CD & DVD REPLICATION

The difference between CD-Text and Gracenote (TM)

CD-Text is included on your replicated or duplicated discs if (and only if) the CD-Text is included on a CD Audio master provided to Replicat.

However, it is important to note that not all CD players will recognise or display CD-Text even if it appears on the discs. Computers ignore CD-Text altogether and instead access track/album info from online database like Gracenote or CDDB.

If you need to check CD-Text info on a replicated or duplicated CD Audio disc, please check the discs on a set-top player (not a computer) that you know displays CD-Text directly from the disc and not from an online track database.

If you need to submit your disc details to Gracenote, simply do the following:

1. Insert your CD Audio disc into a computer that has iTunes installed
2. Open iTunes
3. When iTunes opens up, DO NOT import the CD into your library. Simply click “No” in the dialog box.
4. Select your first track then right click and select “Get Info”. Fill in all the information in the “Get Info” tab, then click “Next” and continue the process until all the tracks have information.
5. Select "submit track names" from the advanced menu.

Now wait! The above steps log all your information with the online database and anyone who puts your disc into a computer with iTunesTM etc will have the information. However, it can take a few days for Gracenote servers to update and for your information to be available to all users.

Note: Unless you do this, the track/album details will not appear for anyone playing your disc on a computer even if the CD-Text is present on your replicated disc.

I've received my discs and the CD track info isn't appearing (correctly) on my CD player..!

Replicat guarantee to provide exact copies of the master we receive. Please read the following very carefully.

There is likely no problem with your discs. Any CD Text on the master you submitted is the same as the CD Text on your discs. We guarantee it. If you like, email the Replicat team and we can take our QC sample and email you a photo of the CD track text from playing track one as displayed on our office player.

Not all CD players read CD text and many older units display no track info at all.
Some CD players do read CD text (like our office model) and display the track info directly from the CD Text on the replicated disc.

MOST CD players, plus iTunes, PC based players, Mac based players, most car stereos and many others ignore the cd text on your replicated disc. Instead, these players actually read the track information from a worldwide database called Gracenote (www.gracenote.com). This is incredibly counter-intuitive, which is why every CD replication house in the world gets concerned artists on their doorstep almost every week claiming that their CDs have missing/wrong track data.

The artist, not the replication house, is responsible for uploading the correct track information to Gracenote. We provide step by step instructions in the section above. This is your data, your IP and your responsibility to manage this information to Gracenote. No replication house or mastering house we know of offers a Gracenote upload service for free, and Replicat doesn’t offer it at all – it is the sort of data that should be managed by you, the artist.

Finally – if the track data does appear on Gracenotes but is incorrect, then I strongly recommend that you shoot an email across to Gracenote see: www.gracenote.com first and ask for their special instructions on how to change incorrect track details on their database, as opposed to uploading for the first time. We’ve heard of this before, where an album or track with very similar lengths or other features is incorrectly matched by Gracenote.

Also note that once you’ve uploaded, it takes several days at times for Gracenote to update their servers, so it may take a little while.

If you’re still having any issues after going through the above, then go back to the DDP master you approved and check it on our free DDP player software if needed to confirm that the tracks etc listed on the DDP screen are correct. If you submitted a physical master from a studio, then check back with your studio.