Questions from a complete idiot

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rivergoat

War Child
Joined
Oct 4, 2003
Messages
891
Location
USA
I have no clue whatsoever about burning audio to CD... alright, I know how to do it, but there a few simple(minded) questions I have, and I just don't know where to get straight answers. So I'll plague y'all with them.

I will preface my questions by saying I'm not talking about mp3s here... anything I get on mp3 stays in mp3 no matter what I do with it. It's a matter of principle - I just don't like that format. So here goes....

1) What brand/type of CD is best for burning audio onto? There are so many different brands/types, I just don't know where to start... which leads me to my next question...

2) What effect, if any, does a type/brand of CD burner have on overall quality of the end product? Maybe not just CD burner, but how about the computer itself? What configuration (hardware and/or software) is going to put out the best result? What is to be avoided? Does any of it really matter?

3) What CD burning program works best (as far as end-product quality/playability is concerned)?

4) What file format is best to burn to CD? In other words, if I'm not doing a disc-copy (I've got a few things I've "cleaned up", but now they're in .WAV format on my computer), how do I get that file format to a CD so that it plays right no matter what kind of CD player may be used?

Thanks for looking anyways...

}:)~
 
No question is stupid.

I can only help with the first question; I think the well-known brands are the way to go-most of my bootlegs are Memorex, TDK and Fujifilm. All of those brands have a good "sound" sort of speak.
 
WAV is the best audio file format and you can make an audio cd easily out of those files. When you "rip" the music of a standard audio cd it will be in the wav format (unless you compress it to make it smaller and lossy. I use Easy Cd Creator (and always have ) to burn audio and data disc and you can just drag those files into an audio project and make perfectly playable audio discs.

I use a program called EAC which makes perfect "rips" of any cd that I'm copying. So EAC (look for a place called etree for links for the free software) takes music FROM a cd and Easy CD Creator to burn the files TO make a burned CD.

As for brands of blanks i also recommend those above and the brand of burner is not as big a deal today as it was before. I keep burn speed at about 12x to be safe and because its only slightly faster than going at speeds of 48x and 52x. Its best to have decent amounts of memory (128 k ram or higher if possible) and a good processor speed 400 mhz + but old computers are easy to use. If you have a slower computer than go a lower burn speed ( like 4x or 8x).

Biggest suggestions are:

*Never do anything on a computer when you are burning (don't surf, type, download, look at porn= just leave it alone, its busy)

* Burn disc at once. Track at once leaves 2 second gaps and can ruin great albums that segway into other tracks (or all live albums)

* Don't use easy cd creator for ripping audio cd's to hd first as they do seem to add little gaps (for some reason). Use EAC instead.

* Never copy from 1 drive to another drive at the same time as that's when problems generally arise. Copying "on the fly" is not recommended as you should always copy to your hard drive first.

hope this helped...............
 
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well.... i'll be. I always wondered why I couldn't get rid of the 1/4 second gap between songs on my UABRS copy for my car. I extracted the audio from my cd at work with Roxio/Adaptec. It was frustrating cause I knew I burned it with Track at Once. I have the older Adaptec software at home and it works fine, but not so with the newer version on XP at work.

And here I am learning from a thread, when I thought I knew all I needed to know about creating cds. Downloading EAC now :)

Thanks!
 
Thanks for all y'all's help! I figured there was something I was doing wrong because I have been running into a few problems that I can't seem to resolve...

Hmmm... I guess my next question would be why can't I get my car stereo to play burned CDs - the main reason I asked most of these questions is it will not play them no matter how I burn them... Then again, it IS a stock radio from a 1997 model vehicle.. I guess I'll just need to get a new CD player for my car...

}:)~

Edit: grammar
 
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another question: i use nero express (came with my cd burner) and even when i burn disc-at-one, there's still a little skip that i can hear. it's not 2 seconds, but it's still noticeable. but this only happens when im buring mp3/wav files. when i burn .shn files theres no skip at all. does this happen to anyone else?
 
jimbo913 said:
It was frustrating cause I knew I burned it with Track at Once

That is the problem right there. Track at Once creates the gaps. You want to use Disc at Once instead.
 
rivergoat said:


Hmmm... I guess my next question would be why can't I get my car stereo to play burned CDs - the main reason I asked most of these questions is it will not play them no matter how I burn them... Then again, it IS a stock radio from a 1997 model vehicle.. I guess I'll just need to get a new CD player for my car...

Yeah as long as these are playable on your other stereo equiptment they SHOULD play on your car stereo unless your car stereo itself is too old and needs to be "upgraded".

Also keep in mind (forgot to mention) that don't record any audio as a DATA disc when burning, as any stereo equiptment won't be able to play them (except for your computer). Also mp3's don't naturally play on stereo equiptment, so if you are dragging mp3's into an audio project the computer will be transferring them to wavs as it burns them (so lower your speed significantly). If you have a disc of mp3's (as a data disc) or audio on a cd-rw you can play them on your computer, most of the newer dvd players, and the occasional new discmans but they aren't going to play on most equiptment as they are not a regular audio disc. So don't use cd-rw for audio projects unless you plan on limited use on selective equiptment.
 
Chrisedge said:


That is the problem right there. Track at Once creates the gaps. You want to use Disc at Once instead.

doh! i meant to say disc at once. guess i wasn't thinking. Honest, i tell ya :huh:

my problem was in the extraction. it wasn't a three second gap, but like a quarter of a second. sorry bout the confusion.
 
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