Subcodes:
We can embed the following subcode info into your CD master if you provide this to us and wish us to include it:
ISRC: The "International Standard Recording Code" - a unique identification code for each track of your album. Currently iTunes and other companies require these in order to digitally distribute your music, and Soundscan and Sound Exchange uses these also to track sales of individual selections.
If you provide us your ISRC we can embed these into the CD-R master for you. We can also embed ISRC's directly into the id3 tags of mp3, FLAC, and Ogg Vorbis files if you wish us to.
Until recently the RIAA was offering labels and artists their own ISR codes for free - but as of March 1, 2009 they are now charging a one time fee of $75 for this service. You can now apply online for your own code at usisrc.org
Many digital distributors such as CD Baby and Tunecore can provide you with their own ISRC for your release at no extra cost as part of the costs for distributing your release. If you are doing just one release a year then this might be the best way to go - but if you are doing a number of releases each year you might find it beneficial to have your own ISR code.
For more info go to RIAA's webpage on ISRC's or the IFPI's page for more info.
CD Text: entries for Album Artist, Album Title, Album Songwriter, Track Titles, Track's Artist, Track Songwriter - that will display when the CD is played in CD Text compatible players. While we can enter up to 80 characters for each of these fields we strongly recommend that any entry be kept to 31 characters (including spaces) at maximum as many CD Text compatible players do not display beyond 31 characters (and some, such as Tascam players, do not display beyond 24 characters) .
Please note that CD Text will not display on your computer's media player! In order to display the text information in your computer's media player it must be submitted to Gracenote, AMG Lasso, freedb, and MusicBrainz. More info on how to get your CD's info to display on your computer is here.
UPC/MCN: the barcode number (11 digit code + 1 digit check sum = 12 digits total) or Media Catalog Number / EAN (13 digit code) - check out the GS1 web site for more information on these. Many CD manufacturers or online distributors such as CD Baby can also provide you with a UPC number for either free or a minimal fee.
Pause ID's: This is an index point we can put after any of the Track ID's in your CD's program that tells the CD player, when displaying program time, to show a backwards countdown to the next Track Id - and is commonly used to mark areas of longer silence between tracks, areas of applause on live albums, or areas where a cross fade is being made between two tracks. Note that areas marked with a pause id are generally ignored by CD players when put in shuffle mode.
Total Sonic Media
