Burning reliable Cds

[jonathansorensen]

Thanks for the info. When I master, I master to 44.1 16 bit Wav. Maybe that's the problem. It's not broadcast wav, it's not CDA. I also haven't been checking "disc at once" which someone recommended. I'm definitely going to order Taiyo Yuden as well.

Jon

[ernstinen]

Yup, Taiyo Yuden is the standard.

BUT, do you old guys remember when "Memorex" was the worst cassette tape in the world!? Now, they make some of the most reliable CD-Rs on the market. Strange, but true! I've never had a problem with them. I also like Fuji CD-Rs.

Recording in "real time" is a different story. When I recorded my vinyl albums on a Marantz 1x CD recorder, I used Taiyo Yuden Gold CD-Rs. They are very expensive, but for archiving they're great.

My 2 pesos,

Ernesto

[mojobone]

I've been burning at 48X forever; I think if you have enough L2 cache and a fast front-side bus, higher revs aren't much of an issue, unless your media don't support them. (though some drives are finicky about higher speeds, and are more so with certain media) I think digital overs and intersample peaks are more likely to produce errors, however, burned CDs tend to have lower block error rates than manufactured CDs, and because error correction is built into the spec, errors are one of the least likely causes of disc failure.

[rnrmachine]

Thanks for the info. When I master, I master to 44.1 16 bit Wav. Maybe that's the problem. It's not broadcast wav, it's not CDA. I also haven't been checking "disc at once" which someone recommended. I'm definitely going to order Taiyo Yuden as well.

Jon

That IS a proper master... so you are doing the correct thing. You might want to read up on "Red Book" as it pertains to audio and or Cds. But mixing down to 16bit 44.1KHz is exactly what you want your stereo masters to be at before converting to MP3 and or writing CDs. The burn software itself SHOULD BE converting that to cda.

[rnrmachine]

I've been burning at 48X forever; I think if you have enough L2 cache and a fast front-side bus, higher revs aren't much of an issue, unless your media don't support them. (though some drives are finicky about higher speeds, and are more so with certain media) I think digital overs and intersample peaks are more likely to produce errors, however, burned CDs tend to have lower block error rates than manufactured CDs, and because error correction is built into the spec, errors are one of the least likely causes of disc failure.

Burning at 48khz will work because MOST CD players use a chip that will do both. 48 or 44... it's the same chip that translates these two. The problem you MAY encounter is a mathematical scenario during conversion. 48khz does NOT mathematically compute properly to 44.1Khz. That is why most people will record depending where their audio will end up. IF on CD they will record in the multiples of 44.1khz (88.2khz or 176.4khz) if in video then in the multiples of 48KHz (96khz or 192khz).

Someone at E-MU, back when they still had phone support, told me they did all their writing at 48khz too Mojo... he said that he had yet to find a CD player that wouldn't play his CDs. Although, that would NOT be Jon's problem. The fact is, 44.1khz done properly, should work on EVERY system where technically 48khz may not. Also, if someone is recording at 44.1khz... I would HIGHLY recommend leaving it that way. Converting up to 48khz would gain nothing but the possibility of more errors.

Rob

[mojobone]

I'm speaking of the disc's write speed, Rob, as in one forty-eighth of the program's length. Burning a 48kHz file would almost certainly result in the disc being incompatible with most CD players, or at the very least, would play back too slow and at a slightly lower pitch; (or higher and faster) some DAT decks will do that when fed a digital file at the wrong sampling rate. Also, the idea that a 48kHz file can't be accurately rendered/converted to 44.1kHz is just plain wrong; stuff gets upsampled and downsampled between the two every day with no loss of perceived quality. (there may be some truncation if you do it in ProTools, but most experts agree that even dogs can't hear it. (though I'm not sure how many dogs they asked) The only appreciable difference is that the calculation may take a couple fifths of a picosecond longer for your processor to digest. Of course, all sample rate converters aren't created equal, and many folks on these interwebs report hearing differences, but if you don't believe me, you can do a null test; render a 48kHz music file out to 44.1kHz, convert the rendered file back to 48kHz, (that's two conversions) re-import it, and reverse the polarity of the newly imported file, taking care not to normalize or change the gain of either file; you should hear zilch when you play the two files together in mono.

[Torch]

Jonathon.....

I heave been buring CD's for many years, so lemme give you my input. It is imperative to have a good CD burner. You did not mention whether you are using a desktop ot laptop PC. If you are unsure of the relaibaility of your burner, then you can go to websites such as www.tigerdirect.com or www.newegg.com to order a new DVD burner inexpensively. Yes....a DVD burner. For if a drive is built to burn a DVD real well, then it goes without saying that it wil burn a CD without issue. My favorite brad of burner is Lite-On. There are inexpensive, yet very reliable.
As for CD Media (blank CD's), stick with brands that sound familiar such as TDK, Memorex or Phillips, for example. I usually get my best deals at my local Radio Shack store.
Get yourself a CD/DVD cleaner for your boomoboxes. When you put the disc into your player, a voice will come on a give your instructions thru the cleaning process. A little buit of dirt can make a HUGE difference. Let me also point out....you should have a boombox that was MADE to play blank CD's. Many of the older models do NOT play blank (recorded) CD's very well, if at all. I have learned that you cannot just ASSUME that any boombox will naturally play a burned disc without problems. I have had some that do NOT work well for burned CD's.

As for CD burning programs, I have found two that are very reliable. If you are using Windows XP (or older) as your Operating Sytem, then Nero Express is simple, effective and solid. The other good choice for most Windows-based Operating Systems (including Windows 7) is a totally free "burning studio" program called Ashampoo. I happen to use Ashampoo on a few of my PC's and it works GREAT!!!! I recently installed that program on a PC for my nephew and his wife. They love it!

My final comment is.....if you are going to do a public CD presetation and you are unsure what brand or model of boombox they have, simply bring your own. Test each track on your CD (at least a sample of each track) before you leave home so that you are confident it will work. And so, by taking your own Boombox to any of these meeting/events/classes, you ca be far more confident of a solid performance!!!!

[rnrmachine]

Hey Mojo,

I am saying this with 100% kindness and attempting to tell you something that you apparently don't know, so please take it that way.

I think you need to read up on sample rate conversion and the actual math behind it, if you are going to argue with someone about it. If you actually knew the math behind it, you wouldn't dare argue. The math between 48khz and 44.1khz just doesn't work out. I didn't say you can't do it either so don't act like I did... please... I have done it and I have done it plenty... it don't make it smart or right just because you, I or other people do it. It's just something you shouldn't do unless you have to.

I am sorry I misunderstood the 48 on your post... I do burn that fast quite often myself.. BUT IF I was sending it to a friend/family member, a duplicator OR I was having issues playing it in CD players I would slow it down. Burning slow for a Duplicating house is what they request and if you would seriously burn a CD at the highest speed on a master CD for a run then I just don't know what to say. I don't burn at 48Khz... ever, just the support guy at E-MU said he does, all the time, and he told me about how the chips in CD players translate both.. 48khz and 44.1khz, that is the nature of them. So if they do both there wouldn't be any problems. I also said 44.1khz done correctly would work in all systems. So you acting like I am saying it's ok to do it.. I am NOT saying that, I mentioned that a guy from E-MU said he does it and I was sharing that information. I NEVER said I do it... I just thought you said you did and it reminded me of that dude from E-MU telling me that. That is probably why I misunderstood you because I thought of him. Like I said.. sorry. Anyway, it must work fine for him or why would he say he does it? /shrug Like I said... He said it works on every CD he has ever tried. (remember this was a E-MU support tech which were the same guys that write the drivers etc...) Another thing... when I told him I was using the Creative Labs MP3 converter I thought he was going to have a heart attack as he told me.. never use that, it just truncates.

Also, L2 cache & memory size isn't why you should burn slower. It's mostly about the laser burning the info onto the CD... slower = less chance for errors. There is still a chance for math errors as in ANY conversion process. I ain't making this sh+t up dude. It looks like you think I am... If you don't believe me... call a Duplication House and see what they tell you about how fast you should burn the CD you are going to send to them... and then ask why. Then call someone about the math behind sample rate conversion and ask them to explain it to you, OR if you think you can learn it then look it up on the internet. It's readily available.

Out of curiosity, when given the option on MP3 conversion, do you choose the fastest or slowest? Fastest is considered lower quality then the slowest setting, is considered the best, and it's all because of math errors in the conversion process.

Anyway, it's not a big deal if you don't believe me, in the end I still know the facts. I just wanted to point out these things that I have studied and wanted to explain further because you seem to have some misunderstandings about them.

Hey Torch,

Good info dude, so many people forget to clean CD players, I really like the obvious, but it didn't cross my mind, BYOBoom box.

I have 2 lite-on DVD writers (in separate comps), the newest one can do lightscribe. I know it's not a big deal but I think that lightscribe stuff looks really cool!! And it is a DVD ram drive as well. BUT my older lite on DVD writer seems like a more reliable writer. I just NEVER have problems with it but the newer one just seems to have issues at times... while writing.

Rob

[mojobone]

Hmmm, I was reading a lil' something on the interwebs the other day about how smart individuals don't make the group any smarter; I thought it was hogwash, on the face of it, but this might jes' be an example. Firstly, Rob is correct in that L2 cache and FSB speed are no longer a common issue in CD failures, but they used to be, until most software burners incorporated buffer underrun protection. (and cache and FSB speed increased exponentially) The idea that a recently-manufactured CD player can play 48kHz files is news to me, but I shouldn't be surprised, seeing as how many of them can also play MP3s, now. (my guess would be that it involved little more than adding a few new codecs to the player's EPROM chip) However, since the OP's issue involved backward compatibility, my humble opinion is that burning a 48kHz file to an audio CD for playback in CD players is a bad idea. (and I understand, Rob, that you're not advocating this) In fact, Nero won't let me do that, but has no trouble burning same to a data disc. I tried making a mixed-mode disc for the DVD player recently, to see if it worked; no go, so far, but I think I know where I went wrong. (I'll maybe post an update after I read the help files, heh)

In the matter of sample rate conversion, by which I mean converting between one sample rate and another without changing the bit depth, I'm sticking to my guns; it's strictly a mathematical process, and your computer isn't going to forget to carry the one. We're not talking about resampling, we're speaking of upsampling and downsampling. In a nutshell, upsampling is multiplication and downsampling is division; there's no 'fuzzy math' involved, and neither process, on its own, will affect the perceived quality of your audio. (this is, in fact, how digital pitch-shifting is done; there are certainly some differences between any given pitch-shift algorithm and the next, but they have more to do with the filters and converters involved, cf. Bob Katz' Mastering Audio)

The cheapest calculator I have gives this, for 48 divided by 44.1: 1.0884353; if the actual figure is longer, (and it is) and we neither round up nor down, that's similar to truncation. (and I say similar, because these values are expressed in binary for the software's purposes, dig?) Basically, what I'm saying here is that it's very much a quantifiable number, not an irrational one, like pi. Even if it were, the error correction built into the CD spec should theoretically obviate the need for further decimal places. (there's a lot more to that, but I'm not trying to write a book, here)

Without delving further into the morass, (love that word) there are indeed some limits to how well we can measure a snippet of audio that lasts for forty-four thousand and one hundredths of a second, but those are more about bit depth, which is the size of the word used to express the measured value; the sampling rate is a whole lot less relevant to quality of reproduction, beyond a point. According to some studies that I trust, a trained (not average) human under the age of thirty can just barely discern a difference between 48kHz audio and 44.1kHz at 16 bits in a controlled listening environment, and at 24 bits, that difference disappears. Of course, all this leaves aside the subject of dithering; some mastering engineers behave as if sample rate conversion is some sort of voodoo; I don't send my mixes to those guys. When it comes to dither, there are some different flavors, and plenty of room for disagreement. One thing everyone seems to agree on is to dither once, and dither only when changing the bit depth. (I could drone on longer about why, if you like)

PS: Delivering your data to a mastering house or replicator is a whole 'nother subject; I don't use audio CDs for that, a data disc or a thumb drive is safer, imo.

[rnrmachine]

Hmmm, I was reading a lil' something on the interwebs the other day about how smart individuals don't make the group any smarter; I thought it was hogwash, on the face of it, but this might jes' be an example.

Mojo,

I would beg to differ with that and agree with your first summation... it is hogwash!!... although I can see the point trying to be made (that saying comes to mind, "A person is smart, but people are dumb" and it sounds like a twist on that)... First off, IF that was true, school wouldn't work. SO I would say it is safe to TRASH that discussion as plain B+++sh+t just on that alone. I can see a group of cavemen sitting around a fire and two of the guys are trying to teach the others not to put their hands in the fire. Then a dumba++ dude puts his hand in and burns himself, now the group understands and as whole has become smarter. Even dumb people have their place in a group... I've had enough schooling with a lot of smart people that helped me become smarter, enough to know that is just hogwash. I could say a lot more about this but I am done with that stupidity. Your first summation was the correct one Mojo, imho.

Back on topic... I understand someone might choose a different option then a CD if submitting to a duplicating service when they offer those options. I was trying to make a point about how important it is to burn at slower speeds when time/patience isn't an issue especially if you use Red Book. Anyone should read this article at SOS http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/nov04/a ... 1104-3.htm After all the conversation is about what speed to burn at since I told him to try a lower burn speed. That could very well fix his issues as well as a number of the other things mentioned in the thread. For some writers different speeds will be better then others and if the writer is good enough not much difference at all. It all depends on a number of things and this is something that people need to read up on about their specific drives. It very well may be that Mojo, your drive works just fine at it's max speed but his does not... it don't make you right or me wrong. I offered this up as an avenue to check and see why his audio CDs are not working properly.

Off the original topic again... Sorry for this odd thread hijacking dude, My misunderstanding of Mojo got us off topic and when I told you to try lower burn speeds which IS valid advice, I never thought it would turn into this. Although I am not sorry enough to stop apparently... haha

Mojo, I do agree that once you are talking about going over 44.1khz 16bit that bit depth is more important initially. If only given one option as which one I would choose to increase it would be bit depth without any hesitation. I don't want to get into a "I can hear this difference and that difference" argument, they never turn out well for many reasons. I have read a bunch that made me laugh a lot more then I learned. All I will say is, I am quite aware of delusional differences. When I talk to others about differences I only want to deal in real world differences that the world of audio engineers, as a whole, agrees there is a difference...

On the sample rate conversion issue, it's not the computer that is making the errors that you need to worry about. Any discussion further on this would just get esoteric. Although this info will help a person produce more pro sounding recordings/mixes it would not be a deal breaker imho. I understand it is difficult to know, in our case, where this music will end up. I personally like to record at 48khz so if I get a TV deal it will be in that commonly used format. So I am constantly converting down to 44.1khz to make MP3s and put em online. It don't make it choice for the pure audio side. If I was doing only music meant for a CD and to put online I would record at 44.1khz. I do have a couple songs I recorded at 88.2khz, 96khz and one I did at 192khz, just to try it. But I loose a lot of processing power at that high of range so with my older setup it wasn't worth it. My current setup has brought me back into mixing those projects just to see what I can do. I am not done yet so no decision is made...

One of my best recordings was recorded at 44.1khz 16bit... I wouldn't recommend recording at that but it's not like it would be a deal breaker either imho.

Rob