Mastering and Rendering with a Screen Reader

This chapter takes an edited album through mastering and out to rendered files. The full workflow is described in Mastering and Rendering.

Setting Up the Album

  1. The album is built on the first (destination) folder, so make sure your finished edit is there.
  2. Clear all item names on the parent track except those that start a CD track. Ctrl+T removes all take names from the folder track.
  3. Name the track starts in the accessible Notes window (N) or with the quick Item Name window (Shift+N).
  4. Press Y to open the accessible DDP Metadata Editor.

The DDP Metadata Editor

The editor is a single list. ↑ and ↓ move between the CD tracks, Render Settings, Render, Album and CD Settings. ← and → choose which kind of metadata is read out for the current row: title, performer, songwriter, composer, arranger, message and ISRC (the Album row has its own set of fields).

  • Enter edits the cell you are on in an input box already filled with its value, then stops, so you can press ↓ and Enter repeatedly to fill in one field down every track
  • Ctrl+A applies the current value to every track, Ctrl+R to this and the later tracks, Ctrl+P copies the previous track's value and Ctrl+U copies the album's
  • Invalid ISRC and catalog entries reopen the input box. Read-only cells, such as the automatic album contributors and the automatic ISRC on tracks after the first, tell you why they cannot be edited
  • CD Settings covers Digital Release Only (no CD start offset and no snapping to CD frames), manual ISRC entry, pre and post roll and marker offsets
  • On the Album row you enter the album title, performer, songwriter, composer, arranger, genre, identification, language, catalog (EAN/UPC) and message

Reordering and Offsets

  • To move an album track earlier or later, select its named item in the arrange window and press Ctrl+← or Ctrl+→. It swaps with the track above or below it, gaps are preserved, and any snapshot automation is rebuilt for the new order
  • Ctrl+Y (Reposition Album Tracks) spaces the tracks with a uniform gap in seconds that you enter, leaving crossfaded items intact
  • In CD Settings, the Marker Offsets row adds or clears the CD marker offsets. Shift+O and Alt+O do the same from anywhere. If a cough or a string noise precedes a downbeat, see Marker Offsets

Checking and Warnings

Warnings are announced rather than shown in a dialog. Before rendering, ReaClassical checks for characters that DDP and CD-Text cannot hold (anything outside Latin-1, and embedded line breaks), duplicated ISRC codes and tracks without a title. If a room tone track is shorter than the album, you hear how many seconds short it is.

Rendering

Rendering is part of the same editor:

  1. Move to Render Settings and press Enter. It walks through the sample rate, bit depth and dither in turn (↑ and ↓ to choose, Enter to confirm each)
  2. Move to Render and press Enter. Choose the format: DDP, Cue Audio, WAV, FLAC, Opus 160, MP3 320, M: Stems or Custom
  3. For the per-track formats you are then asked for an optional track range such as 1-3,5. Leave it empty for every track
  4. ReaClassical announces what it is rendering, for example "Rendering FLAC, full album", and renders without opening REAPER's dialog

DDP, Cue Audio and Custom always render the whole album. The files go into the project's Exports folder, as described in Rendering.

Playing the Album Back

Ctrl+Alt+Shift+Y opens the CD Player, which plays the album back like a physical CD player. Its window needs keyboard focus (press the shortcut again for a fresh, focused one). P plays, pauses and resumes, S stops, → and ← change track, ↑ and ↓ fast forward and rewind, D enters a track number, 1 to 9 jump to a track, T cycles the time that is announced (track elapsed or remaining, album elapsed or remaining), R cycles repeat (off, track, album) and Escape powers off. B starts Transition Review, which plays each join (the start of the album, every transition and the end) with a pre-roll and post-roll that you set with W. Press H for the list of keys. See CD Player.

Checking Peaks and Loudness

Shift+P opens the Peak and Overs Check (see Mixing with a Screen Reader). For loudness, REAPER's render dialog can normalize to a loudness target and run a dry run, and the dialog can be opened from the editor's Custom button.

Reports

The metadata editor also writes the album reports (album_report.html and album_report.txt), metadata.txt, and the CUE and CD-Text files, as described in Mastering. The HTML report opens in a browser and is laid out as ordinary headings and tables for a screen reader.