What are the advantages of disk-at-once v track-at-once (or the other way around)?

I've been considering CDA myself...but can it burn to multiple drives at once? I've done numerous searches to find an app that'll do Red Book/multi drives to no avail. I built 4 dvd burners into my DAW so I can burn in quantity if need be...so far...let's just say I have 3 spare drives :)

Sony says this:
~~~
Disc-at-Once should be used primarily with recording audio discs. Disc-at-Once is designed to eliminate the 2 second gap that is between the audio tracks on an original audio CD after it is recorded. If you choose the Disc-at-Once feature during the recording process, the final copied CD will not have the 2 second gap in between tracks and the music will be continual play. Not all CD recorders support Disk-at-Once. Track-at-Once can be used for both data and audio discs. Track-at-Once keeps the 2 second gap between the audio tracks. When recording in Disc-at-Once mode the laser on the drive stays on continuously while during the Track-at-Once mode recording, the laser will turn off and on in between the tracks.
~~~
In another source, I read that you should not use Track at Once if you are sending the CD off for manufacture because there could be clicks between tracks.  If that is correct, then the whole CD should be assembler in Sonar or in another tool with the gaps (or lack of gaps) between songs however you want them, and then the CD should be written as Disc-at-Once.

In Nero (and Roxio when I used to use it), Disk At Once (DAO) needs to be used to write data (song titles) on the CD.

Jerhew


I've been considering CDA myself...but can it burn to multiple drives at once? I've done numerous searches to find an app that'll do Red Book/multi drives to no avail. I built 4 dvd burners into my DAW so I can burn in quantity if need be...so far...let's just say I have 3 spare drives :)

No. Its able to burn a gold master cd  that can be sent to a replication plant for replication. But CDA cannot burn multiple disk at one time.
Its used to make masters and error checked referecne cd's, for the most part.
 
Cj

Unfortunately, CDA cannot write to multiple drives concurrently. If you have a 5-disk burner, the best way would be to create a master with CDA and then use Nero to duplicate it. 

From the SONAR Power! book series...

"TAO versus DAO
If you plan to have your CD duplicated professionally, you should have all your audio files together and burned to CD all in one session using DAO burning. This method of burning writes and closes a CD in one operation without turning the CD burning laser on and off between CD tracks. If you use TAO burning, the CD burning laser is turned on and off between tracks to create “links” between them. These “links” will show up as errors when the disc manufacturer tries to create a master disc from your CD-R disc."

Best,
Scott

--
Scott R. Garrigus - http://garrigus.com
* Author of the Cakewalk Sonar and Sony Sound Forge Power book series: http://garrigus.com/?PowerBooks
* Author of the Cakewalk Sonar ProAudioTutor video tutorial series: http://garrigus.com/?ProAudioTutor
* Publisher of the DigiFreq free music technology newsletter: http://digifreq.com/?DigiFreq
* Publisher of the NewTechReview free consumer technology newsletter: http://newtechreview.com/?NewTechReview

A duplicator will reject your master if it's not closed (or "finalized"). That happened to me once, with an installation CD I'd sent out for duplication. I assume it's the same for audio CDs. I honestly do not know what closing/finalizing physically means in terms of what's written to the disk, just that it's something you gotta do if you want the disk to play reliably or be duplicated.

Track-at-once burning requires extra data to be written, data that the CD player in your car probably won't know what to do with, will interpret as audio and play them, resulting in clicks. It also may not be able to jump to the next track reliably. Another downside is that the extra data means you don't quite get the full capacity of the disk.

Scott, Thanks for the additional information.

  is Nero the only software anyone knows of that will burn to multiple drives? I was just hoping for an all in one solution that could do Red Book if necessary and also burn to multiple drives...I'll have to assume if there was something, I would've found it by now/someone would've mentioned it here... thanx for all the tips guys