cdrecord

cdrecord , man page is used to record data or audio Compact Discs on an Orange Book CD-Recorder.

The easiest not so intuitive way for making or burning Cd's is to type the following commands:

 		  mkisofs -J -v -o image.iso       datadirectory/        

and then,

 		 cdrecord -v dev=0,0,0 speed=16 -data image.iso       

Warning: Make sure dev=0,0,0 is your correct cd-burning device by issuing the command:

 		 cdrecord -scanbus       

In this case you are making a data CD from an image called ``image.iso'' which in turn is like a blueprint of the specified files you want to copy into a CD. cdrecord transfers that image to a standard CD tracks provided you have media in the CD drive of your computer. Some of the options here like (dev)ice and speed are dependent on the machine and drive you are using.

To make audio Cd's you don't need the mkisofs command, instead you probably would like to use the sox command which is explained in the following section. Once all your audio tracks are ready you can type something like:

 		 cdrecord -v speed=1 dev=2,0 -audio track*.cdaudio         

You can read more about cdrecord on its man page but if this doesn't seem so straightforward you can also try X-CD-roast as explained in the previous section.

If you already have an iso9660 image or cd tracks ready to burn it is quite easy to use, just type:

 		 cdrecord -v speed=8 dev=0,0,0 iso_image_name        

to burn an iso9660 disk image.

Cdrecord can give you a great deal of flexibility by using the command line instead of a graphical interface like XCDroast and it also provides useful information. Again, make sure you read the man page for a better understanding of the following commands.

Warning: Once again, make sure [ dev=0,0,0 ] is your correct CD-burning device by issuing the command:

 		 cdrecord  -scanbus       

Otherwise change [ dev=0,0,0 ] accordingly and make sure is working by doing,

 		 cdrecord -checkdrive dev=0,0,0       

Note: On newer Linux distributions, Fedora Core, etc., the cd-recorder device might be found as:

 		 /dev/cdrom       

Following are useful examples for using the Cdrecord command line. (Please notice the -dummy mode).

The -dummy option will not write anything but it is very helpful for testing and see if the write speed is good enough and if the read/write buffer of the burning device are always filled with CD data. The -dummy mode is safe mode. Once you know everything is working just do not use when issuing the cdrecord command and you will have a burned CD ready for playback.

1. Rip an audio CD

   You might want to change your current directory to ``/zap'' by cd /zap . Then make sure your audio CD is ``in'' the CD drive. You can start ripping by,

   
    		  cdparanoia -X -B -w -force-read-speed 1       
   
   This will rip the audio CD and deposit .wav files in the current directory (/zap normally). In audio CDs if the first track does not start at the beginning (sector 0) of the disc, the unused space before the first song will be written as a very short track00.cdda.wav. It is a good idea to delete that file.

2. Create an audio CD:

   
    		 cdrecord -v dev=0,0 -dummy -dao -useinfo -pad -audio *.wav       
   
   This will write all the .wav files to the empty CD, creating a standard audio CD. Do not use CD-RW media because it can not be played by many audio CD players.

3. Converting MP3s to raw audio to create audio CDs

               mpg123 -s file.mp3 | sox -c2 -s -w -t raw \
                     44100 - -t wav - > newsoundfile.wav
   
   mpg123 converts file.mp3 to the .wav file newsoundfile.wav and makes it ready to be part of audio CDs.

4. Converting raw audio WAV files to MP3

   
    		  lame -preset extreme infile.wav outfile.mp3        
   
   Please see the sound utilities section for more information about Lame. In this case Lame will encode the raw WAV file infile.wav to the MP3 file outfile.mp3 using high quality settings.