Xcdroast

Xcdroast

X-CD-Roast is a graphical user interface (GUI) for the command-line set of cdr tools. With the X-CD-Roast front end things are a bit nicer and easier. The cdrtools set contains cdrecord which does the hard job supporting all the cd writers and also the actual writing of CDs, readcd which is a command line that reads data-tracks of CDs, mkisofs a utility that masters CD-/images from given file-trees on the hard disk and cdda2wav which reads audio-tracks.

You can master two kinds of CDs: audio or data. For audio you need to have “.wav” format audio files in the /scratch directory. For data CDs you need to create an image of the files you want on your Cd also on /scratch . Once you have your audio files or images you can proceed to write them by accepting the track layout. Try to test your parameters by writing a Cd in simulation mode and once you are sure you can start duplicating your data or sound-files.

To burn an audio CD you can follow these procedures:

Make sure all the sound-files are in riff or wav format, and also 44.1KHz sampling rate (CD quality!). To find information about your sound-files you can type:

         sndinfo yourfile.wav       

or if you don't know the kind of sound-file you have, you can also type,

         sndinfo yourfile.snd       

Please make sure you find out about the sampling rate of your soundfile. At CCRMA you can use Julius Smith's high quality resample utility to get your sounfiles up to CD-rate. If you are not familiar make sure you read the sound utilities section or simply read the (man page) to create CD-ready soundfiles or if you transfer from one medium to another (i.e. dat, dtrs or adat to cd).

Beware that in general “clm's” default sampling rate is 22050 because of historical reasons and of course because of lower speed processors. Being the case with a stereo 22.05Ksr sound-file you can type the following options in order to have a CD-ready sound-file.

          resample -by 2.00 soundfile.snd cd.snd       

Nevertheless, if you still need a quick solution you can use sox to do a reasonable job:

         sox -t au -r 22050 yourfile.snd -r 44100 newfile.wav       

or better

         sox -t au -r 22050 yourfile.snd -r 44100 /zap/newfile.wav       

To make sure your wav file has the correct timing for being a CD track, you also use sox with the next options:

         sox oldfile.wav  newfile.wav       

or

         sox -t au oldfile.snd newfile.wav       

or

          sox oldfile.aiff newfile.wav       

Again, make sure the sampling rate is 44100 KHz.

Next, launch xcdroast on the command line and you should get its graphic interface. Make sure you have the correct cd-writer settings by clicking on the setup push button, and selecting the correct device for the machine you are using. Don't forget to save your configuration.

• To Master Audio Cd's

  Select the “Write Tracks” push button and you should get a new window with the list of tracks, provided they are on the /scratch directory. Notice there are two tabs above the track list and, select the layout tracks tab. Add the sound-files, change the order of your tracks and once done, click on the “Accept track layout” push button at the bottom. Now select the “Write tracks” tab to go back to the main Write tracks window and make sure you select the “track at once” (TAO) check mark or radio button. Finally click on the Write tracks push button to start burning your CD.

• To create Data Cd's

  Select the Create CD push button to start mastering your Data CD. A new window will appear with few more options. Select “Master Tracks” button and you will get yet another window with directories and may be information of your CD tracks. Explore this window and if necessary go to to the /zap or /scratch directories for the location of your files. Add directories or files and make sure they appear in the session list. Once done, you can select the “Create session/image” tab, “calculate the size” of your image and either “master to image file” or “Master and Write on-the-fly” push buttons.

  If you selected “Master and Write on-the-fly” the CD burning process will start, otherwise after the “image to file” process is finished, you can click on the big “Write Tracks” push button, select the layout tracks tab add your image file to the “tracks to write” list and finally click on the “accept this track layout” push-button. Select the write tracks tab and make sure your image file is on the tracks to write list. Make sure the Disk at Once radio button option is selected and finally click on the “Write tracks” button to start data CD burning.

The underlying tools that are called by xcdroast are sometimes easier to use standalone, follow to the next section for the glory of all the details: