How To Burn Artists And Titles Of A Song Directly Onto The CD Using A Burner?

by Joe Gibson
(Canada)

Question: I've been reading your top 5 picks of DVD burners and I noticed that the Plextor PX-716A was one of them. I'm not exactly sure how long this model has been on the market for, but I'm familiar with it to a certain extent.

Over the years I've burned a few cd's from time to time using my PX 230A Plextor. I've also used it to make the labels with the artists and titles.

To get to my question - I understand that I can burn the artists and titles of a song directly onto the CD using a burner. I don't make DVDs. Is the Plextor PX-716A able to do this or have the capability?

I would appreciate any answers or suggestions you may give in this regard.

Answer: Hi Joe, many thanks for your query. Yes, you can in fact burn artists and titles of a song directly on a CD using any burner, not just the Plextor PX-716A. You just need a proper software to burn your CD like Apple iTunes, Nero Burning ROM or Roxio Toast Titanium

Let's look at how you can burn a CD that includes information like songs titles, artist names and album titles using Apple's iTunes software. You can fully customize the text that will appear on your CD before the burning process begins. This is really simple to do - just follow the steps below.

Step 1: Create A Playlist
Create a playlist for the songs you want to burn. In the lower left corner of your iTunes browser, click the "+" button. A new playlist will appear in your left column.

Step 2: Enter Your Playlist Name
Enter a name for your playlist and press "Enter."

Step 3: Add Songs To Your Playlist
Now just select and place the songs of your choice on your new playlist. If the songs already appear in your iTunes library, click "Music" in the left column and then drag the songs directly onto the playlist using your mouse. If the songs appear elsewhere on your hard drive, you can still drag them directly onto the iTunes playlist and they will import automatically, so long as they exist in MP3 format.

Step 4: Import Artist Information For Your Songs
You next need to import artist information for your songs. If the songs have been properly ripped from a music CD, it should already contain song titles, artist names and album names. If the songs contain generic names like "Audio Track 1," and do not contain relevant information such as artist name, album name and year, you can have iTunes scan the songs to see if the information exists in the online artist database.

What you need to do is to hold down the "Shift" key and click each relevant song title to highlight it, then click "Advanced" on the menu bar at the top of your screen and select "Get CD Track Names." If the information exists online, iTunes will fill in the text automatically. Neat stuff, eh?

If iTunes fails to generate artist information, you can still manually enter as much information as you would like. I like to go to websites like Amazon to find all the details of my songs. To enter a song title, just click the generic title that already appears, wait a second, and then click it a second time. The title will highlight and you can then type in the correct title using your keyboard. "Press Enter."

Step 5: Enter Additional Information
To enter the fields that will affect all of the songs, such as an album title, highlight all of the relevant titles, click "File" on the menu bar and select "Get Info" from the drop-down menu. A pop-up window will appear with additional fields, including artist name, album title and genre. Fill in any fields for which you want to include information and click "OK."

Step 6: Insert A Blank CD and Burn
Next, insert a blank CD into your CD-ROM drive. Highlight your playlist once again and click "Burn Disc" in the lower right corner of your iTunes window. Your songs, and all the information, will burn to the disc.

And that's it! You don't need a particular brand of CD / DVD burner to do the above, just the appropriate software.

By the way, if you own Nero Burning ROM or Roxio Toast Titanium, you can do the same thing.

Burning Song Information Using Nero Burning ROM
To burn CD Text using Nero Burning ROM, verify via the "Current Project" window that all song information, such as artist and title information, is displayed. Add any titles or artist names and make any necessary changes to existing data. Click "Burn," and Nero will burn your CD with the CD Text visible in the project window.

Burning Song Information Using Roxio Toast Titanium
To burn CD Text with Roxio Toast Titanium, you must first create a disk image of the audio CD. Edit the information of the tracks you want to burn to a CD via the project window, making certain that all song title and artist information is present. Select "Burn as BIN/CUE..." from the "Record" menu, and select a convenient location on your computer for the files.