SonicStage CD Info (and MD Titling) Solution: SonicStageTitles

[tetsuo29]

Hello. I have recently rediscovered my Minidiscs and also purchased my first Net MD capable player / recorder. Even though people keep telling me not to use SonicStage, I've come to prefer it. I got SS 4.3 from these forums and installed it in a VirtualBox VM running Windows XP SP3. I like ripping my CDs to ATRAC Lossless and using those files to transfer to MDs using either LP2 or SP (if I want to play on my older MD units). However, I got sick of typing the CD info in and was looking for a way to automate this in SS 4.3 and I have come up with what I feel is a halfway decent solution. I've created a new Windows app that I call SonicStageTitles that I can paste the track listing into and this program generates a VBScript that can type the titles into SS.

The basic work flow is:

1. search the CD catalog number at Discogs.com
2. highlight & copy the track info
3. paste this into SonicStageTitles
4. click the "Extract Titles" button, verify or fix anything that looks incorrect
5. click the "Generate Script" button
6. check what it generated in the "VBScript body" text box (make sure there aren't any bad characters)
7. click the "Run VBScript" button
8. SonicStage will be brought to the foreground
9. A dialog will appear stating that after you click "Ok" you have 7 seconds to get the first track in edit mode
10. Click OK
11. Click on the first track (click again, if it wasn't already highlighted)
12. See that track 1 is in edit mode with all characters highlighted
13. Sit and watch as the generated VBScript script types all the track names in for me

I know that seeing 13 steps listed there might seem like a lot but, it's really pretty dang easy and a lot easier than typing titles manually.

If anyone else is interested in using SonicStageTitles, let me know and I will hook you up with a copy to try out. I've only tested it in WinXP with SS 4.3 so, I have no idea if it works in other versions of Windows or with other versions of SS. Also, I hear that the latest Win 10 update prevents VBScripts from using the sendKeys command. If that's true, then this script will not work on those versions of Win 10.

 

[tetsuo29]

I've written a Windows app that allows me to paste track info from Discogs.com into a text box, click a button and then have VBScript type the titles into SonicStage for me. I'd be happy to share it with anyone who's interested in trying it out.

[Lrp55]

1 hour ago, tetsuo29 said:

I've written a Windows app that allows me to paste track info from Discogs.com into a text box, click a button and then have VBScript type the titles into SonicStage for me. I'd be happy to share it with anyone who's interested in trying it out.

Yes i am very intrested in this idea u have just a side note will it work with windows xp?

[tetsuo29]

4 minutes ago, Lrp55 said:

Yes i am very intrested in this idea u have just a side note will it work with windows xp?

Coincidentally, I'm running XP in VirtualBox so, the only OS I've tested it on is XP running SonicStage 4.3.

[Lrp55]

10 hours ago, tetsuo29 said:

Coincidentally, I'm running XP in VirtualBox so, the only OS I've tested it on is XP running SonicStage 4.3.

I will be running it on real hardware as i find vms to b a bit unstable if u can upload to this forum so us fans of minidisc can give it a go.

Thanks in advance

[tetsuo29]

Here it is. I hope it works as well for others as it is working for me.

I've included an Instructions document. I think it's worth reading before you use it.

Despite the length of the instructions I wrote, once you get the hang of it, it's really as simple as:

1. Copy from discogs
2. Paste
3. Click a few buttons
4. Watch the titles get typed in for you

Let me know how it goes. I've only tested it on my VirtualBox VM running Windows XP SP3 and SonicStage 4.3 (that I got from these forums).

SonicStageTitles.rar

SonicStageTitles.zip

Edited February 28, 2021 by tetsuo29
It occurs to me that some people might not have software for decompressing .rar files, so I'm attaching a .zip as well.

[tetsuo29]

Discovered last night that my program couldn't handle when there are quotes inside of a song title. Fixed that.

Also, if the VBScript it generated error out, it would just appear to do nothing. Fixed it so that the error message is reported on the screen.

So, here's v1.1

If anyone uses it, please let me know how it goes.

 

SonicStageTitles v1.1.zip

[Lrp55]

20 hours ago, tetsuo29 said:

Discovered last night that my program couldn't handle when there are quotes inside of a song title. Fixed that.

Also, if the VBScript it generated error out, it would just appear to do nothing. Fixed it so that the error message is reported on the screen.

So, here's v1.1

If anyone uses it, please let me know how it goes.

 

SonicStageTitles v1.1.zip 5.7 MB · 0 downloads

i hope u don't mind me mesioning this but there is/was a problem with the initial release on my xp copmaq laptop sonic stage would sometimes just disappear might b my install so i will reinstall xp and let u know how the new version is. p.s it also works for titleing mds recorded in real time so it is not limited to just the cd side of the program.now that very handy. kind regards to the creator.

[tetsuo29]

I've cooked up a solution to putting CD Info into SonicStage. I wrote an app that generates some VBScript that types the titles into SonicStage for me.

It can be used to title MDs or CDs.

The basic use case is:

• search the CD titles out (I use discogs.com & search by catalog number)
• copy the tab delimited text of the titles
• paste into my program
• click a few buttons
• watch the titles get typed in for me

Anyway, it's working great for me so, I'm uploading it for anyone else who might be interested. I originally developed it on Win XP and have now tested it and updated it to work on Win 7 as well. If anyone uses it, I'd love to hear how it worked for them.

SonicStageTitles v1.3.zip

[tetsuo29]

Finally got a chance to test this on Win 7. I was horrified to discover that pressing tab doesn't move to the next song title in SonicStage 4.3 in Win 7. You have to press the down arrow.

I've modified the program to simulate down arrow presses instead of tabs. I've also added a half second delay after typing a title and pressing down. I did this to hopefully cut down on crashes caused when using it to title MDs.

Again, if anyone uses it, I'd love to know how it goes. I mostly made it for me and it's saved me a bunch of grunt work but, it's always nice to think it might be helpful to others as well.

SonicStageTitles v1.3.zip

[tetsuo29]

Never saw any replies to my previous post. But, my little program has evolved and is still working quite well for me. So, I'm uploading it here just in case anyone else finds it useful.

I've used it to input the titles or about 2 dozen CDs now and it's so nice just copying from discogs.com, clicking a few buttons, and watching the titles get typed into SonicStage for me.

It can even be used to title MDs since all it does is generate a VBScript that simulates keystrokes.

Anyway, if anyone else tries it and finds it useful, I'd love knowing about it.

SonicStageTitles v1.3.zip

[kalkie]

17 hours ago, tetsuo29 said:

Never saw any replies to my previous post. But, my little program has evolved and is still working quite well for me. So, I'm uploading it here just in case anyone else finds it useful.

I've used it to input the titles or about 2 dozen CDs now and it's so nice just copying from discogs.com, clicking a few buttons, and watching the titles get typed into SonicStage for me.

It can even be used to title MDs since all it does is generate a VBScript that simulates keystrokes.

Anyway, if anyone else tries it and finds it useful, I'd love knowing about it.

SonicStageTitles v1.3.zip 5.55 MB · 1 download

I tried your program, it is a nice way to input the titles into SonicStage, I use Windows 10 (64 bits) and there were no problems. Some CD's contains CD TEXT and then your program is not needed for that CD. But if you want cover art then you can of course lookup the CD at Discogs to copy the cover art. Thanks for sharing your program, I keep using it. May be you can expand your program in the future to get also the albumname, artist and genre into SonicStage.
Jan.

[tetsuo29]

7 hours ago, kalkie said:

I tried your program, it is a nice way to input the titles into SonicStage, I use Windows 10 (64 bits) and there were no problems. Some CD's contains CD TEXT and then your program is not needed for that CD. But if you want cover art then you can of course lookup the CD at Discogs to copy the cover art. Thanks for sharing your program, I keep using it. May be you can expand your program in the future to get also the albumname, artist and genre into SonicStage.
Jan.

Hi! Thanks for the feedback. It makes me happy to know it's useful to someone else besides myself. I definitely would modify it to also get the album, artist, & genre if I can think of an easy way to do this. In fact, I'm starting to scheme of how to do this now. You got me thinking.

[tetsuo29]

So, I gotten to v1.5 of my program that will type CD Info into SonicStage. It's improved quite a bit and I think it does everything I want it to. There's a .pdf included in the .zip file with both detailed and simple instructions. I'm hoping this will be the final release.

If you haven't seen any of my previous posts about this, the basic use case is this:

• copy artist, album, genre & tracklist from web (I recommend using discogs.com and searching by CD catalog number)
• paste into SonicStageTitles
• click a few buttons
• watch the CD Info get typed into SonicStage for you

Things that are new in this version:

• you can paste artist, album, & genre info along with the tracklist and it types all of these items into SonicStage for you
• the ability to highlight artist, album, or genre from the pasted info and then right click to set any of these (in case the program guesses wrong)
• separate "CD Script" & "MD Script" script generation buttons
• simpler process for getting SonicStage ready for the automated typing to begin (merely have to click in the "Album Title" or "Disc Name" boxes)
• improved documentation with screen shots

Anyway, I mostly wrote this for me and it's working great for me. I'm sharing it here just in case it helps anyone else. If it does help you, I would love to hear about it (I've spent more hours on it now than I care to think about).

Here's a video of it in action.

SonicStageTitles v1.5.zip

[kalkie]

16 hours ago, tetsuo29 said:

Anyway, I mostly wrote this for me and it's working great for me. I'm sharing it here just in case it helps anyone else. If it does help you, I would love to hear about it (I've spent more hours on it now than I care to think about).

I have tested your new version and it works very well, the only field I now have to type myself, after the import of the CD, is Year Released.
Your program is especially useful when importing a CD and want the result files coded as Atrac Advanced Lossless, for other lossless (or lossy) codecs there are several (free) rip programs with direct connection to Discogs or MusicBrainz etc.. For example you can rip to WMA lossless and import the files in SonicStage while keeping the tags.
Your instructions how to use the program are very good also.

[tetsuo29]

16 hours ago, kalkie said:

I have tested your new version and it works very well, the only field I now have to type myself, after the import of the CD, is Year Released.
Your program is especially useful when importing a CD and want the result files coded as Atrac Advanced Lossless, for other lossless (or lossy) codecs there are several (free) rip programs with direct connection to Discogs or MusicBrainz etc.. For example you can rip to WMA lossless and import the files in SonicStage while keeping the tags.
Your instructions how to use the program are very good also.

Thanks for the feedback! I only import to ATRAC Lossless in SonicStage. I guess that's why I was so focused on making a solution to get the CD Info entered more easily. I'm curious which free programs rip WMA lossless with the tags. I never investigated that and now I'd like to try it and compare.

[kalkie]

One of the options is to use Exact Audio Copy (EAC) to rip a CD, choose WMA-lossless and the tagged files can be imported into SonicStage and (or) into another program such as MusicBee or MediaMonkey.

[tetsuo29]

Discovered today that there was a bug in the MD titling scripts generated by my program. Fixed it. Here's an updated release.

SonicStageTitles v1.5.1.zip

[Azureal]

This is great stuff @tetsuo29, I plan to test this today. Thanks for sharing with the community!

[minidisc1978]

Hi there!

I am returning to the world of MD after more than 12 years away and have picked up a couple of NetMD recorders (a NZ-N505 + NZ-710) and I also have an MXD-D40 deck allowing direct CD->MD dubbing.

Maybe my memory is fooling me, but I didn't remember what a horror show SonicStage was. Wow....

I had planned to copy a load of compilation CDs to FLAC and automate some kind of workflow to burn to MD. Needless to say I have hit a few snags. One is the titling issue, SS not having a licence for CDDB anymore, WAVs not containing metadata, etc. So I would love to test out your utility.

Even more so, because.... I have a lot of double albums needing gapless playback, very close to 80 mins each. So, in theory, 2x80 min CDs should fit on to a 80min MD in LP2 mode - right? Well.. not so easy it seems.

Something is going on with SS.... I don't quite get the full capacity out of the MD - I don't know why - it is approx 35-40 tracks with fairly long titles. Are the titles eating in to the free space, or is SS just less efficient than recording via line-in/direct? 

I have used hours trying to solve this today. The last track of an CD I have here is 5:19 mins in duration, and I should have enough room on the MD - but after writing the previous tracks I end up with (2:37 in SP mode) 4 seconds short.. (even though the total of the CDs is like 79 mins and a few seconds).

VERY IRRITATING!

So, my next plan, is to copy from CD to MD directly in the MXD-D40 deck at LP2 - this works - and much easier to handle gapless playback - but, of course, I don't get any track titles.

So, your utility script could be excellent to do a post-burn titling job on the PC. I will give it a try over the weekend and let you know how I get on!

P.S. Running SS43Ultimate on Win 10 64bit. Works fairy well, but sometimes freezes when I initialise/erase a disk.

Update: Tried with 'no titles', just a running number in the title field - but, exactly same issue, so it is not the title lengths causing issue.