User Manual HOFA CD-Burn.DDP.Master (Plugin) V2.0.0

Content Introduction ...... 3 Installation ...... 4 Activation ...... 4 Limitations of the evaluation version ...... 4 Note for Windows XP and Vista users ...... 4 Quick Start ...... 5 Step by step ...... 6 The Track List ...... 9 Copy time of selected marker to clipboard ...... 12 The Control Panel ...... 13 Marker Edit Buttons ...... 13 Cover Picture ...... 13 Time Display ...... 14 Burn CD ...... 15 Write DDP ...... 16 Export ...... 17 Save All Tracks as Audio Files ...... 17 Save All Tracks as One Audio File ...... 17 Save All Vinyl Sides as Audio Files ...... 17 Prepare itmsp Package (for Apple iTunes Store) ...... 17 Export Tracklist (PQ-Sheet) as PDF ...... 18 The Audio View ...... 18 The Toolbar ...... 19 Undo/Redo ...... 19 File ...... 19 Create New Project ...... 19 Import ...... 19 Export ...... 19 Multisession ...... 20 Exchange Mixdown Audio File ...... 20 Settings ...... 20 Global Settings ...... 20 Display Settings ...... 21 Project Settings ...... 21 DDP Export Settings ...... 21 Track Export Settings ...... 22 Pause Detection ...... 23 Path of Mixdown Audio File ...... 23 Vinyl ...... 24 Project Sample Rate ...... 24 ? ...... 24 Multi CD Projects ...... 25 Vinyl Markers ...... 25 Multisession CD ...... 26 Interesting facts ...... 28 Red Book Audio CD ...... 28

DDP ...... 29 ISRC ...... 30 UPC/EAN ...... 30 CD-Text ...... 31 Special characters in CD-Text ...... 32 Hidden Track ...... 33 LAME MP3 ...... 33 Dither ...... 34 Contact ...... 35

Introduction HOFA CD-Burn.DDP.Master is a software for the easy creation of an Audio-CD premaster 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: the App which allows graphical editing of your audio material and the plugin version that you can use to create a CD premaster directly in your preferred DAW. This is the manual for the plugin version.

Installation To install CD-Burn.DDP.Master (Plugin) 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 (Plugin)". Furthermore you need to select the plugin formats that you would like to use at the bottom of the window. The plugin is available in VST, VST3, AU (macOS only) and Pro Tools (RTAS / AAX) format. 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.

Limitations of the 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 (Plugin) is compatible with your CD writer. As a limitation the creation of DDP images is not possible during the demo period.

Note for Windows XP and Vista users To burn CDs with HOFA DDP Player Maker on Windows XP or Vista, you may need a Microsoft update which is not installed automatically by Windows. This "Windows Feature Pack for Storage" can be downloaded here: https://www.microsoft.com/de-de/download/details.aspx?id=19622 Generally we do not recommend using Windows XP or Vista anymore as the support by Microsoft has been terminated a long time ago.

Quick Start For anyone who does not like to read manuals, here is a quick start guide how to create a CD-A premaster with HOFA CD-Burn.DDP.Master – Insert HOFA CD-Burn.DDP.Master as the last plugin in the master channel of your DAW. – Export (bounce) a mixdown of your audio beginning at DAW time position 00:00. – Load the exported file into the plugin. – Let the pause detection of the plugin create track markers automatically. – Check if all markers are at the right place and correct them if necessary. – 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.

Step by step The plugin should always be inserted as the last plugin in the master channel of your DAW. After inserting the plugin you will see the following dialog:

Now it's time to put together the audio material for your CD with all pauses, fadings, effects etc. (if you have not already done so). All sound settings and pauses will occur 1:1 on the CD. The audio now needs to be exported from the DAW so the plugin can use it. Depending on your DAW the appropriate function is called something like "mixdown" or "bounce". Please check the documentation of your DAW.

VERY IMPORTANT: The export always has to start at DAW time 00:00, because otherwise the time used in the plugin can not be synchronized to the DAW anymore! It is recommended to use the sample rate of your DAW project and a resolution of 24 or 32 bit for your mixdown. If your project is only intended to be used for CD-A or a DDP images and not for other destinations like vinyl records or online distribution, you could also export your mixdown directly in 44.1 kHz, 16 bit format. When using a mono file, the same signal will be used for both channels (left and right) on the CD.

Due to the architecture of plugins, CD-Burn.DDP.Master does not know where the exported file was saved. So you need to select this manually. There are two ways to continue: 1) Click the "Open Mixdown or Project" button and select the exported audio file. After that a CD tracklist is generated from the detected pauses in the mixdown. For further details see chapter Pause Detection. If your mixdown file was exported with markers from your DAW, these marker positions can also be used directly as track makers for your CD project. In this case the pause detection will be skipped. 2) If your DAW is able to create .cue files from the markers you already have defined, you can also select the .cue file that was generated together with your audio mixdown here. In this case, the pause detection is skipped and the CD track markers are taken from the markers in the .cue file. Alternatively you can also open a .hofacd project file here. This could for example be a project that was created by the App version of CD- Burn.DDP.Master. After the pause detection or the .cue import has finished, the new track list and the waveform of the mixdown will become visible in the main window.

VERY IMPORTANT: From this moment on the plugin will not pass through the audio of the DAW anymore! Instead the exported mixdown will be played back. Further changes in the DAW project will not be hearable and will not be available on the CD.

Note for users of Logic: It is possible that you will need to activate Input-Monitoring in Logic, because otherwise the time display in the plugin may not work correctly.

The Track List

In this example 8 tracks have been created. So in total, the list contains 16 markers. At the bottom of the list you can find the “Album” row that contains 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. In the track list as well as in the control panel there are two different time displays: CD time and Host time (instead of “Host” you will normally see the name of your DAW). These times are not identical due to the fact that the pause detection also looks for silence in the beginning of the mixdown and defines the CD start where the first silence ends. This means that on the CD the silence in the beginning will be removed except for the time which is defined under Marker Distances...Before First Track in the Global Settings.

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.

The track list contains the following columns: – Current position : The orange arrow on the left will show you the current playback position of your DAW. – 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 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. – Host : The time position of the marker related to your DAW. This value can also be edited in the list directly with the restrictions

mentioned above. Instead of "Host" you will normally see the name of your DAW. – Duration : The duration of a track or a pregap. This column is for information only and can not be edited. All entries of the following columns can only be entered in the rows of a track start marker (for that track) and in the "Album” row (for the whole CD). – 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 CD. – ISRC : The ISRC for this track. Pressing the button, an automatic numeration will be done starting with the ISRC of track 1. – Track/Album Title : The CD-Text entry "Title" for this track or for the whole CD. – Track/Album Artist : The CD-Text entry "Artist" ("Performer") for this track or for the whole CD. Pressing the button, the entry for the CD or for track 1 is copied to all tracks. – Track/Album Songwriter : The CD-Text entry "Songwriter" for this track or for the whole CD. Pressing the button, the entry for the CD or for track 1 is copied to all tracks. – Track/Album Composer : The CD-Text entry "Composer" for this track or for the whole CD. Pressing the button, the entry for the CD or for track 1 is copied to all tracks. – Track/Album Arranger : The CD-Text entry "Arranger" for this track or for the whole CD. Pressing the button, the entry for the CD or for track 1 is copied to all tracks. – Track/Album Message : The CD-Text entry "Message" for this track or for the whole CD. Pressing the button, the entry for the CD or for track 1 is copied to all tracks. – Genre : The CD-Text entry "Genre" can be entered in any line. You can only define one genre, which is valid for the whole CD. – 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! In the beginning, all columns are visible. You can activate and deactivate them with a right-click on the list header. Columns that are empty or switched off are not written to the CD/DDP image. The display order of the columns can be adjusted by moving them with the mouse.

Copy time of selected marker to clipboard If this function is activated, the Host time of the selected marker is always copied to the clipboard. This makes it easier to set the current playback position to this position in the DAW. This function is not available for Pro Tools (RTAS/AAX) and Logic (AU), because with these DAWs pasting a time string from the clipboard is not possible.

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

Marker Edit Buttons Using the marker edit buttons at the left you can insert a track start, track end or subindex marker at the current playback position of your DAW. These buttons are also disabled if the red book would not allow this. 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 In the track list as well as in the control panel there are two different time displays: CD time and Host time (instead of “Host” you will normally see the name of your DAW). These times are not identical due to the fact that the pause detection also looks for silence in the beginning of the mixdown and defines the CD start where the first silence ends. This means that on the CD the silence in the beginning will be removed except for the time which is defined under Marker Distances...Before First Track in the Global Settings. The different time displays in the control panel show the current playback position of your DAW. You can click on the CD time 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. Differences between the Host time displayed here (in milliseconds) and in your DAW can occur due to internal rounding to CD frames. 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.

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 One 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!

Export Tracklist (PQ-Sheet) as PDF 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.

The Audio View

In the audio view you can see the waveform of your mixdown audio file. This view allows a better orientation where the track markers are located in relation to the audio material. As an alternative to editing the track marker positions in the list as described above, you can move all markers between their neighbor markers here to any position you like.

The Toolbar The toolbar at the top contains the following functions:

Undo/Redo With the buttons and you can undo and redo any editing step.

File You can find these entries in the File menu:

Create New Project This will delete the current project and start over with a new one.

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. Please note that the current project is deleted in this step! – Import DDP Image : An existing DDP image folder can be selected here. It will then be validated and opened. Please note that the current project is deleted in this step! – Import .cue File : An existing .cue playlist will be validated and opened. Please note that the current project is deleted in this step! – Open Project : You can open a .hofacd project file here. This could for example be a project that was created by the App version of CD- Burn.DDP.Master. – 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.

– Save Project As : Your CD project is always saved together with you DAW project where the plugin was inserted. If you want, you can also save you project as a .hofacd project file here. This allows for example further editing in the App version of CD-Burn.DDP.Master. – Save Project To Backup Folder : The project can also be saved as a backup, where a copy of the mixdown audio file is written together with the .hofacd project file.

Multisession Please refer to chapter Multisession CD.

Exchange Mixdown Audio File If any changes to the audio material are required after you have already created your CD project in CD-Burn.DDP.Master, you will need to export another mixdown from your DAW. If these changes only apply to the sound but not to the sequence of the audio material, you can exchange the mixdown file used by the plugin here. All track markers and metadata will remain unchanged. If there have also been modification in your sequence, all markers will need to be adjusted manually. So in such cases it might be easier to start again with a new CD project.

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

Global Settings – Marker Distances : Here you can define the distances that the created markers should have to the beginning and the end of silence found during Pause Detection. 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. 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. – Dither : See chapter Dither for details. – Default CD-Text Language : New projects are always created using this

CD-Text character set.

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.

Project Settings All project settings are only valid for the current project. – 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 characters in CD-Text for details. – 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.

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. – Bit Depth : The resolution of the exported file (16, 24 or 32 bit). – 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. – 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 CD-Text Information to RIFF INFO Chunk : When creating Wave files, the existing CD-Text information can be integrated in the RIFF INFO field of the file. The CD-Text entry "Arranger" is not used here because the RIFF INFO field does not have this entry. – Write ISRC to Wave File : The ISRC can be written to the aXML extension of the broadcast wave format. – Write CD-Text Information to ID3 tags : When creating Wave or MP3 files, the existing CD-Text information can be integrated in the file as ID3 tags. The CD-Text entries "Songwriter", "Arranger" and "Message" are not used here because ID3 tags do not have these entries. – 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. – 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.

Pause Detection With this function the audio is being analysed and a new track list is generated from all silent pauses that were found. When performing the pause detection again in an existing project, all CD track markers will be deleted first. 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.

Path of Mixdown Audio File The path of the mixdown audio file currently used is displayed here. If the complete path is too long, only the file name is shown.

Vinyl For convenience, the Show Vinyl Markers switch from the Project Settings can also be toggled here.

Project Sample Rate This is the sample rate of the mixdown audio file currently used.

? The ? button will open the help menu: – Show Tooltips : If the tooltips should bother you, you can disable them here. – Open Manual : Open this manual. – Check for Updates : The plugin will check online, if an update is available. To install an update, you will have to use HOFA-Plugins Manager.

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 by your mixdown file, the required number of CDs is added to the project during pause detection. 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). In the audio view, 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 modify the CD change positions. If two CD changes fall together, the CDs are merged. A context menu that opens on a right-click into this area 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 view 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 view. In the audio view 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.

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 name that are used by CD-Burn.DDP.Master. DDP images that were created by different applicarions 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 zwro will automatically be added to make it a 13 digit number as this is mandatory for CDs and DDP images.

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". Alternativaly 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.

LAME MP3 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/

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. The HOFA CD-Burn.DDP.Master plugin will only add dither noise while burning the CD or exporting the DDP image or audio files. In the global settings you find the following settings for Dither: – Dither enabled : Switches dithering on and off. – No dither during silence : If this is activated, the dither will not be used where the signal is absolute silence. If your audio mixdown file is already in 16 bits format, no dither noise will be added.

Contact

HOFA GmbH

Lusshardtstraße 1-3

D-76689 Karlsdorf

E-Mail: [email protected]

Telefon : 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.