Audio CD Sizing

Most audio CDs are either 74 minutes or 80 minutes in length with some 90 minute CDs of limited availability. This represents the total play time of all tracks on the CD. There is a limit of 99 tracks for an audio CD.

There is the ability to overburn a CD-R where you write more than the rated amount onto the CD. The amount is highly variable and specific to the brand of CD-R. Generally less than 1 minute of overburning is possible. Do not try to overburn CD-RWs as we have had cases where this renders the CD-RW unusable.

Track Pause

By default there is a pause of 2 seconds between each track. You can change this value on the main burn dialogue and you can set a value from 0 upwards. Please note the total duration listed in the main windows includes this pause but the individual song times does not.

Audio CD Types

CD-R - These are the most common and can only be written to once. This means that once a track has been written it cannot be changed.

CD-RW - These can be written to and then erased at a later time. There is a limited number of times this may be done, but it is very large (in the thousands). These make excellent test discs to help you perfect a CD. Please note many low-end CD players cannot read CD-RW discs as an additional laser is needed which increases the cost.

There are dedicated audio CD-R and CD-RWs and these are optimally designed for audio data. You do not need to use these for audio CDs but they may yield clearer results.

CD Speeds

CD burner drives and the CDs themselves are rated with a speed, for example 8x. This reflect how much faster they are than the first generation of devices that could write CDs. This speed purely reflect how fast the write is and has no affect of playback. All standalone CD players assume 1x for all reading.

Care and Handling

Do not touch the play surface of a CD (side without the label). This will leave fingerprints that interfere with the reading.

Do not expose the play surface to direct sunlight. This can cause the erasure of the data with prolonged exposure.