Mastering An Audio CD. What's the best way?

OK ..so there is a potential client that I really want to get.  I composed 11 music samples for them.  After each was mixed I loaded all the wav files back into Sonar, placed and leveled each music cue very carefully, exported  a wav that is about 30 minutes long.   I imported the wav into Sound Fordge and created regions and burned an audio CD.  The CD plays,  but is not able to skip ahead to the next song.  Althought the track number will change when it gets there.
 
So...anyone have any suggestions??  Is there a better way to master a CD?
 
I know I'm going to get some great answers,  so let me say "thanks" in advance.      

Actually, I've just noticed that you said "regions," which is a sub level of a "track," if I remember correctly, and I don't think you can jump between regions...

I would derfinately import/export each sample as a separate wav. That would make your life a lot easier. What if you now needed to burn a CD of only two of the samples? You'd have to go in the project and re-export instead of just picking the files for burnng.

You can level the material quite as simply in SONAR having them each on separate tracks. Then exporting with "Tracks" as source you get each as a separate wav. You need to rename them after export, though.

IF... I was going to put together and master a CD with 11 songs...... here's what I would do.

After all the songs have been exported into a folder.... I would open a new project and import each one into a different track. Add the FX and plugs I thought the PROJECT needed into the master bin.....

Now I would solo the tracks one at a time and move from track to track being sure the levels were close enough so the end CD didn't have any loudness surprises. 

Then I'd export the final tracks one by one..... into a new folder.....and burn them from that folder using your favorite burning program. 

That would ensure that they were all in their own tracks and you could jump ahead to the next one easily, or back if needed. 

Of course, I am not in the mastering biz so the way I explained might not be how someone in the biz might do it. 

The current method I use for exporting and finishing a song (which is not what I described above.... it's just make it sound good and check the wave in my editor) has yielded excellent level and sonic results for me. I generally import all the songs I write into my MP3 player to listen to and I can start at the beginning and listen all day long and within a reasonable margin the levels and EQ are all pretty close to being dead on. I'm not reaching for the  volume spinner on my player at all. 


I'm not interested in a CD so my goal is one song at a time..... does it sound good with good levels? 

Yes=Done.  
No= fix it.

I haven't read all the replies thoroughly, so forgive me if I'm repeating information.

This thread caught my attention because I just finished a 19 track CD of my own music. It was 6 years in the making, but it's finally done.

Sound Forge is meant to be paired with CD Architect in my opinion. You create the regions in a track with Sound Forge, then when you export that file in to CD Architect, you can easily create tracks at those regions. You can do the regions directly in CD Architect too and skip SF all together.

This method is extremely handy for when you rip LP's so it sounds like the LP is playing nonstop with no dropouts of pops and clicks between tracks, yet you can still skip songs if you want to.

I spent days mastering my CD. I loaded all 19 .wav's in to CD Architect. I loaded all kinds of effects on each track thinking I would need to spice things up, but I couldn't get it to sound right. Finally I said to myself, why am I doing this? I spent 6 years on this music getting it to sound the way I want and now I'm adding more to each track?

Point behind this is, you should have to do very little when you get to the CD mastering point. If you have to do more than slight compression, adjust some gain due to track volume differences, and some light Mastering EQ, then you're not done with the actual mastering stage. There's a difference between Mastering and CD Mastering. Now that I think about it, even slight compression is questionable at the CD Mastering stage.

If you have Sound Forge, there are some sweet tools that come with it that you can also use in CD Architect. All I ended up using was the free Izotope Limiter and the Sony Master EQ that comes with Sound Forge, on the Master Bus. I did have to EQ two of the tracks so I removed them, adjust the mix in Sonar, and used the new file. I know it sounds like a lot of work, but that's technically what should be done and makes for a smoother process if I want to add songs to the CD in the future and don't have the CD Architect project file.

With CD Architect you have a visual representation of the volume of each track and can control the volume or gain. Gain is what you want since it will effect the input side of the effects on your master bus.

I rolled off the Master EQ at 80Hz and 15kHz, found the softest track and adjust the gain down to match it on all the others, put the Izotope Limiter on set to -2.0 and adjust it to barely hit -2.0.

If you have to EQ individual tracks, most of Sonars plug-in's work in Sound Forge and CD Architect. 32-bit only though. I used Sonitus EQ on a couple of tracks but then, like I said before, I remastered the tracks in Sonar and used the new file. But I would have been perfectly fine using Sonitus inside CD Architect.

Sony Master EQ ... check it out. 32-bit only, but I'm ok with that for the sound I get with it.

Oh, the other thing ... I'm not comfortable with the way Sound Forge and CD Architect do dithering, so I used 44.1/16 files. If you want to use higher spec files, you'll also have to throw dithering on the master buss in CD Architect.

CD Architect comes with Sound Forge ... you should have it ...

Hope this helps.

mattplaysguitar


Ha, I just use iTunes ;) Does the trick. Nice and easy!

I have to agree...




IMHO..  It all depends on what you mean by, "master."  For a professional Cd/Album that I was distributing myself, on Amazon, Itunes, Cdbaby, etc..  I'm afraid that I would invest in a professional mastering engineer/studio.


For all of my soundcloud singles..  I'm doing what I call, "the home brew master."  If I needed a cd to, "portfolio my work around the town."  I would load all ten tracks into Sonar, and balance them together...  but as far as burning goes..   lol..  "itunes." ftw

I'll share with you what I do.

1. Each song mixed in it's own project within Sonar
2. All songs imported into my sonar Mastering project, each song on a different track
3. Nudge the start times to get the gaps between songs how I want (artistic choice here!)
4. Apply whatever Fx are needed (not much at this stage, maybe a little Master bus compression/limiting/EQ)
5. Export the whole project as a single .wav @ 16bit 44.1KHz
6. Open up in CD Architect
7. Insert Track Markers
8. Burn CD.

I then use the 16 bit master generated in step 5 for Mp3 conversion (if required)