erratic results in track artist burning to CDs as CDTEXT

[ZenGeekDad]

I'm getting eratic results for track artist info to burn to CDs as CDTEXT.

My burners are clearly able to burn CDTEXT, since it sometimes reaches the CDs.  The outcome is just unpredictable.  In one CD Layout, the burned CD showed track artist info for 14 of 17 tracks, but lost the provided track artist info on the other 3.  I spent ~12 blank CDs troubleshooting this from the software side, ... on all 12 the same 3 tracks lacked track artist info.  So it's not a random burner malfunction.

That project is using a single wav file, with ranged CD Track markers for each CD track.  When I rebuilt that CD Layout from scratch except reusing the single original wav file, I got the same identical result: the same 14 tracks wrote track artist info as CDTEXT, and the same 3 tracks failed to.

So next I restarted farther back: I reopened the multitrack sequence that had mixed down that single wav file, and I re-exported that wav file anew, then rebuilt the CD Layout from this newly exported wav, but it was worse: 0 of 17 tracks showed track artist info via CDTEXT. 

Each burn was by the same burner.  After each burn, I check my burned CD by two apps that can read CDTEXT (MediaMonkey & VLC Media Player) and by my car CD player (which can read CDTEXT), and all three show the same pattern.

Is there some secret setting you have to select for this to work correctly?  I have been sleuthing this around 10 straight hours today, and have not discovered the trick.  So far, it just looks like Audition is as buggy as a rainforest wrt burning CDs that look and read like anything professional (i.e., carry metadata, as CDTEXT, since homespun CDs can't link to commerical CD databases: Gracenotes, AllMusic, ...).

I've looked at every detail imaginable, and found nothing.  Any comments would be appreciated.

Screenshots follow, in case they are useful for giving better advice.

Thanks!

___________________________________________

CD Track markers in the source wav file:

source wav file:

sole album property data entered:

CD Track info, as entered in Audition in the CD Layout panel:

Example of DCTEXT-read-capable software seeing 14 of 17 tracks' track artist info:

Example of DCTEXT-read-capable software seeing 0 of 17 tracks' track artist info (when I re-exported the original wav file and rebuilt the CD Layout from that):

Reference info on my optical drives:

[SteveG_AudioMasters_]

Several things: I realise that this will sound like a cop-out, but it's true; The CD-writing capabilities of Audition were never really intended to be used for anything other than test CDs - that's testing audio content, not metadata. The second thing is that my understanding is that this was effectively a 'bought-in' package - I think from another part of Adobe (don't quote me on that though). That said, if the facilities are there, I suppose that it really ought to work properly, and hey, there's half a chance that it is. Since you are looking at the contents of a commercial CD, there's every possibility that the RIFF data could be doing interesting things - like having a conflict over ISRC codes, for instance. Initially, what you need to do is check that every single track has compatible RIFF metadata entries, and that information isn't missing. If you open the Metadata panel, then initially right-click on the three horizontal lines next to the word 'Metadata' at the top, select the Metadata Display option and make sure that absolutely everything is checked. Then for each individual section of the file, there should be different data. If for any reason this doesn't appear to be working correctly, then the next thing to do is to break each track into a separate file, with the correct metadata, and try burning the CD from that. If that doesn't work, then we'd need a developer comment, I think.

I have to say that when I produce commercial CDs, I wouldn't dream of using Audition to do this - it's nowhere near comprehensive enough. I use Sonoris DDP creator if they're being replicated, and there are plenty of other CD tools out there as well that are actually more convenient to use than Audition for this purpose. If you use Audition's CD creator for its original purpose, it's fine - but beyond that, I'm no so sure about it...

[ZenGeekDad]

SteveG, Thanks for the detailed guidance.

I tried creating the 17 tracks as individual audio files, of exact same duration, and stripped out the CD track markers, then built a new CD Layout from these 17 new wav files, from scratch, and weirdly I got the same burn result: those same three tracks drop their artist's info, and the other 14 retain it.  I had left all of the other metadata (including RIFF) unpopulated: Audition shows only empty slots for all RIFF fields.  The only metadata I added was for the track artists, and that was added on the CD Layout pane.

So, I spent a few hours this morning looking for servicable CD authoring software.  Ignoring chincy products targetting casual users (e.g., Roxio), and software houses I avoid (NCH) ... I see:

(1) Sonoris DDP Creator, $274

(2) Sony CD Architect $115 Amazon download, but this is legacy software.  (Sony sold it to Magix, and it was briefly sold as Magix CD Architect 5, before Magix discontinued it, rolling those tools into Sound Forge.)

(3) Sound Forge Studio 13 $60 - lacks DDP export & Red Book audio CD mastering / burning ... I'm not clear on whether that also means it can't write CDTEXT for metadata like track artist.

(4) Sound Forge Pro 13, $399 - has it all, but I only need the CD authoring, and this option would have me paying for every other audio tool that I'm already paying monthly for in Adobe suite.

(5) Steinberg Wavelab Pro 10, $412 - presumably same situation as Sound Forge Pro 13: buying the farm to get a couple eggs.

I'm tempted to risk Sony CD Architect.  PROS:  Reviewers who liked it said "It was a solid reliable pro level tool, in its day, and despite no updates, it does everything that still needs doing in CD authoring."  Which sounds perfect.  CONS: But of the current 10 Amazon reviews, one claims it's incompatible with W10; the other reviewers report it runs but don't mention their OS, and so may not be W10.  The one reviewer claiming W10 incompatibility says the user forum is loaded with these complaints, but as orphaned software, there are no fixes pending.

The next best bet seems your Sonoris, since it's so dialed in on exactly producing CDs and nothing else.  That seems perfect, ... but it's a little pricey for me since 99% of my business is video (DVDs and Blu-rays), and I only rarely do CDs as peripheral outputs for some musicals -- my work is in video of live theatre.  (And even then, it's gratis work: giving the theater an audio CD for their archives, grant applications, & cast parties, since I can't/won't charge when they don't have copyright for that mode of distribution.)

[ZenGeekDad · Accepted solution]

AH-HA!  Found it!

If a given track has the exact same track artist text as the track above it, then Audition's CD burn tool drops the artist track text.

Before I realized this, I did other tests:

(a) burned a reduced CD with only the 14 tracks that had been consistently writing the track artist data ... no change: all 14 tracks still wrote their track artist data.

(b) regenerated slighlty modified versions of the wav files of the three tracks that kept losing their track artist text, and then burned a CD using these new wav files.  Same result: the same three tracks were missing their tract artist text.

(c) finally, I noticed the pattern(!!): my three troubled tracks were the only ones that had identical tract artist text to the prior tracks.  So I changed each by adding one character ("name1, name2" became "name1 & name2"), and this worked like a charm!

[ZenGeekDad]

I summarize just the take-aways learned here: https://community.adobe.com/t5/audition/work-around-for-dropped-track-artist-text-when-burning-cds-w...

[emmrecs]

I realise you have discovered why the problem was occuring for you and how to wrk around it, but as a follow-up to your post about other possible CD writing softwares can I suggest you look at Hofa CD-Burn.DDP.Master I think this will offer what you want, as well as giving the option to create DDP masters, if required.  And it costs only about 80 Euros, so likely to be a similar price in dollars I suspect.

[ZenGeekDad]

Thanks very much for the suggestion!

I couldn't open your link, but Google gave: https://hofa-plugins.de/en/plugins/cd-burn-ddp-master/

I played the intro video there.  It seems similar to Sonoris, but at ~32% of the cost.  Nice.