SOUND ON SOUND

[desmond]

It turns out that Reaper is smart enough to take the .cda files and use them to extract the associated audio from the CD and store them in the default format for the project. Unfortunately it doesn't extract the metadata at the same time. Hopefully the Mac version does something similar.

Sure, but all that is doing is reading the CD audio into WAV files, which is what Finder will do on the Mac when you put in an audio CD anyway - present the audio tracks as audio files which you can load into any software or use to burn another CD. But the OP specifically didn't want to do this, because it's not cloning the CD.

The problem was never extracting the audio data from an audio CD, it was preserving the *exact* CD contents, metadata, gaps etc and all. None of the methods suggested, short of cloning/copying the entire disk (via intermediate disk image if necessary) will do that.

Some options to try here:
https://apple.stackexchange.com/questio ... s-x-mounta

[BigRedX]

The gaps should not be a problem. Each gap is included in the audio data at the end of the preceding track.

[James Perrett]

The problem was never extracting the audio data from an audio CD, it was preserving the *exact* CD contents, metadata, gaps etc and all. None of the methods suggested, short of cloning/copying the entire disk (via intermediate disk image if necessary) will do that.

I think the issue is that there's nothing short of using Sonoris DDP creator that will allow you to do this (or at least nothing that works for CC). So Reaper offers an alternative way to reconstruct the metadata which may be cheaper than buying DSP Quattro for those that don't already own it. I'll grant you that it doesn't offer the friendliest way to input metadata but there are third party scripts that improve this.

So I offer it as a clunky but currently free option.

[James Perrett]

The gaps should not be a problem. Each gap is included in the audio data at the end of the preceding track.

It depends on how the extraction software handles index 0's. Does it finish extracting a track when it encounters an index 0 or does it carry on extracting until it reaches an index 1? Index 0 generally denotes the end of the previous track while index 1 is the start of a track. For something like a live album, spoken introductions to a song may well go in the space between index 0 and 1.

And while we are on the subject of CD extraction, does the Mac respond to errors in the audio stream or does it just carry on extracting the audio regardless? Most general purpose Windows software just carries on regardless - which is why more secure extraction programs like EAC exist.

[BigRedX]

The gaps should not be a problem. Each gap is included in the audio data at the end of the preceding track.

It depends on how the extraction software handles index 0's. Does it finish extracting a track when it encounters an index 0 or does it carry on extracting until it reaches an index 1? Index 0 generally denotes the end of the previous track while index 1 is the start of a track. For something like a live album, spoken introductions to a song may well go in the space between index 0 and 1.

And while we are on the subject of CD extraction, does the Mac respond to errors in the audio stream or does it just carry on extracting the audio regardless? Most general purpose Windows software just carries on regardless - which is why more secure extraction programs like EAC exist.

When you copy the audio from a CD by dragging it to another disc on your Mac each track will include all the audio up to the start index of the next track. Do any CD players make use of the index 0? I've only had to use them when authoring new CDs where the tracks have been precisely topped and tailed to the start and end of the audio and I need to add a gap between tracks. Also from a personal preference I would want to include any spoken intros on a live album at the beginning of the track they refer to rather than the end of the one before. Perhaps if the between-song taking was quite long I might chose to have it as a track on its own.

As for error checking I don't know exactly what happens on the Mac when you copy a track in the Finder, but I have noticed that the process takes longer when the CD is in less than pristine condition, so I'm guessing that it making use of the error-correction.

[ConcertinaChap]

This has proved a very interesting discussion. When I made my first post I was a bit embarrassed, like someone was going to say it's obvious, you bozo, just right click on <something> in disk utility and it goes off and does it. Clearly that's not the case.

It's a fair point that I/we have likely spent longer discussing the point than just doing it in DSP Quattro, but I thought that once I knew how to do it, it would prove useful again in future. I'm still very puzzled as to why a duplication function isn't in the OS - CDs may be going out now but they weren't 10-15 years ago.

Never mind, thanks again all.

CC

[desmond]

It's a fair point that I/we have likely spent longer discussing the point than just doing it in DSP Quattro, but I thought that once I knew how to do it, it would prove useful again in future. I'm still very puzzled as to why a duplication function isn't in the OS - CDs may be going out now but they weren't 10-15 years ago.

I totally know what you mean and sort of agree. But really, the consumer use for audio CD's on Macs was either:
- to load a CD to rip into iTunes
- maybe to burn a compilation CD from songs to listen to in the car

Both of which the Mac did easily enough.

Cloning audio CD's of your own studio masters, constructing red book audio CD's for mastering, authoring DVD's and so on were all "professional" functions, not something the Mac can do from the Finder, but that you required pro level software to do. I think given Apple's careful historical dance with the music industry, and the emerging iTunes dominance, a one click "clone your audio CD" OS function would have been knocking a bit too hard on the legal restraints put on them by Apple Corps in former times.

People that did have a need for a bit more advanced optical media handling would either get Toast, which was the de facto third-party best solution, and/or get whatever CD/DVD authoring software they needed. And Toast does this easily enough, as I say.

[ConcertinaChap]

Footnote. It having been a year since I last built a CD (folkies are quite conservative when it comes to recording media and like to have CDs of their work but for obvious reasons I've not been recording other people lately) I updated DSP Quattro to the latest version and buckled down and did the work. Glad I did because on the original CD there were significant silences at the start and end of each track so in order that the silence wasn't too long the gap was set to 0 seconds, which I could do in Quattro without problem.

The reason for the footnote is that in the meantime the Quattro developer, Stefano Daino, has really tightened up on the layout and usability of the CD layout screen. It's now really slick and easy to use - for people with long memories it's a lot like Waveburner on steroids. Excellent!

CC