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Where do I start to make a CD master for duplication?
By Geoff | September 2, 2010
OK, so you need some CD duplication. If you have spent any time locating a CD DVD duplication service, you may have come across words you haven’t heard before. Often you may know the individual words and be unclear as to how that applies to what you think you need.
All CD duplication projects are done on Red Book standard audio media.
So what is the Red Book of audio, what are the media standards it has set, and why is it so important?
Certain standards are required from CD duplicators and replicators when discs are produced so that they will play on audio CD players. There are standards that have been devised to prescribe what each type of disc must be able to do. For instance, an audio CD must play in a CD player and a computer if that computer can play audio CDs.
The Red Book provides the standards for audio CDs, also known as CDDA (or Compact Disc Digital Audio). There are also Yellow, Orange, White, Blue, Beige, Green, Purple, and Scarlet books in the Rainbow Book set.
These different colored books provide audio standards for:
- Yellow – CD-ROM and CD-ROM XA
- Orange – CD-R and CD-RW
- White – Video CD
- Blue – Enhanced CD, CD+G, and CD-Plus
- Beige – Photo CD Green -
- CD-I (Interactive)
- Purple – DDCD (Double Density Compact Disc)
- Scarlet – SACD (Super Audio CD)
Specifically as it relates to audio, according to the Red Book, a standard CD is 120mm in diameter, 1.2mm thick, and is made up of polycarbonate plastic substrate, one or more thin layers of reflective metal (usually aluminum), and a lacquer coating.
An audio disc is comprised of three parts – a lead in containing a table of contents, the program area where the audio data is written and then a lead-out area which contains no data.
After years of research, Sony Phillips in 1980 developed the Red Book Audio specifications for the physical parameters of an audio CD. This includes the optical stylus parameters, deviations and error rate, modulation system and error correction, and subcode channels and graphics. Even the length of time or data that a standard CD holds is one of the parameters. The prevailing thought was Beethoven needed 74 minutes and if no one is as masterful as he, no one will need more than 74 minutes. In terms of the business costs of development and research. each disc – either blanks that are sold or replicated CDs – a portion of your cost is a license fee that is paid back to Sony Phillips for the technology they researched and developed. In the early days of CDs, the fees for the licensing were significantly higher than they are today. Today less than .10 per disc is collected by replication facilities and blank disc manufacturers and paid over to Sony Phillips.
One other major CD specification set by the Red Book is the form of digital audio encoding taken on by CDs. The parameters set have become a de-facto standard in the CD duplication industry. Ironically, CD player manufacturers are not required to provide players that conform to 100% of the red book audio standards. Many do, but there are some that don’t because of cheaper microchips to keep player costs down for consumers. Over the years, as CDs went from 74 minutes to now 80 minutes, some CD players will stop at 74 minutes 30 seconds which is the official requirement of red book audio.
All in all, most consumers probably won’t be too concerned with the individual technical specifications set by the Red Book. But as a consumer you can take comfort in knowing that there is a high standard of quality being upheld when it comes to your CD duplication, DVD duplication or data CD duplication project. Make sure that when you go to your CD duplication service you ask them if they use Red Book quality CD media.
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Good article – thanks for that. One of the most common mistakes people make, is when they are trying to create a CD Audio/Music master, but they format the disc incorrectly as a CDROM.