The CD Player

SoundStation allows you to control your computer's CD-ROM drive as you would with a home CD player, enabling you to listen to your favorite music CD's while you work.  To find out more about a particular part of the CD player component, click on the desired button or display on the picture above.

See Also:  General SoundStation Help


The Program Button

The Program button pulls up the CD programming dialog.  The CD programming dialog is shown below:

The CD Programming Dialog allows you to select your own random order of tracks to play from a currently loaded CD.  You can select the same song more than once, and you can essentially program your order however you like.  You may select up to 99 tracks to play in this manner.

Selecting your Order

You must already have a CD loaded in the CD player before you can program it.  Once the programming dialog appears you will notice a list of the tracks on the CD in the listbox labeled "CD Tracks".  Each track is numbered in sequential order and also contains the time of each track.

To select a track to play, double click on the desired track in the CD Tracks listbox and it will be added to the Play Order listbox.  Select each track that you want to play one at a time in this manner until you have your desired play order.  Remember that you can use any track more than once, and that you do not have to use every track at least once.

To clear a single selection from the Play Order, double click on that entry with the left mouse button.  To clear the entire list, press the "Clear" button under the Play Order list.

Turning Play Order On or Off

If you enter the CD Programming Dialog, select a play order, and press the "OK" button, then the Play order is now active.  This will be indicated by the LED on the Program button remaining lit once the Dialog is exited.  You can turn off the Play order in one of several methods.  Selecting Random or Repeat mode, ejecting or re-loading the CD, or selecting the "Cancel" button from the CD Programming Dialog will all turn the Play Order off.


The Track Button

The Track Button switches the display between the current track playing and the total number of tracks on the CD.  Unless you have modified the operation of the Track button, the display will revert back to the current track number indication if you view the total number of tracks using the Track button.

To change the operation of the Track button, see the topic on The CD Player Setup Dialog.

Refer to the following illustrations on the different symbols for the Track display:

Total tracks

Track currently playing


The Time Button

The Time Button switches the display between counting up or down the time on the currently playing track, counting up or down the time remaining on the entire CD, or to show the total time on the CD.  Unless you have modified the operation of the Time button, the display will revert back to the counting up the time of the current track if you view any of the other modes.

To change the operation of the Time button, see the topic on The CD Player Setup Dialog.

Refer to the following illustrations on the different symbols for the Time display:

Total playing time

Track count down time

Track count up time

Total count down time

Total count up time


The Eject Button

This button stops the CD from playing.  If your CD is equipped with a power media drawer, the drawer will open.  If your CD is not equipped with a power media drawer, no further action will occur (although in some cases, you may receive an error which you can ignore).


The Random Button

Setting this button ON will cause the CD player to randomly shuffle tracks to play.  Each track on the CD will be played only once, and all tracks will be played, unless the CD player is stopped.

You can press the Random Button while the CD is currently playing.  In this case, the random order will start with the next track to be played.  If left running, the track that was originally playing will eventually be played again.


The Load Button

This button loads the track information from the CD player.  This includes both track times and track numbers.  Note that after loading a new CD, you may either press this button to obtain this information, or just press the Play button to load and then start playing.


The Repeat Button

This button has three states:

NOT ON - the CD is played in sequential order.

REPEAT ALL - the CD is played through from beginning to end.  When the last track on the CD list is finished playing, play resumes with the first track on the CD, and continues on through the entire CD until Repeat mode is reset.

REPEAT SINGLE - the currently playing track is repeated over and over again until the REPEAT button is reset or the player is stopped.


The Reverse Skip Button

The Reverse Skip Button allows you to choose the previous CD track to play.  The CD player can be playing, paused or stopped.  The previous track will be ready to play from the beginning.  If you skip while playing, the previous track will start immediately.


The Rewind Button

The Rewind Button allows you to skip back through the current selection.  To quickly skip back one second in the selection, press and release the rewind button once.  If you hold the rewind button, the time display will indicate that you are moving backwards through the selection, slowly at first, and then more rapidly.  Note that you cannot rewind the current selection past the beginning of the selection (it will not skip back to the end of the previous selection).


The Pause Button

This button allows you to pause CD playback.  To resume playback, press the pause button again (or press the Play button).  The device should be paused if the red LED on the button is on or flashing.  The device should be playing if the red LED is extinguished (and the play is on).


The Stop Button

The Stop Button causes playback to stop for the player.  If you stop in the middle of a track and then press play again, the current track will play from the beginning of the track.


The Play Button

The Play button starts playback of the CD from the current position of the currently selected track.  If a new CD has been inserted, the information from the CD will be loaded and the playback will start on Track 1 (unless Random mode or Play List mode is active).


The Fast Forward Button

The Fast Forward Button allows you to skip forward through the current selection.  To quickly skip forward one second in the selection, press and release the fast forward button once.  If you hold the fast forward button, the time display will indicate that you are moving forward through the selection, slowly at first, and then more rapidly.  Note that you cannot fast forward the current selection past the end of the selection (it will not skip forward to the beginning of the next selection).


The Forward Skip Button

The Forward Skip Button allows you to choose the next CD track to play.  The CD player can be playing, paused or stopped.  The next track will be ready to play from the beginning.  If you skip while playing, the next track will start immediately.


The CD Display

A closeup of the CD player display is shown above.  Click on an area of the display to find out more about that area.


The CD Track display shows either the total number of tracks on the CD or the current track.


The CD Time display shows either the total time of the CD or the time of the current track.  The time display can either count up or count down the current track or total CD time.  The time format is in hours:minutes:seconds.


The CD Repeat indicator shows whether repeat mode is on or not and whether the current track or the whole CD will be repeated.