Making an audio CD these days is as simple as drag-and-drop, and every disc-mastering program comes with software to walk you through the process of creating fancy-lad DVD menus for your video. But there’s more to your optical drives than common tasks like these. You can, for instance, add data files to your audio CD (including cover art images or digitally compressed versions of the songs) without losing compatibility with CD players.

You can also boost the set-top compatibility of your DVD-Video discs with a couple of simple tweaks. You can even create your own custom bootable discs with all the utilities you might need for a rescue job. Master optical-disc burning, and you’ll be able to deliver miracles that leave recipients of your discs in awe!

1. Choose Your Format
Your software might offer you several ways to combine audio and data on the same disc. The Mixed Mode and Pre-Gap methods, if they’re available, should be avoided. These methods put the data track ahead of the audio track, and older CD players may attempt to “play” the data track. The result is a horrible screech—only slightly less unpleasant than a dentist’s drill—that could damage your speakers.

Instead, choose CD Plus or CD Extra, which are the same thing. CD Extra writes the audio tracks first, and then writes the data last in a single track. Because it closes the audio portion of the disc (called a session) before it starts a new session to write the data tracks, your CD player, which cannot see beyond the first session of a disc won’t stumble into the data area.

Even if your disc-mastering software doesn’t support CD-Extra by name, you should be able to approximate it using session-at-once (SAO) recording. Just start a multi-session disc, record the audio tracks in the first session, close it, then write the data in a second session, making sure to finalize the disc after that (you’ll usually find that option on the last screen you see before you begin burning).

2. LOAD YOUR DISC
Once you select CD Extra as a destination format, your disc-mastering application will automatically create the folder structure required by the CD Extra spec. The CDPlus and Pictures folders are leftovers from a simpler time when visionaries imagined we’d be carrying around CD players with full-color screens. They’re mostly useless, but you can use them, or not use them and create your own folders. No matter what you do, you’ll be able to access these files through your PC.

Drag your audio files to the audio windowpane at the lower left. Data files can go into the folders already present (these folders can’t be removed because they are part of the official CD Extra spec), or you can create your own folders.

Keep in mind that your audio files will be raw, uncompressed audio, so they’ll take up a lot of space. Our six measly tracks take up 300MB of space!

3. BURN THE COMPILATION
Before you initiate the burn process, consider who’s going to use the disc, and on what kind of equipment. If you’re giving it to a friend for listening in the car, or if you’ll be playing the disc on an old boom box before looking at the saved pictures on your PC, we recommend cranking down the burn speed as low as you can tolerate; no more than 16x in this instance, and 8x is preferred. Compatibility problems with older players can generally be solved by burning your discs at a slower speed.

Click the matchstick icon to begin burning, or go to the Recorder menu and click Burn Compilation.

TIP: The older the player your disc might end up in, the lower you should set the burn speed. And don’t forget to check the “Finalize CD” box!

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