editor Mode ...... 9 Mode: Insert ...... 9 Mode: Slide ...... 9 Audio Clips ...... 10 Zoom ...... 11 Using Plugins ...... 12 Plugin selection ...... 12 Chain Presets ...... 12 Clip Plugins ...... 13 Automation ...... 13 The Track List ...... 14 The Control Panel ...... 17 Playback Control ...... 17 Marker Edit Buttons ...... 17 Cover Picture ...... 18 Time Display ...... 18 Meter ...... 18 Burn CD ...... 20 Write DDP ...... 21 Export ...... 22 Save All Tracks as Audio Files ...... 22 Save All Tracks as Single Audio File ...... 22 Save All Vinyl Sides as Audio Files ...... 22 Prepare itmsp Package (for Apple iTunes Store) ...... 22 Save Tracklist (PQ-Sheet) as PDF File ...... 23 Playback Volume Control ...... 23 The Toolbar ...... 24 Undo/Redo ...... 24 Mode: Insert/Slide ...... 24 Default Pause ...... 24 Project Path ...... 24 Vinyl ...... 24 Project Sample Rate ...... 24 ? ...... 25 Render Cache ...... 26 External Sample Rate Conversion ...... 27 Peak- and True Peak Normalizing ...... 27 Multi CD Projects ...... 28 Vinyl Markers ...... 29 Multisession CD ...... 30 Project Folder Option ...... 30 Menus ...... 31 File ...... 31 Import ...... 31 Export ...... 31 Multisession ...... 31 Edit ...... 32 Normalize Selected Clips ...... 32 Find Peaks in Mix ...... 32 Run Pause Detection ...... 32 Settings ...... 33 Global Settings ...... 33 Display Settings ...... 34 Project Settings ...... 35 Metadata Settings ...... 36 Import Settings ...... 36 Plugins Settings ...... 37 DDP Export Settings ...... 37 Track Export Settings ...... 38 Audio Playback Settings ...... 39 Help ...... 40 Keyboard Shortcuts ...... 40 Interesting facts ...... 42 Red Book Audio CD ...... 42 DDP ...... 43 ISRC ...... 44 UPC/EAN ...... 44 CD-Text ...... 45 Special Characters in CD-Text ...... 46 Hidden Track ...... 47 Dither ...... 48 True Peaks (Intersample Peaks) ...... 49 EBU R 128 ...... 49 Libraries ...... 50 Contact ...... 51

Introduction HOFA CD-Burn.DDP.Master is a software for the easy creation of Audio CD premasters as a burned CD or as a DDP image. Furthermore, the projects can also be used for other destination media like vinyl records or online distribution platforms. There are two versions of this App: "CD-Burn.DDP.Master" and "CD- Burn.DDP.Master PRO". Some features are only available in the PRO version. These differences are always mentioned where they apply in this manual.

Quick Start For anyone who does not like to read manuals, here is a quick start guide how to create a project in HOFA CD-Burn.DDP.Master (App). – Start HOFA CD-Burn.DDP.Master (App). – Drop the desired audio files into the editor window. – Edit all clips and markers as required. – Use the integrated plugins to edit your audio material as desired. – Define the sides for vinyl records (optional). – Enter UPC/EAN and ISRC codes (optional). – Enter CD-Text information (optional). – Burn a CD or export a DDP image or audio files in the desired format.

Installation To install CD-Burn.DDP.Master (App), you will need the HOFA-Plugins Manager which you can download here: https://hofa-plugins.de/en/download The HOFA-Plugins Manager also allows installing all further products by HOFA- Plugins which you can test for 14 days if you are interested. Select "Install" in the field "CD-Burn.DDP.Master (App)". All plugins that can be used in CD-Burn.DDP.Master for free will automatically be selected as well. By clicking "INSTALL" or "APPLY CHANGES" at the bottom, the latest version of the software will be downloaded and installed to your computer.

Activation The license activation of the software is done using the HOFA-Plugins Manager as well. A detailed description of the activation and deactivation process is available here: https://hofa-plugins.de/media/HOFA_Plugins/manuals/Activation- Deactivation_en.pdf.

Evaluation version If you have not yet purchased the product, you can test it for 14 days. Click on "Start Demo" to start that 14-day period. Please use the demo period before buying to make sure that CD-Burn.DDP.Master (App) is compatible with your CD writer. As a limitation the creation of DDP images is not possible without a license. During the demo period you can choose each time if you want to test the standard version or the PRO version. If you already own a standard license, you can test the PRO features as well.

Project window When starting the application for the first time, you will see an empty project window which is named "New Project" in its tab.

Further projects can be opened in additional tabs from the File menu or by Drag'n'Drop of a .hofacd project file, a .cue playlist or a DDP image folder. All tabs will be re-opened when the app is launched the next time. The project window consists of 3 parts. On top you can see the track list, which will show all track markers for the CD project and is used to edit all additional information like ISRC or CD-Text. Below that you can find the control panel and the audio editor with the plugin panels to the sides. The division between list and audio editor can be adjusted by moving the control panel up or down.

Audio file import and formats To fill the new project, just drop any audio file into the audio editor. Or you can choose "Import audio file" from the "Import” section of the File menu or from the context menu of the audio editor. Generally the file formats .wav, .aiff, .flac, .mp3, .ogg and .wma are supported for import. Due to quality reasons we strongly recommend to use only the lossless formats .wav, .aiff or .flac for the creation of your Master. All audio files used in a project need to have the same sample rate. That project sample rate can be chosen in the toolbar at the upper right corner. When trying to import files that have a different sample rate, they will be converted to the project sample rate using a resolution of 32 bit (float). The original files will not be overwritten. If your project is only intended for the creation of a CD-A or an appropriate DDP image, it would make sense to use the target sample rate of 44.1 kHz as the project sample rate. In case you also want to use your project for other destination media like vinyl records or online channels as well, the (optimally higher) sample rate of your original audio files is the best choice. In that case a conversion to 44.1 kHz is only done when burning a CD or exporting a DDP image, but for the export of audio files you still can choose a higher rate. In the PRO version, the sample rate conversion can also be performed using an external tool. Furthermore, the PRO version can handle multiple sample rates inside one project. This makes it possible to switch the project sample rate between all rates that have already been used, without any further conversions. In the Import Settings you will find different options what should be done if mono files are being imported. You can select if you want to put it on the left, the right or both channels. If there are two mono files that belong together, you could import them as a stereo pair. This is the case if they are in the same folder, have the same format and length and have the same filenames with a trailing "L” for the left and "R” for the right channel (e.g. "TrackL.wav” and "TrackR.wav”). As a stereo pair they are handled like one stereo file in the audio editor.

The Audio Editor Let's now have a look at the audio editor. For each imported audio file, a waveform clip and corresponding track markers are created. So normally a clip is according to one CD track. But the clips can also be edited completely independent of the CD track markers if required. It is possible to add track start markers to a continuous audio clip to split it into several CD tracks. Or you can combine multiple clips to become one track on the CD. If the audio file was dragged behind the end of the CD project, the clip is appended to the end with the distance defined as Default pause in the Global Settings. A track start marker in front and a track end marker at the end of each clip are created. The distances of these markers can also be defined in the Global Settings under Marker distances. If the file is dropped before the end of the CD, the clip is placed exactly to that mouse position. In this case, markers are only generated if no other clip is already there. By dropping a file onto an existing clip, the clip will be replaced by the new file and all following clips and markers are moved accordingly if necessary.

By pressing the delete key, all selected clips and related markers are removed. When also holding the shift key, only the clips are removed and the markers remain. By holding Ctrl/Cmd*, the clips and markers are deleted and the gaps that arise are closed, as far as possible and reasonable. If you move the clips so that they are overlapping, a crossfade will automatically be done between them. If they are on different tracks in the editor, they will be mixed without crossfade. Especially if you are using cross fades, you should pay attention to find a reasonable position for any track start marker in this area.

Audio Editor Tracks By default a new project always contains two Audio-Editor-Tracks. Using the "+" button you can add as many tracks as you like. With the trash icon button they are deleted again. You can modify the track order by moving them vertically. All these functions are also available in the context menu. When pressing the "M" (Mute) button, all clips on this track are muted. The "S" (Solo) button will mute the clips on all the other tracks. For simple projects where you only want to place some already mastered

* Ctrl on Windows / Cmd on macOS

tracks into the right order and create a CD or an image from that, it can be sufficient to use one Audio-Editor-Track only. There are two situations where you will need to use multiple Audio-Editor-Tracks: I clips are overlapping, a crossfade will automatically be done between them. If you do not want to have a crossfade, you will need to place the clips on two different tracks. You can use different plugins on each Audio-Editor-Track. For further details please refer to chapter Using Plugins.

Audio Editor Mode There are two modes in the audio editor: "Insert" and "Slide". You can toggle between these modes in the toolbar or switch temporarily using the "Alt" key. The mode determines what happens when you select and move clips with the mouse.

Mode: Insert In this mode the CD tracks that belong to the selected audio clips can be inserted between two other CD tracks. This allows an easy modification of the CD track order.

Mode: Slide This mode allows moving the clips on the time axis, e.g. to adjust the length of pauses. If you select a clip in this mode, all following clips are selected as well. All CD track markers that belong to the clips are moved with them. By holding the Shift or the Ctrl/Cmd* key you can also move single clips without moving the markers. In this mode, the additional "Snap" button is revealed in the toolbar. If this button is enabled, the movement of clips will "magnetically" snap to certain positions. This happens when a clip touches its neighbor clip, if the distance to the neighbor clip matches the current default pause or if a track start marker reaches its neighbor pregap marker. Movement is generally blocked if other track markers are in the way.

* Ctrl on Windows / Cmd on macOS

Audio Clips While moving the mouse over a clip, the shape of the mouse pointer will vary. This is associated with the following functions:

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1. In the time bar you can set the orange marker for the current playback position. By moving the mouse up/down while the button is pressed, you can also zoom in/out here. A double click into the time bar will start playback. 2. At the borders, the beginning and end of a clip can be adjusted. 3. Here you can move a marker independent of the clip border. The movement is only possible up to the neighbor markers or as far as the red book will allow this. 4. The horizontal line is a level slider for the clip. A double click will reset the volume to the original value of the audio file. 5. By moving the square, you can modify the fade in and out times. A right click will change the shape of the fading curve. Modifying the times of crossfades is not possible. 6. The level of the clip is displayed in dB here. A click on this label will allow entering the level in dB as a number.

A click on the file name of the clip will open the path in a Windows Explorer / macOS Finder window. A right click on a clip will open a context menu with the following functions: – Mute/Unmute : Mute/unmute clip. – Reset Level : Resets the clip level to the original value of the audio file. – Copy : Copies a clip to the clipboard.

– Delete selected clip and related markers : Removes a clip and all markers associated with it. – Delete selected clips only : Removes a clip while all markers remain unchanged. – Delete selected clip and related markers and close gap : Removes a clip and all markers associated with it. The gaps that arise are closed, as far as possible and reasonable. – Slice Clip at Playback Position Pointer : Slices the clip at the current playback position (of course only when it is inside the clip). – Slice Clip and Add Track Start Marker : Slices the clip at the current playback position and adds a track start marker there (using the Marker Distance "Before Track” defined in the Global Settings). – Move Up/Down One Track : Moves the clip to the upper or lower neighbor audio editor track. – Show Audio File in Windows Explorer/Finder : This will open a Windows Explorer or macOS Finder window and show the path where the audio file used in this clip is stored. – Replace Audio File : Use a different audio file for the clip.

A right click outside a clip will open a context menu with the following functions: – Paste : Inserts the copied clips at the current playback position pointer. – Import Audio Files : Inserts a new clip to the project. If the mouse is before the current end of the CD, the clip will be inserted at the mouse position. If it is behind, the clip will be added to the end of the CD. – Insert/Remove/Move Audio Editor Track : See chapter Audio Editor Tracks.

Zoom There are several ways to zoom in/out the time range that is visible in the audio editor: – using the magnifying buttons and the horizontal slider at the bottom right – using the mouse wheel while holding the Alt key – by clicking into the time line and moving vertically while holding the mouse button

– using the shortkeys defined in the Global Settings (g/h) The slider at the right top allows zooming the vertical size of the audio tracks. With the +/- keys below one track more or less (including plugin automation tracks) is shown. The slider at the right bottom on the other hand is used to zoom the wave display inside the clips

Using Plugins

Plugin selection In CD-Burn.DDP.Master, you can use all HOFA plugins without additional cost. Furthermore, the PRO version allows using 3rd party plugins in VST3 or AU format. By default, the plugin sections are hidden in the small stripes at the left and right sides of the audio editor. Click on the arrow buttons at the top of each section to open them. On the left side, you can select plugins that should be used on one audio track only. The "Master Plugins" on the right side are applied to the output signal after mixing. The plugin selection boxes consist of 3 segments. The on/off switch at the left will activate or bypass a loaded plugin. Clicking the name in the middle will open/close the appropriate plugin window. Clicking while holding the Ctrl/Cmd* key will remove the plugin. By drag and drop you can modify the plugin processing order. When holding the Alt key, the plugin being dragged is copied to the destination slot. The arrow button at the right opens a menu of all available plugins for selection. The sorting order of this menu is adjustable in the Plugin s Settings of the PRO version.

Chain Presets The “Chain Presets” button opens a dialog that allows managing your own presets for complete plugin chains. You can add the current chain of presets as a preset using the “+” button at the top. In addition to the preset name, you can also add a description under “Preset Info”. The

* Ctrl on Windows / Cmd on macOS

presets can be saved into subfolders if required. Using the heart symbols at the right you can mark your most important presets as favourites. The search bar at the top allows a full text search by Preset Name and/or Preset Info.

Clip Plugins In the PRO version, plugins can also be applied to single audio clips. You find the hidable block "Clip Plugins" at the left side of the GUI. Due to screen space reasons, only the plugin chain for the first selected audio clip in the project is shown there. To get a better overview, you can see the number of plugins used for each clip in the lower left corner of the clip iself. By drag and drop you can move or copy single plugins onto a clip directly, even when its plugin chain is currently not visible. Below the Clip-Plugins chain there are two additional settings which you won‘t find in the other plugin sections: – Pre/Post Gain: This switch determines if the clip plugins should be processed before or after the clip gain and fade in/out is applied. – Tail: The clip plugins will be processed for this time after the end of the clip, e.g. to allow longer reverb tails.

Automation If a plugin has been loaded, you will see an additional "Automation" button below the plugin select box. This button will open a list of all automatable parameters of the plugins used in this section. After selecting the parameters you want to automate, automation rows will show up below the appropriate track in the audio editor. The automation tracks for the master plugins will be shown below the last audio track. A click on an automation line will add a new automation point. A double click will remove it again. You can move single or multiple selected points in all directions. Line segments can only be moved vertically.

If the plugin sections are collapsed, all plugin windows will be closed and all automation tracks are hidden in order to achieve a better overview. Nevertheless all plugins and the automation remain active in the audio processing.

The Track List The track list is a table that contains all markers of your project. At the bottom of the list you can find the "Album” row that shows the total number of tracks and the total playing time of the CD. The magnifying buttons in the bottom left corner allow adjusting the font size of the table. The track list contains the following columns: – Current position : The orange arrow on the left will show you the current position for playback and marker insertion. – Delete : The buttons are used to delete a marker from the list. In some cases the neighbor markers will also be deleted, e.g. when deleting a track start, the pregap of that track is also deleted. As it would make no sense, start and end of the CD can not be deleted. – Save track as audio file : Using the buttons, you can save single tracks as audio files. Using the appropriate button in the "Album” row at the bottom of the list, all tracks will be saved as separate files. For further information see chapter Export. – Move : Using the arrow buttons and , a marker can be moved to the current playback position. If the red book standard does not allow this position for the marker, the button will be disabled. While moving the mouse over the button, a tooltip will be shown that informs you about the reason for deactivating. – # (will only occur in Multi-CD projects): The total track number within the whole project. – CD (will only occur in Multi-CD projects): The number of the CD this marker belongs to. – Track : The track number inside the appropriate CD. – Index : The type of the marker (Start, Pregap, Index 2, 3...). The numeration of subindices will start at 2, because a CD player will display the normal track start as subindex 1. – Project time (will only occur in Multi-CD projects): The time position within the whole project. – CD Time : The time position of the marker on the CD. You can edit this position numerically in the list. This is done by clicking and moving the mouse vertically or by number input after a double click.

This will only modify the position of this marker. All other markers and clips remain untouched. Please note that you can only move a marker up to its next neighbor marker. This ensures that the list will stay red book compatible. – Duration : The duration of a track or a pregap. In all pregap marker rows, you can also edit the duration numerically. In this case, all following markers and clips are moved by the same amount. That means that the audible duration of pregap pauses and therefore also the total length of the CD is changed! Using the button, you can set all pregap pauses to the same length. Also here all markers and clips are moved accordingly. If the pregap marker is placed inside an audio clip, editing is not possible here because it may be unclear which clips or parts of clips should be moved. – UPC/EAN : The UPC or EAN can be entered in any line. There can only be entered one code which is always valid for the whole album. Please see chapter UPC/EAN for more info. – ISRC : The ISRC for this track. Pressing the button, an automatic numeration will be done starting with the ISRC of track 1. Please see chapter ISRC for more info. – Track Title : The title of this track. Pressing the button, the entry for track 1 is copied to all tracks. If that entry contains numbers, these can be used for an automatic numeration of the titles. – Album Title : The title of the album. – The following columns can contain further metadata. These can only be entered in the rows of a track start marker (for that track) and in the "Album” row (for the whole album). You can find a list of all available entries in the Metadata Settings. Pressing the button, the entry for the album respectively the entry for track 1 is copied to all tracks. The standard version of CD-Burn.DDP.Master only allows using metadata that is defined in the CD-Text standard. In the PRO version you can also enter additional information beyond CD-Text. Furthermore, it allows copy & paste of complete columns or parts of the table. Right-clicking the table header opens a context menu with several copying options. Pressing the button will copy that column to the clipboard. – Move Text : The button has got a double function and is used to move CD-Text and ISRC information in the list without modifying the

marker positions. This can be very helpful if e.g. the title assignment was done wrong or if the number of tracks changes after a repeated pause detection. The down arrow moves down CD-Text and ISRC info of this and all following tracks. Information that exceeds the end of the list is automatically re-inserted when another track is added to the end or when the information is moved up again. The up arrow moves up CD-Text and ISRC info of all following tracks. The info in the current row will be deleted! You can activate and deactivate the table columns in the Metadata Settings. Columns that are empty or switched off are not written to the CD, the DDP image or exported audio files. The display order of the columns can be adjusted by moving them with the mouse. A right-click on the list header opens a context menu that allows a quick access to the Metadata Settings. By clicking on a marker line, the current playback position will be set to this marker. Lines containing a track start marker can be moved to other track start lines. When doing this, the whole track including pregap, all index markers, clips and CD-Text information is placed to the new position inside the project. In some special cases where it would become necessary to cut clips, this movement is not allowed.

The Control Panel The control panel can be moved vertically to adjust the relation between the track list and the audio editor.

Playback Control Using the player controls, everything will be played back as it will be put on the CD including fades and crossfades. With the skip forward and back buttons you can jump to the next or previous marker in the list. So in contrast to a CD player you can not only jump to a track start but also to track end and subindex markers. The "T-Playback" button in the middle controls the track transition playback feature. This allows a quick and easy check if all track markers and pauses are placed as intended. When track transition playback is enabled, the player will only play back the transitions between tracks from some seconds before the end of a track until some seconds after the start of the next track. The times can be adjusted in the Audio Playback Settings. The PRO version also allows a cycle playback. The cycle range can be drawn and modified by the mouse above the time bar in the audio editor. If no cycle range is defined and cycle mode is activated, the range will be automatically set around the current playback position, using the time distances defined in the Audio Playback Settings. Playback start and stop can also be controlled from the keyboard (see chapter Keyboard shortcuts). Using the combination of Shift + Stop, the position pointer will be set back to the position, where playback has been started the last time. This is very helpful, e.g. if you are searching the optimal position for a track start and want to set a marker there.

Marker Edit Buttons With the buttons above the player controls you can insert a track start, track end or subindex marker at the current playback position. This can also be done on the keyboard with the keys S, E and I for start, end and index (adjustable in the Global Settings). These buttons are also disabled if the red book would not allow setting a marker here. Again, a tooltip while moving the mouse over the button will explain the reason for this. Track end or Pregap marker: In the range from this marker to the next track

start marker the CD player will already show the track number of the following track and the time display will count down to 0. These markers are not mandatory, so you can leave them away without any problems. Subindex marker: These markers can be used to divide sections inside a track. They are not mandatory and they are not displayed by many CD players.

Cover Picture You can put a cover picture into this area by Drag'n'Drop. This picture is used for the following purposes only: – When exporting Wave- or MP3-Files, the picture can be embedded in the files as ID3 tags. – When creating an itmsp packet for the Apple iTunes Store, the picture is embedded in the upload package. A cover picture is mandatory for the iTunes Store. – The picture is integrated into the Tracklist (PQ-Sheet) PDF file. The picture file can also be added/removed from the Import section of the File menu. Please note: Generally this picture can not be written to a CD-A or be embedded into a DDP image. Neither the red book standard nor the CD-Text extension provide support for any pictures! Sometimes you will see cover images showing up if you play back a CD in a software player. These pictures are always loaded from the internet and are not stored on the CD itself.

Time Display The time display shows the current playback position of the track and the whole CD. You can click on the displays to toggle between current time and remaining time. In Multi-CD projects you can additionally switch between the project related or CD related times and track numbers. The time display format can be selected in the Display Settings. You can choose between CD frames (marked by an "f" in the end) or milliseconds.

Meter For an objective judgment of level, loudness and stereo width, HOFA CD- Burn.DDP.Master (App) comes with an inter-sample peak meter, an EBU-mode loudness meter and a correlation meter. The peak meter always shows a range of -60 dBFS up to 0 dBFS. The maximum levels for left and right are shown above. The peak meter can also

shows True Peaks. This can be switched using the “TP ON” resp. “TP OFF” button right beside the peak display. (See section True P eaks ). The EBU-mode loudness meter lies between the l/r peak meters. Loudness is only shown as one value (and not for left/right) according to EBU-mode specifications. Furthermore, loudness range is shown as square brackets inside the loudness meter. More about EBU-mode and loudness range in section EBU R 128.

To the right of the meter you can find the goniometer/correlation display. You can switch between the views in the settings menu. The goniometer shows three curves. Peak (orange region), Peak Hold (white line) and Energy (white line with gradient). Peak shows the current distribution, peak the maximum and energy the averaged distribution. The display shows a logarithmic scale of 40 dB. The scale adjusts to the level to show low levels as well as high levels. Correlation is shown as the opening angle of the to orange lines. A correlation of +1 (0°) corresponds to the lines closed in the upper half, -1(180°) closed in the lower half and 0 (90°) to horizontal lines. Correlation +1/0°; left and right are equal (but might have different levels)

Correlation 0/90°; left and right are independent

Correlation -1/180°; left and right are equal but have different signs

You can select the options described above in the Display Settings.

Burn CD To start burning the CD there is the following dialog window:

In the select box "CD writer" you can select the device that should be used for burning the CD. The CD write speed is not selectable until an empty CD has been put into that device. Click "Start" to start the burning process. The CD will be ejected afterwards. If you need multiple copies of the CD, just enter the desired number. Then you just need to put a new blank CD to your writer after a CD is ready. For Multi-CD projects, there will be an additional selector which CDs of the project should be written.

If the "Start playback when finished" option is activated, playback will start after the last CD has been written. Please note that this will play back the project from your hard disk and not from the CD, as the CD is ejected.

Write DDP A DDP image is not a file but a folder (see also chapter DDP).

As destination folder the project path extended by "_DDP_IMAGE" is proposed, but you can select any folder you like. This folder should be empty. If a DDP image already exists in that folder, you will be asked if you want to overwrite that image. If the "Start playback when finished” option is activated, playback will start after the process is finished. If "Create additional zip file” is selected, the created DDP image folder will additionally be stored as a zip file, using the same name. If HOFA DDP Player Maker (Version 2 or higher) is also installed on your computer, you can also choose to open the new image directly in DDP Player Maker here. If the "Start playback when finished" option is activated, playback will start after the DDP image has been written completely.

Export

Save All Tracks as Audio Files This will save one audio file for each track, The file format and further options can be selected in the Track Export Settings.

Save All Tracks as Single Audio File This will save the whole project as one long audio file. The file format and further options can be selected in the Track Export Settings.

Save All Vinyl Sides as Audio Files If vinyl markers have been activated for the project, one audio file per vinyl side can be saved here. For further details please refer to chapter Vinyl Markers.

Prepare itmsp Package (for Apple iTunes Store) An itmsp package is a special package format that is used when uploading music albums to Apple's iTunes Store. Using this function will only be useful for you under the following conditions: • You are a registered provider for the Apple iTunes Store. • You have an appropriate upload software provided by Apple (e.g. "iTunes Producer"). • You want to release this project as a downloadable album in the iTunes store. Please note: This function will only prepare a .itmsp package and fill it with all

audio files and metadata that is available in this project. This will not be the final package that you can upload! You can load this package into "iTunes Producer". There you will have to add some more information like product territories and pricing. As Apple only allows dedicated genre entries, you will also need to edit all Genre entries there, before you can upload the final package. It is highly recommended not to export this package again if it has already been edited in the Apple software, as all additional info would be overwritten again!

Save Tracklist (PQ-Sheet) as PDF File Here you can save the Tracklist (PQ-Sheet) PDF document that is also saved with each DDP image. The document is automatically opened in your default PDF viewer.

Playback Volume Control The volume control is only used for playback. The volume on the CD will not be modified here.

The Toolbar The toolbar at the top contains some frequently needed functions:

Undo/Redo With the buttons and you can undo and redo any editing step. This is also possible from the Edit menu and using the shortcuts Ctrl/Cmd* + z, Ctrl/Cmd* + y or Ctrl/Cmd* + Shift+ z.

Mode: Insert/Slide This button will toggle the editing mode for the audio editor (see chapter Audio Editor Mode). By holding the Alt key the mode can also be switched temporarily. In "Slide" mode the additional "Snap" button is revealed in the toolbar.

Default Pause The default pause defined in the Global Settings can also be adjusted here for convenience.

Project Path The path where the project is stored on your system is shown here. If the space is not sufficient, only the project file name is displayed.

Vinyl The "Show Vinyl Markers" from the Project Settings can also be switched on/off here for convenience.

Project Sample Rate The sample rate of the project defined in the Project Settings can also be adjusted here for convenience. When changing the sample rate, all audio files will be converted. At this point, the PRO version also allows importing an appropriate set of files that have already been converted to the

* Ctrl on Windows / Cmd on macOS

other sample rate using an external tool. Furthermore, the files of all sample rates used so far remain stored in the project. This allows switching the sample rate back and forth without any further conversions.

? The "?" button opens a menu identical to the Help menu.

Render Cache During all exports (CD, DDP or audio files), the audio signal needs to be mixed from the single files and processed by the plugins and converted to a different sample rate if necessary. Especially when using a lot of plugins, this can take a while. Because of that, the PRO version allows storing the final audio signal of a project into a so-called “Render Cache”, which is a 32 bit float audio file of the complete mixdown. Mixing and plugin processing only need to be performed once in this case and all further exports can be done using that Render Cache. In the global settings you can define if a Render Cache should be created before exporting anything. You can constrain this to projects that are using plugins or sample rates higher than 44100 Hz. If this function is activated, a Render Cache will automatically be created when anything is exported from a project for the first time. You can also do that manually from the menu entry “File→ Export → Create Render Cache”.

As soon as a Render Cache is available, no further modification of the audio material is possible, while marker positions and metadata still can be edited. All plugins and automation which have already been applied to the Render Cache are hidden. Furthermore, instead of the clips in the audio editor tracks only one single waveform is displayed that represents the content of the Render Cache.

All clip and plugin adjustment that are not visible now are still available in the project. Pressing the “Discard Render Cache” button at the bottom or the corresponding menu entry, you can switch back to normal editing any time, deleting the Render Cache file. This is still possible even after saving and reopening the project later. While creating the Render Cache, some measurements are automatically performed for the mixdown signal. You can see the results on the Render Cache Info box at the right.

Besides saving time when performing multiple exports, the Render Cache facilitates two more options:

External Sample Rate Conversion The render cache is always created using the project sample rate in the first step. When exporting to different sample rates, an appropriate conversion of the Render Cache file is performed first. If there are already converted Render Cache files for different sample rates available, you can switch the display of these in the Render Cache Info box. When switching to a rate that was not used so far, a Render Cache file is created for that one as well. If you prefer using an external tool for performing sample rate conversions, you should activate the option “Allow Using External Sample Rate Conversion” in the Global Settings. Then, instead of performing the sample rate conversion automatically, there will be a dialog that shows the path where the Render Cache file is located. Then you can convert that file using the application of your choice and import the result to CD-Burn.DDP.Master again in the same dialog.

Peak- and True Peak Normalizing As the peak and true peak values of the project have already been determined when creating the Render Cache, they can also be used to normalize the final signal during export. You can enable that normalization at the bottom of the Render Cache Info box, adjust the desired destination level and select if normalization should be related to the Peak or the True Peak. The defaults for these values can be found in the Global Settings.

Multi CD Projects The legend says that the maximum playing time of the CD-A was once defined by the duration of Beethoven‘s 9th symphony. We don't know if this is true, but what‘s for sure is that this time often is too short. In most cases live concert albums or audio books have to be delivered on two or even more CDs. CD- Burn.DDP.Master allows spreading such projects of multiple CDs easily. You even do not have to plan in advance, how many CDs you will need and which tracks will go to which CD. If the maximum length of a CD is exceeded when importing new tracks, you will be asked if you want to additional CDs to your project. You have the choice to start a new CD after the end of the current project or to fill up that CD as far as possible and then put the remaining tracks to add to the next CD. As soon as a project consists of multiple CDs, you will see the number in the toolbar. The length of the time bar in the audio editor will change accordingly. In the track list, CD changes are shown as blue CD-End lines. Furthermore the table will contain some additional columns (see chapter The Track List). By moving the blue rows in the list, you can move a CD change to some other tracks, as long as one of the affected CDs would not become too long. By moving the last CD-End marker upwards, you can manually add additional CDs to your project and convert a Single-CD project to a Multi-CD project. In the audio editor, the distribution of the tracks to the CDs is shown by blue and gray bars above the track marker tags. By moving the borders between these bars you can also modify the CD change positions here. If two CD changes fall together, the CDs are merged. A context menu that opens on a right-click into this area also allows adding and merging CDs. Please note: If a pregap is defined between the last track of a CD and the first track of the following CD, this area is marked in red in the audio editor as it will neither be part of the first nor the second CD! If you move the CD change to a different position, this area will become a normal track pregap again.

Vinyl Markers If you are planning to release your project as a vinyl record, your pressing plant will normally require one audio file per record side and some information about the times where new titles begin inside these audio files. CD- Burn.DDP.Master can generate these audio files and an appropriate PDF document if you have defined the distribution of tracks onto the record sides using vinyl markers. To do so, activate "Show Vinyl Markers" in the Project Settings or switch on the Vinyl button in the toolbar. The current tracks are then distributed to the required number of sides in a way that the "Maximum Length of Vinyl Sides" defined in the Display Settings is not exceeded per side. Vinyl markers are shown as gray rows in the track list and as gray and blue bars below the time line in the audio editor. In both places you can move them as required. A context menu that opens on a right-click into this area allows adding and merging sides. If a side becomes longer than the "Maximum Length of Vinyl Sides" defined in the Display Settings, the markers are shown in red as a warning. You should talk to your pressing plant about the maximum length they can provide. After selecting Export->Save All Vinyl Sides as Audio Files you will first have to choose the file format that is required by your pressing plant. For quality reasons you should always use a lossless format (Wave, Aiff or FLAC) and the original project sample rate here. After that select a destination folder where the audio files and the PDF document should be stored. When writing Wave files, the track start positions will also be embedded to the files as markers.

Multisession CD Multisession CDs are a combination of a CD-A and a CD-ROM on a single disc. The two parts are written successively as two so called sessions where the first session is the CD-A and the second session the CD-ROM part. A normal CD player will only be able to play back the CD-A and ignores the CD-Rom part. On a computer, both parts can be used. The CD-ROM part can be added to your project as an ISO image. This should be your very last editing step, as it will not be possible anymore to modify any CD tracks as soon as the project contains a CD-ROM part. (Only ISRC, UPC/EAN and CD-Text can still be edited)! Please note that the memory space on the CD is limited. The longer the playing time of your CD-A, the less memory space will be left for the CD-ROM part. In the Multisession submenu of the File menu you will find the following functions: – Create ISO File for Multisession CD : If you have not yet created an ISO image for your CD-ROM part, you can do that here. Just select a folder that contains the file structure that should be put to your CD-ROM part. The name of that folder (limited to 15 characters) is used as the volume name of the CD-ROM. After that you can choose the destination for your ISO image file. If you like, you can directly import that image into your project. – Import ISO File for Multisession CD : If you have already created an ISO image for your CD-ROM part, you can import that to your project here. – Export ISO File for Multisession CD : This will create a new ISO image file from the CD-ROM part of your project. – Remove ISO File from Multisession CD : This will remove the CD-ROM part from your project and makes it a normal CD-A again. It is not possible to create Multisession CDs inside a Multi CD Project.

Project Folder Option If Use Project Folder is enabled in the Global Settings, all audio files used in a project are automatically copied to the project folder. This folder will have the name of the project extended by "_hofacd_files". Using this option makes it easier to move complete projects to different locations. Please note that when using the project folder, the project will always reference to the files in the project folder. Changes applied to the originally imported files will have no influence on the project.

Menus

File Here you can find the standard functions to create, open and save projects or save a project backup that contains all audio files used.

Import – Import CD-A : After selecting a CD drive and a destination folder, you can directly create a DDP image from a CD-A here. When the option Create subfolder using date and time is activated, the DDP image will be stored in an appropriate subfolder inside the selected destination folder. After it is finished, the DDP image is opened in a new project tab. – Import DDP Image : An existing DDP image folder can be selected here. It will then be validated and opened in a new project tab. – Import .cue File : An existing .cue playlist will be validated and opened in a new project tab. – Import Audio Files : The selected audio files are added to the end of the current project. – Import Cover Picture : Import the image described in chapter Cover Picture. – Remove Cover Picture : Remove the image described in chapter Cover Picture.

Export These menu entries are described in chapters Burn CD, Write DDP and Export. The PRO version offers three additional entries: – Save Table as CSV File : This will save the whole track list table to a CSV file. – Create Render Cache : Creates a Mixdown as Render Cache (see Chapter Render Cache for details) – Discard Render Cache : Deletes the Render Cache and all audio files it consists of (see Chapter Render Cache for details)

Multisession Please refer to chapter Multisession CD.

Edit Besides several self-explaining standard functions, you will find the following entries here:

Normalize Selected Clips Normalization is always done using the unmodified original audio clips. Plugins used in the project are not considered here. The levels of the selected clips are adjusted in a way that the given maximum peak level is reached. As the clip levels might already have been modified manually before, there are several options: – Normalize selected clips related to current clip levels : The peak level is determined taking into account the current clip levels. So the current relation between the clips will be preserved. – Normalize selected clips related to the original levels of input files : The current clip levels are first reset to 0 dB before the peak levels are determined. This way the relations of the original files will be preserved. – Normalize each clip separately : Each clip is normalized to the peak level without considering the other clips.

Find Peaks in Mix This function will analyze the mixed output signal (including all plugins) to find the 10 loudest spots in the project. These are then shown in a popup window. A click into that list will set the playback position to that point. This makes it easy to find all parts which might be critical e.g. when adjusting a limiter. The Pro version determines the Peak as well as the True Peak values in this step. Because these may occur at different time positions, there are two lists that you can switch.

Run Pause Detection With this function, all CD track markers will be deleted first. After that, the audio is being analyzed and a new track list is generated. This function will look for silence, so here the clip boundaries do not matter. First a dialog asks for some criteria that define what a pause must look like. A pause with silence is considered to be a range where the output signal is below the selected Threshold Level for a longer time than the Minimum Pause Length. Especially when working with voice recordings, this definition could create far too many pauses in your project. To avoid this, there are two more restricting

criteria: – Ignore Pauses when Resulting Tracks will be Shorter Than : Here you can define a minimum length that a track should have before the next detected pause is used to add a track change to the project. You can use this for example to split audio books into tracks that have more or less the same length. – Do Not Ignore Pauses that are Longer Than : At the beginning of a new chapter a speaker will normally take a longer pause than between two sentences. Here you can define a pause length that will always lead to a new track, even if the previous track becomes shorter than the time defined above. If a pause with silence is found that meets the given criteria, a track end and a track start marker will be inserted into the track list. The markers will have the distances defined in the Global Settings from the beginning and end of the pause. If you do not want pregap markers to be added, you can switch that off. If Keep CD-Text information, ISRC and UPC/EAN codes is checked, the available information is inserted in the new list again. As the number of tracks may change during pause detection, you should check if all titles are still correctly associated. If necessary, you can use the buttons to correct this again. If you do not like the result of the automatic pause detection, you should run it again using different settings, especially a different threshold level. A higher threshold normally leads to a higher number of tracks, as also louder parts will be interpreted as pauses.

Settings These menu entries will directly open the corresponding pages in the settings dialog.

Global Settings – Restore Project Tabs on Application Start : If this is enabled, all recent project tabs are opened again when starting the application. Otherwise it will always start with a new empty project. – Default Pause : This is the minimum distance between clips when importing or moving them. – Marker Distances : Here you define the distances that the created markers should have from the beginning and the end of the imported

clips. When using the Pause Detection feature, these are the distances that should occur between the markers and the start or end of silence found. The reason for this feature is the fact that some CD players, especially older ones, may be too slow to unmute the output when audio starts immediately at the marker position. To avoid that problem, the markers can be placed a little bit beyond the start or the end of the audio signal. Modifying these values will only affect future editing steps. It will not change anything in the current project. These distances are not mandatory. If you do not want to use them, you can set these values to 0. – Render Cache : These settings are only available in the PRO version. Please see chapter Render Cache for further details. – Use Project Folder : If this is activated, all audio files used in a project are automatically copied to the project folder. For details, see chapter Project Folder Option. – Shortkeys : Some keyboard shortcuts can be defined here to meet your preferences.

Display Settings – Language : English or German. – Time Display : You can choose between CD frames (marked by an "f" in the end) or milliseconds. As CD marker positions are always set to frames (1/75 second), the display in milliseconds may have rounding errors. – Maximum Length of Vinyl Sides : See chapter Vinyl Markers. – Meter : The settings for the meter and correlation displays: – Peak : Show true peak display. – Hold : Show peak hold. This is only visible if the peak display is shown. – EBU : Show loudness meter. – LRA : Show Loudness Range. This is only visible if loudness is shown. – Detect True Peaks (Indersample Peaks) : Switch on/off the use of intersample peaks for the measurement. For details see section True P eaks . – EBU Mode : EBU mode setting. A more detailed description is available

in the EBU R 128 section. – EBU Scale : Toggle EBU scale; selectable between relative (LU) and absolute (LUFS) and two different scalings. – Run Int. EBU & LRA : Enables EBU and LRA measurement. – Show Goniometer/Correlation : Toggle between Goniometer or Correlator display. – Gonio Peak : Toggle Goniometer peak display. – Gonio Peak Hold : Toggle Goniometer peak hold display. – Gonio Energy : toggle Goniometer energy display.

Project Settings All project settings are only valid for the project currently selected in the project tabs. Other opened projects will not be modified. – Sample Rate (Hz) : This is the sample rate that is used for internal audio processing. All audio files used in the project must have this sample rate. Press the button "Save as Default" if you want to use the sample rate of the current project as default for all new projects. "Reset to Default" sets the rate of the current project to that default value. – Show Vinyl Markers : Please refer to chapter Vinyl Markers for details. – Maximum CD Time : The standard maximum playing time for a CD is 79:48 which most pressing plants will accept. Longer CDs are beyond the restrictions of the red book standard. With CD-Burn.DDP.Master it is also possible to edit a project with up to 99 minutes. You can create a DDP or write a CD from that project (using special high capacity blank CDs). But this happens on your own risk! It is very likely that the CD will not work on all CD players. Please ask your pressing plant for the maximum supported length. – CD-Text Language : CD-Text entries can be stored using different character encodings: ISO8859 for Latin characters or Shift-JIS for Japanese. See chapter Special C haracters in CD-Text for details. Press the button "Save as Default" if you want to use the encoding of the current project as default for all new projects. "Reset to Default" sets the encoding of the current project to that default value. – Allow "Hidden Track” : In this mode, the pregap before track 1 becomes visible. The track 1 start position can now be moved freely to create a

"Hidden Track" in that pregap. See chapter Hidden Track for details. – Dither : These settings are explained in chapter Dither.

Metadata Settings In this table, you can see all metadata entries that are available. You can activate and deactivate the entries used for the current project here. The table also lets you know in which export formats a tag is defined and what technical name it has in that format. The standard version of CD-Burn.DDP.Master only allows using tags that are defined in the CD-Text standard. The PRO version includes more tags for other export formats beyond that. Press the button "Save as Default" if you want to use the selected tags of the current project as default for all new projects. "Reset to Default" activates the default tags in the current project.

Import Settings – Create New Audio Editor Track for Each File : – Show Sorting Dialog When Importing Multiple Audio Files : In the PRO version, the desired track order can be edited while importing multiple audio files. – Use Filenames for Track Titles : When importing an audio file, the file name can be used as track title. You can choose to do some typical modifications like removing leading numbers and underscores or let all words begin with upper case letters. Characters that are not allowed to be used in CD-Text will be removed without warning (for details see chapter Special characters in CD-Text). The PRO version reads the titles from the metadata inside the files as far as possible. If there is no title available in the file, it will use the file name according to the options described above. – Create CD Tracks from Markers in Audio Files : When importing audio files that contain markers, these markers can be used to add track start markers at the given positions and use marker names as track names. You can choose here if markers should always be used or if you want to be asked each time. Important notice for users of Apple Logic: When bouncing a mixdown from Logic, the tempo information is always written to markers

in the audio file. Importing such files to CD-Burn.DDP.Master will result in titles like "Tempo: 120.0". It is recommended to either switch off the creation of tempo markers in Logic or to deactivate reading markers here. – Import Mono Files : When importing mono audio files, there are some options that are further described in chapter Audio file import and formats.

Plugins Settings The standard version of CD-Burn.DDP.Master allows using all HOFA plugins installed on your computer as VST3 plugins in the Track Plugins and Master Plugins sections. Further settings are not necessary here. The PRO version additionally allows using 3rd party plugins in VST3 or AU format. – Plugin Selection : Here you can choose the sorting order for the selection menus in the Track Plugins and Master Plugins sections. – Installed Plugins / Deactivated Plugins : The upper list shows all plugins that are currently available. If you want plugins not to show up in the selection menus, you can move it to the Deactivated list by drag and drop. For activation, just move it to the upper list again. Additionally, the Deactivated list contains all plugins that were automatically deactivated due to a problem. Please note that pure mono plugins will not show up here, as they can not be used in CD-Burn.DDP.Master. – Rescan Plugins : On each start, CD-Burn.DDP.Master checks if there are new plugins installed and adds them automatically. If you should miss any plugins that are installed, you should first check if they are really installed in VST or AU format! If they are still missing, you can delete the current plugin list here to force a complete new rescan during the next start.

DDP Export Settings – File Name for PDF CD Tracklist/PQ-Sheet : Here, you can select a file name for the PDF document that is always generated together with the DDP image. – Header Logo for PDF CD Tracklist/PQ-Sheet : A picture imported here (e.g. the logo of your company) will occur in the selected height at the top of all PDF documents created.

– Custom Info Text for PDF CD Tracklist/PQ-Sheet : You can put a text here that will be added to the header lines of of all PDF documents created. For example this could be some additional info about the project, your studio or the persons involved. – File Name for MD5 File : When creating the DDP image, an MD5 checksum file is created. You can select here which filename this file should have if you require a certain name for it.

Track Export Settings – Audio File Format : The possible formats are: Wave, Aiff, FLAC, Ogg- Vorbis and LAME MP3. – Sample Rate : The sample rate to be used for the exported file. To achieve best quality, this should be set to the project sample rate. – Quality : For the compressed formats FLAC, Ogg-Vorbis and MP3, different quality choices are available. Higher quality always has the disadvantage of a bigger file size. – Bit Depth : The resolution of the exported file (16, 24 or 32 bit). – Include Pregap of Track in Audio File : If this is selected, the pregap of the track (if existing) is included in the audio file. – Include Pregap of Following Track in Audio File : If this is selected, the pregap of the following track (if existing) is included in the end of the audio file. This can be useful e.g. for live recordings where the applause is put to the pregap of the following track. – Write Metadata to RIFF INFO Chunk in Wave Files : When creating Wave files, the metadata available for this format can be integrated in the RIFF INFO field of the file. – Write ISRC to BWAV aXML Chunk in Wave File s : The ISRC can be written to the aXML extension of the broadcast wave format. – Write Metadata to ID3 tags : When creating Wave or MP3 files, the metadata available for the format can be integrated in the file as ID3 tags. In the PRO version this also applies to Aiff and FLAC files. – Write Metadata to Vorbis Comments : This option is only available in the PRO version. – Include Cover Picture in ID3 tags : If a cover picture was added to this project, it can be included in the ID3 tags. As the file size may become much larger, depending on the size of the picture, this can be switched off separately.

– Use xxx for File Names : If CD-Text information is available, it can be used to create the file names. – Format for Filenames : In the PRO version you can use all metadata in a custom order to create the file names.

Drag an entry from the right list to the desired position in the left list. For numerical entries, you can choose the minimum number of digits that should be used. Additionally, you can insert separators. Each separator can be edited by a double click. The trash symbol removes an entry. As an example, you can see the file name that would result for the first track in the project. – Create Subfolder from Project Name : When saving all tracks as single files, they can be written to a subfolder named by the project name. – Show this window every time when saving a track : If this is selected, this settings window is opened each time you want to save a track.

Audio Playback Settings In this dialog you can choose the audio device used for playback and its settings. Furthermore you can define the times used for track transition playback (see chapter Playback Control). In the PRO version you will also find the times that define the automatic range for Cycle Playback here.

Help – Show Tooltips : If the tooltips should bother you, you can disable them here. – Open Manual : Open this manual. – Check for Updates : The application will check online, if an update is available. For installation of an update, you will have to use HOFA- Plugins Manager.

Keyboard Shortcuts Some functions can also be used with the computer keyboard: Key Function Enter Start playback

0 in number pad Stop playback

Space Start/Stop playback

Shift + "Stop" Set position pointer to the position where playback has been started the last time Ctrl/Cmd* + z Undo Ctrl/Cmd* + y Redo Ctrl/Cmd* + Shift + z Redo t** Add Track Start marker e** Add/move Track End marker i** Add Index marker 1..9 Jump to start of track 1..9 Ctrl/Cmd* + n Create new project Ctrl/Cmd* + o Open project Ctrl/Cmd* + s Save project Ctrl/Cmd* + Shift + s Save project as

* Ctrl on Windows / Cmd on macOS ** Can be modified in Global Settings

Key Function Ctrl/Cmd* + a Select all clips Ctrl/Cmd* + q Quit application Arrow left/right Clips selected: Move clips and all associated markers No clips selected: Jump to next/previous marker Shift + Arrow Clips selected: Move clips left/right Markers remain unchanged No clips selected: Jump to next/previous marker Arrow up/down Clips selected: Move clips to upper/lower editor track No clips selected: Jump to next/previous marker Delete/Backspace Delete selected clips and all related markers Shift + Delete Delete selected clips only Markers remain unchanged Ctrl/Cmd* + Delete Delete selected clips and related markers and close the gaps ,** Open/close track plugin panel .** Open/close master plugin panel g** Zoom + h** Zoom - +/- Change level of selected clips in steps of +/- 0.5 dB m Mute/unmute selected clips

* Ctrl on Windows / Cmd on macOS ** Can be modified in Global Settings

Interesting facts

Red Book Audio CD The CD-A is specified in the so called red book. HOFA CD-Burn.DDP.Master will only create CDs and DDPs that meet the requirements of this standard. A CD-A can contain max. 79 minutes and 48 seconds* of audio which can be separated into up to 99 tracks. The minimum length of a track is 4 seconds. In most cases there are silent pauses between the tracks. It is also possible to have a track change without a pause. The pause between two tracks is called pregap. It can contain absolute silence, but it can also be filled with audio. A CD player normally displays a negative time during the pregap which runs down to zero. Furthermore there are subindex markers which can be used to mark a certain position inside the track. These markers are not supported by all CD players. In most cases they can only be displayed but it is not possible to jump to a subindex directly. Pregaps as well as subindex markers are optional and do not have to be used on a CD. Audio data is always stored with a sample rate of 44,1 kHz with 16 bit. On the CD they are grouped in blocks of 588 samples, so-called frames. One frame is equal to a playing time of 1/75 second. The markers for track start, track end and subindex are always related to a frame. So the minimum distance between two markers is 1 frame = 1/75 second. HOFA CD-Burn.DDP.Master always checks all the distances required by the red book while editing. With CD-Burn.DDP.Master it is also possible to create CDs up to 99 minutes. To write these, special high capacity blank CDs are necessary and your CD writer has to support this feature. Please ask your pressing plant which maximum length is supported. Generally it can not be guaranteed that CDs with these lengths can be played back with every CD player.

* In fact the red book does not define a maximum playing time but a track distance with tolerances. The first CDs had a maximum playing time of 74 minutes. Meanwhile the production tolerances could be reduced, so that longer times became possible. Most CD pressing plants allow a playing time of up to 79:48. CDs of 90 or even 99 minutes are beyond the restrictions of the red book standard.

DDP DDP* (Disc Description Protocol) is a format that describes the content of a CD. It is frequently used to transfer the content of an Audio CD e. g. from the mastering studio to the CD pressing plant. By using a DDP image you can avoid the use of CD-Rs and the CD writer as a possible source of errors. Furthermore you can transfer the final CD via the internet. The DDP image is not a single file but a folder. All files inside this folder belong to the DDP image and always have to be used in this combination. A typical DDP image folder consists of the following files: DDPID Contains information about the format of the DDP image.

DDPMS Contains information on which files belong to this DDP image.

PQDESCR** Contains information about the tracks, UPC/EAN and ISRC.

IMAGE.DAT** Contains audio data, so this file can be pretty large, may be split up into multiple files.

CDTEXT.BIN** Optional, contains all CD-Text information.

Furthermore HOFA CD-Burn.DDP.Master will create two additional files: MD5_CHECKSUM.MD5*** A text file containing MD5 checksums, which can be used to check if the files in the DDP image have not been modified.

PQ-Sheet.pdf*** A PDF document containing the track list (PQ-Sheet) of the CD.

HOFA CD-Burn.DDP.Master will always create DDP images in DDP 2.00 format. DDP images in DDP 2.00 or DDP 1.xx format can be imported.

* DDP a registered trademark of DCA Inc. ** These are the file names that are used by CD-Burn.DDP.Master. DDP images that were created by different applications could use different names here as the file names are not defined in the DDP standard. ***These file names can be modified in the DDP-Exort settings.

ISRC The ISRC (International Standard Recording Code) is an identifier that is unique for a track on a CD. When the track is played on the radio, this code can be used for managing license fees. Normally this code is available on all commercial CDs. The ISRC consists of two letters followed by a 10 digit number. The single parts are: – Country code (2 letters), e. g. DE for Germany (Deutschland) – Registrant code (3 digits) – Year (2 digits) – Designation code (5 digits) The ISRC-Code is always provided by a registrant. It always belongs to a certain recording of a song. If a song is re-released, e. g. on a best-of compilation, it will keep its ISRC. For a remix you will need to get a new code. For further information have a look at http://www.ifpi.org/content/section_resources/isrc.html

UPC/EAN The UPC (Universal Product Code) or the EAN (European Article Number) used in Europe are the numbers under the bar code that you can find on the package of any product. For automatic identification, this number can also be stored within the CD data. This code is also provided by a registrant. It is a number with 12 (UPC) or 13 (EAN) digits. When entering a 12 digit UPC, a leading zero will automatically be added to make it a 13 digit number as this is mandatory for CDs and DDP images. As this code is only valid for the whole album as a product, it is only used when creating CDs or DDP images. It is not available for track export to single audio files!

CD-Text CD-Text is an extension to the red book standard which is supported by several CD players. When playing a CD in your computer, you should be aware that not every software player will show CD-Text information. Often the title information is downloaded from the internet and can differ from the information that is stored on the CD itself. Windows Media Player* as well as Apple iTunes** do not show any CD-Text information! But there are freely available extensions and other players that make this possible. For example: For Windows: – VLC Media Player https://www.videolan.org/vlc/ – Winamp http://www.winamp.com/ – Extension for Windows Media Player http://bmproductions.fixnum.org/moreprogs/wmpcdtext.htm For macOS: – Extension for iTunes https://dougscripts.com/itunes/scripts/ss.php?sp=cdtexttocdinfo – drutil If you like it cryptic, type drutil cdtext in the terminal window. This will list up all CD-Text information contained on the CD in plist format.

CD-Text can store the following information for the complete album and for each track: – Title – Artist/Performer – Songwriter – Composer – Arranger – Additional message You can also specify a genre for the complete album.

* Windows Media Player is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the U.S. and other countries. ** iTunes is a trademark of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries.

Special Characters in CD-Text The CD-Text standard defined by Sony uses the ISO 8859-1 character encoding which includes the most common characters used in western European languages. Unfortunately not all languages are covered completely. Especially some characters used in eastern European languages like Polish or Turkish are missing. CD-Burn.DDP.Master only lets you enter characters that can really be used for CD-Text. Generally you should be aware that titles stored in CD-Text will often be displayed on CD-Players or car stereos that have only very limited displays. Many of these devices will not show any special characters at all. So you could think about avoiding special characters all and replace for example a German "ä" by its equivalent "ae". Alternatively the CD-Text standard also allows for Japanese which is stored using the so called Shift-JIS character encoding. This encoding does not include the European special characters, so a mixture of both is not possible. To enter Japanese CD-Text in CD-Burn.DDP.Master, you need to switch "CD-Text Language" to "Japanese (Shift-JIS)" in the Project-Settings. As mentioned before, not all CD-Players that support CD-Text will be able to display Japanese.

Hidden Track The red book standard requires a 2 seconds pregap before track 1 which normally contains silence. This pregap may also be longer and can contain audio material. A CD player always starts playback at the beginning of track 1. The pregap can only be reached when rewinding before this point. So this area can be used to hide a so called "Hidden Track". When activating "Allow Hidden Track" in the project settings, the pregap before track 1 becomes visible. The track 1 start position can now be freely moved to create a "Hidden Track" in that pregap. Please ask your pressing plant if they support this feature and if your CD or DDP image can be correctly processed! Please also note that some CD players will not be able to play back this "Hidden Track". Problems that may occur frequently are: – Rewinding is not possible – Rewinding is possible, but the output is muted – The very first 2 seconds can not be reached by rewinding – When rewinding to the very beginning, playback is stopped It is recommended to keep about 10 seconds of silence at the beginning to make it easier to rewind to the audible start of your hidden track.

Dither In digital audio processing there is always a difference to the original analog signal as each sample has to be rounded to a finite precision. In case of 16 bit used on a CD-A this is a precision of 65536 steps. During recording and mixing higher rates of 24 or 32 bits are frequently used to minimize the rounding error, that occurs with each editing step. Anyway the final result must be converted to 16 bit for the CD-A premaster. The rounding errors of this step can cause audible distortions in the signal especially in quiet parts. Dithering is used to reduce this problem. Before rounding to 16 bit, a minimal noise is added to the signal. This will modify the statistic distribution of the rounding error in a way that it sounds more as noise than distortion. This noise also is a disturbance, but it is perceived as less uncomfortable. A possibility to further reduce the influence of the added noise is the so-called noise shaping. The noise signal is filtered to put most of its spectrum to frequencies that are less perceived by the human ear. Generally for the use of dithering it is important to do it only one time at the very end of the signal chain. Any editing step after dithering will negate the effect and another dithering will increase the added noise level. HOFA CD-Burn.DDP.Master (App) will provide dithering which is added at the very end during playback, while burning the CD or exporting the DDP image or audio files. In the Global Settings, you find the following options for dither: – Dither E nabled : Switches dithering on and off. – No Dither When Signal Already Truncated : If the input signal is already truncated to the required bit depth and there is no further processing like fades or plugins, no dither noise will be added. – No dither during silence : If this is activated, the dither will not be used where the signal is absolute silence. Besides using the integrated Dither algorithm, the PRO version also allows using appropriate plugins for dithering. It would not be correct to add a dither plugin to the last slot in the Master Plugins section, as a sample rate conversion could follow as a further processing step. Because of that a dedicated plugin slot for dithering can be found in the Project Settings. In dithering plugins you will always need to adjust the desired bit depth. In order to avoid that this adjustment can be forgotten when exporting to different bit depths, this plugins slot exists twice: One for 16 bit and one for 24 bit. So you can load the same plugin into both slots and adjust one to 16 and the other to 24 bit. Then the correct one will be selected automatically when exporting. You can also save these settings as a default for new projects here.

True Peaks (Intersample Peaks) In the digital domain signals are represented by samples taken at discrete time intervals. This can lead to a signal that exceeds the digitally available magnitude range when converted to an analog signal while the digital signal still lies inside the range. The following figure demonstrates this:

While the (green) digital signal lies in between ±1 the (blue) analog signal exceeds this range. This wouldn't be a problem if the analog signal had enough headroom. Unfortunately, most DA converters run on low supply voltages and therefore lack the needed headroom. Therefore a signal might clip even if a sample peak meter doesn't show this. Intersample peak meters also measure between samples and thus show clippings that only might occur in the analog domain.

EBU R 128 EBU R 128 is an EBU (European Broadcasting Union) standard defining guide values for loudness in broadcasting. The origin of this standard lies in the increasing loudness in broadcasting and the dynamic variations resulting from that (e.g. adds are often louder than regular program). To counteract this loudness normalization was introduced, aside with a referenced target level. With EBU R 128 an open standard for loudness measurement was created. Also new units LU and LUFS (Loudness Unit / Full Scale) were introduced. One LU is basically the same as one dB but describes a loudness measured according to EBU R 128. While LU is a relative level, LUFS is an absolute level, the relationship being 0 LU = -23 LUFS.

To evaluate a loudness three different ballistics are introduced. These are the momentary loudness, the short-term loudness and the integrated loudness. The first and second ballistic show the actual loudness with the second reacting slower. The last one measures the loudness over a longer time period, resulting in a loudness for that whole time. This measurement is gated so silent parts don't influence the measurement. Also this loudness is used for a loudness normalization according to EBU R 128. To judge the program dynamic EBU R 128 defines the loudness range (LRA). The loudness range quantifies the variations of loudness in time, e.g. the proportion between louder parts and quieter parts. EBU R 128 claims a program loudness of -23 LUFS (= 0 LU). On the other hand the loudness of most music is about -10 LUFS, ranging up to –5 LUFS. So one might ask why an EBU meter should be used for music. The answer is simple: While a loudness reference of -23 LUFS isn't very suitable for music, having a standardized tool for loudness measurement certainly is. Due to the open standard loudness is comparable between different measurement tools. The loudness range can help judging the loudness across several music titles (premastering) or on long tracks. Especially on premastered music the value might not be very meaningful.

Libraries To create MP3 files, CD-Burn.DDP.Master uses the LAME library under LGPL license. For further details about LAME, please have a look at: http://lame.sourceforge.net/

For processing metadata, CD-Burn.DDP.Master uses the TagLib Library under LGPL license. https://taglib.org/

Contact

HOFA GmbH

Lusshardtstraße 1-3

D-76689 Karlsdorf

E-Mail: [email protected]

Phone: 0049 7251 3472 444 hofa-plugins.de/en/

DDP® is a registered trademark of Doug Carson & Associates, Inc. (DCA, Inc and protected by U.S. Copyright, 2004.) Disc Description Protocol and the DDP Logo are trademarks of DCA, Inc. Copyright© DCA, Inc. 2004. All Rights Reserved. VST is a registered trademark of Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH. iTunes is a trademark of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. Windows Media Player is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the U.S. and other countries.