ISRC CODES - WAVEBURNER - HELP PLEASE!

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Level 2

341 points

ISRC CODES - WAVEBURNER - HELP PLEASE!

OK, right to the point. I very simply need to encode my aif files with ISRC codes NOT burning to a cd and encoding the files on the cd. I have material which will be uploaded to various pay digital download sites. I got into this ISRC code crazyness and I went NUTS today looking for an app that can do this, Cubase, Peak (EXCEPT FOR PEAK PRO 5), DSP Quattro, Jam and none of these apps can do this only DSP Quattro and Jam can encode a CD with ISRC codes aifs (in my case) but if I rip the aifs from the encoded cd the aifs themselves do not have ISRC codes just the cd does. So, all of the digital dloads sites have ftp uploads for tracks. So once I have an aif that is a finished project I just upload it to their servers and they put the tracks up. But if the aif I upload does not have ISRC code every downloaded copy of that file will not have a code, follow? I wrote to the ISRC web site and they dont have a forum but I came across Waveburner (I think is a bad name for a Mac app) anyway and before I start looking thru that app I need to know if WB can encode aifs. Simple, lets say I finish a track in Logic that aif file final master should have an ISRC code so when I upload a copy of that master aif file it too will have the code. Any help here cause I've been all over google and a hundred other articles and sites with no luck. Anybody??

Posted on Sep 24, 2005 7:29 PM

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Answer 1

Guy Hatton

Level 4

1,915 points

Sep 25, 2005 6:00 AM in response to ralphiedee

AFAIK, there is no way to do what you want.

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Answer 2

Sep 25, 2005 6:59 AM in response to Guy Hatton

Guy Hatton is right, you can't do that in Waveburner. WB is only good for writing a CD with the tracks encoded. If you rip them again, I think it depends on the ripper software, how the ISRCs are handled. I don't know a software to do what you want, although I would be interested to know, if you should be successful, which software won the prize.

I am also looking for a software, that reads ISRCs from any arbitrary disc I put into my CD-Rom. Just to check, whether my written CDs are correct. If someone knows such software...WINDOWS software is also welcome...

Thomas

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Answer 3

uniquorn

Level 3

675 points

Sep 25, 2005 7:07 AM in response to ralphiedee

Hi ralphiedee,

pondering on a similar problem here. Not that would know for sure, just thinking if this may be possible : You say that when you 'rip the aifs from the encoded cd the aifs themselves do not have ISRC codes just the cd does'.
Did you try that with different apps on the mac platform ? The reason I'm asking this is that I am not sure whether there truly IS no ISRC on your rips; maybe the codes are there but your player ( ? or software ? or .. ? ) just does not see or show them ? And maybe the ripping -what app, what platform ?- could be done differently or with another app - did you e.g. try copying the tracks off the CD on a Mac via Finder instead of ripping with iTunes ? How do you check if there 'is' an ISRC ?

The only other way would be to send ISRC-coded CD's to the download sites, but I know that a) in most cases you're supposed to upload yourself and b) there is no guarantee that they will include the ISRC code. So did you go all the way and asked the d'load sites tech dept directly how they'd do it ?

Best, uni

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Answer 4

ralphiedee Author

Level 2

341 points

Sep 25, 2005 7:50 AM in response to uniquorn

Gotta say, thank god there are some people who understand. I posted almost the same question on 3 other forums all related and I got useless information explaining jiberish. I mean cmon, back in the 80's record companies began to use "soundscan" a bar code on every label and record jacket to record sales. Now if someone took 1 barcoded record and repressed 10,000 copies with no bar code you would never know those records existed. So the mp3 or aiff (in this case) needs to have the code not the cd the aifs are on, the d load sites need to extract the media from the cd so if there is no code on the media what the **** is the sense of all this? This is what I did, Exported 2 aifs to I Tunes, imported them to jam 6, assigned ISRC codes to the aifs and burnt a cd of them. If you check Disc information in Jam you will see the aifs with the codes. I have a G4 17" powerbook with a superdrive and besides seeing the code thru Jam thats it. So the only way to check is to open the burnt cd with the coded aifs, copy it into the jam window and re burn it. Well, done that and there is NO CODE so unless I'm missing something here this is senseless. I'm waiting for a reply from RIAA which distributes ISRC codes for the U.S. and I only started looking into this when I got my assigned codes. So i gotta be missing something here because nobody has this answer, software companies, forums I searched for hours and NOTHING! All I know is there are 4 applications that write ISRC codes for Mac. Roxio Jam, Bias Peak 5.0 Pro, DSP Quattro and Waveburner. Jam writes only to cd's and I'm waiting to hear from the peak guys , forget about the Quattro bad tech support , but I should have an answer this year sometime and from what I read Waveburner (bad name for a Mac application) burns the codes to cd too. Simple question here you would think that audio recording software like Cubase ( i use now) or Logic would have ISRC code burning when you export the finidhed file. The search goes on soon as I hear from anybody I'll post

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Answer 5

uniquorn

Level 3

675 points

Sep 25, 2005 8:00 AM in response to ralphiedee

Very cool, ralphiedee ! Greatly appreciated. I must say I'm afraid that you've stepped onto a field that's as officially unexplored as that of, say, DVD Audio when it comes to audio levels for DVD mastering - a field where you can (or can not) find as many 'experts' and 'expert opinions' as you'd like. diverse and contradicting in a lot of cases - and the only way seems to go all the way until you've found out for yourself. only then you'll know for sure. hard pioneer work, certainly worth it; and in most cases totally unpaid for...
I have waveburner and jam as well and i use both of them when burning production masters - including ISRC's. and yet never did a cd pressing plant ask for or about anything - but it might be a good idea to talk to those guys about the handling of ISRC codes - shoudn't they know, too ? I'll be posting if something new arises.

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Answer 6

rsdio

Level 1

20 points

Sep 28, 2005 1:47 PM in response to ralphiedee

When it comes to metadata like ISRC codes, each file format (or media) is going to have a different place to store this information. Are you sure that there is a standard for storing ISRC codes in AIFF? ... or MP3? If you can point me to a standard describing how the ISRC is added to an AIFF, then I might be able to put together a simple Mac OS X application that will instantaneously add the ISRC of your choice to any AIFF. I have already written a great deal of software for manipulating AIFF, WAVE, FLAC, and other audio formats, so this should be simple given the documentation.

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Answer 7

uniquorn

Level 3

675 points

Sep 28, 2005 4:41 PM in response to rsdio

Wow - now doesn't that sound good ! Thanks rsdio. I suspect the matter is probably more complicated than I might know myself - AFAIK the 'red book standard' has precise specifications as to where and at what point those subcodes have to go on an audio cd. That is a vast topic.
Here is what IFPI has to say about ISRC codes and their technical handling. The key sentence seems to be 'In the case of Compact Discs the ISRCs and other PQ-data are encoded in the disc sub-code (Q channel) in the disc mastering process. For this reason, ISRCs must be encoded for each track in the Pre-Master for CD. The ISRC codes, together with the Digital Copy Prohibited flag, and the relevant point of sale code, such as EAN/UPC should be inserted on the Pre-Master during the pre-mastering process from the original Master.'
- > http://www.ifpi.org/isrc/isrc_handbook.html
Does this bring up any new insight ?

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Answer 8

Guy Hatton

Level 4

1,915 points

Oct 2, 2005 2:09 PM in response to uniquorn

Does this bring up any new insight ?

To be honest, it seems to confirm and expand upon what I said - the ISRC codes have to be added at the Red Book mastering stage, you can't just magically embed them in an AIFF file and expect that to be of any use further down the line. Now; if anyone can say for sure that I'm wrong, I'll be happy to take the correction.

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Answer 9

uniquorn

Level 3

675 points

Oct 2, 2005 2:31 PM in response to ralphiedee

Ralphiedee,
I just finished a job over the weekend where the issue was exactly what you are/were trying to do : how to upload (tons of) aiffs or wavs for the use in various downloading portals. I was called by a bunch of record labels. There was NO ONE there at those record companies who really knew what they were doing / had to do / would have had to be having done... anyway - you get the idea. It ended up I had to call the various mysterious online-encoding-digital-hacking-madness-guys who were the technical responsible.
Well, actually they weren't, but even the people who run those d/l companies sometimes don't seem to know what their technical stuff is all about. So it took me one of these actual 'human encoders' there to tell me that there was absolutely no need of burning 'data DVD's with wav files and encoded ISRC's on them' - which actually was exactly what the record companies had called me for. Oh well.
Long story short - this encoding guy told me (apart from the fact that he was just doing this job because there is no more studio production work for him) he has to hand-type all the ISRC data into the d/l databases MANUALLY; track for track. Thus there'd be no need to burn any ISRC or copy protection flags etc anywhere .... and hes does that for three different download portals who all use the same database software.

I don't know if that applies in your case, too, but maybe it can save you some hair if you check back with the 'human encoders' (or equivalent) on your side ... good luck !

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Answer 10

Oct 2, 2005 3:52 PM in response to t.kuerrev

I have spent a GREAT DEAL OF TIME farting around with this (apple will probably disallow "farting"). You can download a free windows program called "Feurio", from a company in Germany, that will read and display ISRC codes as part of its trip. But BEWARE THE CD DRIVE SHUFFLE! This is where, for example, your DVD drive will read, but not write ISRC codes, or the drive in your PC (sometimes it doesn't pay to put in the cheapest one!) doesn't read them. You burn on your Mac, but stick the disc in your PC and it shows no ISRC codes. I've found that my Pioneer external DVD drive will read but not write, and the Superdrive in my mac will write but I have no software to read, so I take the Pioneer drive, plug it into my PC (whose internal drive doesn't read), boot up Feurio, and there are the ISRCs. Test yourself out with a commercial CD; if you don't see them there, your PC configuration probably isn't reading them...

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Answer 11

Oct 5, 2005 4:57 PM in response to uniquorn

Hi Unicorn,

your words were very interesting! I couldn't stop laughing about your experience with all those envolved guys! That's life! And it will be...

Thomas

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