LATEST NEWS

After discontinuing it two years ago, Sonic Foundry has listened to customer demand and released a brand-new version of CD Architect. I haven't checked it out yet, but it looks to be a nice update, introducing a few new features, although not CD-Text (yet). I'll keep this page up indefinitely, as it still has some useful info pertaining to the previous version of CD Architect (4.0). Thanks for bringing back this great tool Sonic Foundry!

INTRODUCTION

In late 2000, Sonic Foundry quietly discontinued their extremely powerful and easy-to-use CD authoring software, CD Architect. This software worked hand-in-hand with SoundForge 4.5 and together they provided a complete solution for mastering DAO (Disk-At-Once) CDRs and creating replication-ready CD masters. Sonic Foundry no longer offers professional CD burning capabilities in any of its products. However, the most recent version of SoundForge (version 5.0) does contain the less desirable ability to burn TAO (track-at-once) CDRs.

When CD Architect was discontinued, Sonic Foundry ceased issuing updates to support new CD burners. They maintain a list of officially supported drives but those drives are all older models at this point. They have become increasingly difficult to find, and they are old-technology, with low burn speeds and lacking current desirable features such as "burn-proof" technology.

Luckily, the final update of CD Architect (4.0g) allows the option of selecting a generic "SCSI MMC compatible" or "ATAPI(IDE) MMC compatible" drive. MMC is short for "Multi Media Command" and is a standard that was implemented a few years back to make it easier for CD software to communicate with the many brands of CD burners on the market. Theoretically, it means that any piece of software written to comply with MMC-compatible drives should work 100% with any drive claiming to be MMC-compliant. In practice however, at least with regards to CD Architect, this is not the case. The most commonly reported issues with using the "MMC Compliant" workaround are incorrect time remaing displays during burning, and being limited to "Max" for burn-speed options. Other than that, most people are reporting successful burns.

The purpose of this webpage is to document which current models of CD burners are supported by CD Architect, and what some of the caveats may be. It should be underscored that this page is completely unofficial and not connected with Sonic Foundry (though the idea of creating this page was suggested by a Sonic Foundry employee). Thanks to all who have already submitted their specs!

 
THE QUESTIONNAIRE

Anyone that is using CD Architect with a current model "officially unsupported" drive is urged to help add to the user knowledge base by answering the following questions and submitting your answers here. NOTE: This email address is only for questionnaire submissions. For other issues, see other resources at bottom of page. Thanks in advance to all those who submit information! Regards, Brent

1) Manufacturer and Model # of CD burner:

2) Type of Interface: (IDE/SCSI/USB/FIREWIRE/PCMCIA)

2b) If SCSI, indicate "internal or external", type of SCSI card, and manufacturer

3) Maximum stated CDR burn speed:
4) Maximum stated CDRW burn speed:
5) Maximum stated read speed:

6) Windows O/S: (95, 98, 98SE, ME, NT, 2000, XP)

7) Is drive basically compatible with CD Architect via MMC?: (Yes/No)

7b) What features are not supported? What tweaks/workarounds did you implement to make it work or improve performance?

8) Submitted by: (your name, email address, and/or handle)

 
THE RESULTS

Manufacturer and Model	Speeds	Type	OS	Compatible	Notes	By
Acer CRW8432A	8/4/32	IDE	Me	Yes	Drive works just fine under the ATAPI MME option with no observed lack of functionality. All speeds show up and work properly, not just "Max". No drivers were installed - I just let Windows take care of it. The only concern I have come across is that the drive doesn't work with Memorex CD-R's - they fail to register as "inserted" in the drive, and the drive doesn't recognise them. But Imation CD-R's work just fine. The burn progress bar seems to function properly and accurately without locking up.	PO
HP CD-Writer+ 9900j (ci on box)	12/10/32 8xDVD	IDE	Me	Yes	No luck with Win XP yet, I am waiting on drivers from HP. In Me it works fine.	MP
Lite-On LTR-12101B	12/10/32	IDE	ME	Yes	This CDRW drive comes with a Drivers floppy disk. When I first bought the drive, I didn't install these drivers and just let Windows do the work. The drive will work fine without them, but installing them will actually help the drive work better with CDA. When I didn't have them installed and clicked the BURN CD button, the progress indicator bar would freeze after it completed with the LEAD IN and it would seem like the computer was frozen (although the CD was burning fine). But when the drivers were installed, the progress indicator bar would not freeze and you could see exactly how much amount had been burnt. So...install those drivers!	YS
NEC NR-7700A	12/10/32	IDE	98SE	Yes	The drive works fine except for the same misbehavior as described with the LiteOn drive, i.e. after burning the Lead-in the meter freezes at 99 per cent though the burning process in the background continues fine. It recovers itself only after the disk is burned and shows Burning Lead-Out correctly.	NB
Plextor PlexWriter PX-W124TS	12/4/32	SCSI-Ext		Yes	In "Drive Selection", I clicked ADVANCED. In the subsequent dialog box, I made the following selections: 1) Drive Type: SCSI MMC Compatible, 2) SCSI Host: asc3550, 3) SCSI CD-R: The Plextor drive listed in the menu. SCSI Card: Advansys UltraWide PCI	ET
Plextor PX-W1210S	12/10/32	SCSI	2000 Pro SP2	Yes	Works as a MMC drive, however, any speed over 4x caused buffer overruns. Adaptec AIC-7892 -p Ultra160 SCSI (on SuperMicro Motherboard)	JU
Plextor PX-W1210TSE	12/10/32	SCSI-Int	2000	Yes	SCSI Card: Adaptec 2940U2W	TK
Sony CRX160E-A1	12/8/32	IDE	98,98SE,ME	Yes	Can choose any burn speed up to 12X in CDA, but receiving buffer underruns above 8X	JR
TDK VeloCD 12x10x32	12/10/32	IDE	ME & XP (dual-boot)	Yes	I'm dual-booting with Windows ME and Windows XP. It works fine on both OS's. I know people have said that they can't get CDA to run on XP, but I did a fresh install, then installed the ASPI drivers, and have had no problems at all. Go figure...	GF
TDK VeloCD CDRW161040x	16/10/32(40 Data)	IDE	98	Yes*	Burns CDRs okay, but only speed selectable is "Max". Display during burning is not accurate...seems to be based on a 1x burn, though it does indeed burn at maximum 16x speed and results in a good burn. Using the tip below of modifying the ATAPIMMC.CDD file, I replaced an entry for a Sony drive with one for my TDK drive. Doing so resulted in the following benefits: 1) The drive shows up in the drive list without having to select "MMC Compatible" option. 2) I can extract audio and PQ subcode off the drive in CD Architect...this functionality was not available using the "MMC Compatible" option. However, it still does not allow me to select any burn speed other than "Max". Burn speed is selectable when using CDPBurn though.	BA
Yamaha "LightSpeed" 16x10x40	16/10/40	SCSI-Int	2000-Pro	Yes	CDA did not recognize any speeds other than "MAX." However, a 63-minute CD burned in only 5 minutes (probably at 16x!) SCSI Card: Adaptec 2930	JM

 
 
OTHER INFORMATION

These tips were submitted by other users:

There is a technique I have used for some time to get CD Architect to work with fairly recent drives; I suspect it is confined to MMC compliant drives and will undoubtedly attract sneers of derision from the official support folks but the bottom line it that it works - and is simple to implement!

In the CDA main directory you will find a large number of files with the .CDD extension. These contain a lot of tables and quite probably executable code peculiar to individual drives. The files of interest in this case are ATAPIMMC.CDD and SCSIMMC.CDD. Open the file of interest with a hex editor and search for, say, PLEXTOR. Very soon you will come across some table entries for the Plextor drives supported by that module. Simply modify the drive identification code to that of your modern drive; job done!

Using this method I have achieved 100% success in getting CDA to support a Yamaha 8424, and Plextor models 1210A and 8220. It is only with my most recent acquisition (Plextor 2410A) that I've encountered a problem. As I said, up to now my other drives have all worked 100% including the selection of available burn speeds - I guess these are read from the target drive. But my newest drive only allows a speed of 'max' and it gets the 'time remaining' calculations all wrong. However, the resultant burn is fine, given sufficiently good media. I assume that CDA in its quaint old way doesn't believe that a drive could possibly report '24' as a burning speed :-)
-PO

Sonic Foundry CD Architect 5.0
Sonic Foundry CD Architect officially supported drives list
Sonic Foundry CD Architect forum
Sonic Foundry product suggestion page
Colin Hill's CD Burning Utilities - Burns CD Architect .CDP projects with CD-TEXT support. Also can leave disk open so you can burn a data session with another app to create a "CD Extra" disc.
GoldenHawk's CDRWIN - Alternative CD burning software
Nero's Burning Rom - Alternative CD burning software
Roxio - Alternative CD burning software for PC and Mac.