Well, now I've got another problem. Recording music from a videotape/DVD, I need to use "Record Manual." So I press the "Rec Type" button until I get to "Record Manual." It comes up and says "Wait," then when it should go to "Press Record," it instead stops and says "Update," then just sits there. And I did nothing for it do so. (The first time it did this, I turned the power off to re-set everything, and when I turned it back on, it said "Error," and I lost the disc.) After several moments, it goes back to where I can set it again to "Record Manual" and everything works fine, but it becomes quite annoying, as it seems to happen about every 18-19 tracks.

Have you tried a different brand of CD-R media? It's worth a try!

Making CDRs is almost hassle free.
No glitches, and no frikkin' annoying 2-second gaps (I do believe I am the only person on the planet, other than Shaun, that seems to realize the importance of eliminating this gap to make a good CDR -- especially if you have continuous tracks).

I highly suggest them for the computer, assuming, of course, you can afford to get one soon.

Dantoris: It might still be a media problem. There are only 10 or so different producers of CD-R media, so maybe TDK and MAXELL are in fact the same. Or your recorder simply has problems with both brands. Or, your recorder might be badly adjusted. Don't know what to do in this case, sorry.

Have you thought of taking your recorder to be looked at by an repair service?

BTW, I hear the computer versions are better than stand-alone ones. Have you thought of getting one for your computer? That is if you do indeed ever replace the one you are currently using.

With the right sound card, you can go straight digital from a stand alone DVD.

You can also rip the DVD files to your hard drive, extract the audio streams and convert them to wav. With the proper tools, this gives you the best possible quality. Needs LOTS of hard disk space, though (several gigabytes).

And I have a program called DART CD Recorder (It's not the best, but far from the worst), that I use to do this with my LPs, etc. You have to tweak the balance to get it right, and it never sounds bvery good coming out the computer, but on CD, the sound is Mahhvellous. It works on thre same principle, like if your dubbing a cassette tape-- press the record button, and all.

that's how I captured some unreleased Burwell cues.

and of course, to rip from a CD, just tell it read the tracks, and convert to a WAV file. but you already knew that.

and when you burn the CD, eliminate the 2 second gap.

some CD players like mine for instance, get screwed up with those gaps.

Closing that gap allows tracks that are normally supposed to run together, to actually run together seamlessly.
Otherwise, a lot of the tracks my have the ends cut off.

Now my software does allow you to expand the gap, and it works fine for what I have, but sometimes, it puts a big "pop" at the start of a track. And I've gotten a lot of CDR from people just like that, with the tracks cutting off, or huge digital pops. very annoying, so I always make mine without gap (Disc at Once).

Most tracks on most CD's are mastered with a 1 second gap at the end and beginning. Disc-at-once just doesn't add any extra gap.

For example, lets say that track one of the Squirrel Nut Zippers “Perennial Favorites “ album actually plays into track 2 (Which it does). If I burn track at once, it is going to put a gap in there that doesn’t belong and the song will cut off early.

I can eliminate all the gaps between tracks, or place a gap wherever I want, and for as long a time as I want.

Works well if I am putting 2 musically distant scores onto 1 CDR.

I can always control the gaps in my CDRs, as anyone should be able to.

I suppose it all started a long while back when many CD replication houses required a DAT master to have 2-second gaps between tracks in order for a CD to be mastered properly. This was one of the audio standards at the time (I forget which one, but they call them a (color) book standard, with color being red, orange, etc.) Obviously this requirement needed to be changed for any live recordings and albums which bled one track into another, such as The Beatles' ABBEY ROAD or, speaking soundtracks, the Buffy Season Two promo. The problem got worse when CD burners were introduced for computers, because many were incapable of writing DAO so any disc copied on it would have a 2-second silent gap between each track. This perpetuates itself on each generation. So if the disc originally had a 2 second gap and a copy was made of it, then a copy of the copy was made, there would now be 6 seconds of silence between tracks on this third generation copy.

As an interesting aside, the gap between tracks can actually have audio data. A few discs placed audio data in these gaps which would be ignored by a CD burner using track at once becuase it wasn't SUPPOSED to have data there, thus the beginnings and ends of tracks being cut off. I can think of one CD in particular - Tom Petty's FULL MOON FEVER - which had about a 30 second countdown which marked the end of "side one". However, in this 30 second countdown between tracks (your CD player's display will show a negative time and will count down to zero) Tom Petty informs the CD listener that this is the place where you would be flipping the LP or cassette.

Back to the subject, my main gripes are 1) subsequent copies made from TAO discs usually end up with the loud pops in between tracks because the gaps are read as errors and the pop is a "correction" the drive makes and 2) the obviously annoying listening experience when tracks are not supposed to have these gaps.

If you burn CDs using a computer CDR/CDRW drive, use a quality program such as Nero Burning ROM or GoldenHawk's CDRWin. Avoid EZ CD Creator at all costs!