Is it possible that a burner can do perfect CDs as well as imperfect ones? Don't most things on computers work well each time or do they have good days and bad?

Also, the default speed on my burner is 24x...have I heard somewhere that if you make the speed slower, it will make a better CDR?

Thank you in advance for your experience and advice!

When I run into problems like this, its usually because the actual wave file I that burned at pops and clicks in it. So check the what ever you've burned.

A fragmented hard disk, as well as burning had certain high speeds like 24x, can cause problems also.

It is possible for any burn to get messed up and I always listen to my copies before sending out because you never now what will happen. Here are some guidelines I use when burning CD-R’s. (In the following notes I use the term CD-R. Even thing that referes to a CD-R drive is also true for a CD-RW drive)

1. Don’t burn directly from one CD to a CDR.
Extract the .wav files to your hard drive first. Listen to the first couple of tracks and if they are fine proceed to next step. (This is particularly true if your burning is on the same IDE bus as your CD-Rom Drive. The transfer is limited to the speed of the slowest drive on your IDE bus which is generally fine, but if you have an older drive and a newer drive you can run into trouble.)

2. Buy high quality blanks.
I never buy anything less than Imation and generally try to get Maxell or TDK. Avoid store brands in any event as the quality is generally not good. In addition, they may cause problems on Playback. A good rule of thumb is, if you never heard of the brand, don’t buy it.

3. Clean Source
It should go without saying, but always use the best audio source possible. I have hundreds of CDR’s filled with MP3’s. When I get ready to burn a CD, I always drag out the actual CDs and not the MP3’s, no matter how high the bitrate. Your copy will never sound better than the original. You might not hear a difference but others might so always burn from an original whenever possible. The closer to first generation sound you are, the better.

4. Burn as a solo event.
Even though Burnproof technology says that you can perform other tasks while burning, I recommend that you burn exclusively. Don’t be doing a bunch of other things while you are burning. Most of the time their isn’t a problem, but on occasion, hard drive accessing can cause a pop in an audio burn.

5. Speed.
Generally the speed you burn at is not a factor in a bad burn. However, reading at a high speed can cause problems. If you are having cracks and pops, it could be that your reader does not have jitter correction enabled or set correctly. Check the help file of whatever program you are using for DAE (Digital Audio Extraction). Some drives are better at this than others. Good DAE software should include Jitter Correction.

6. Better Readers Make Better Copies
CD-Roms are fine for playing CD’s and generally work fine for DAE. BUT, by far CD-R’s make better readers. They generally have finer control functions and error correction and more a powerful laser and sensitive pickups. Discs that won’t play in a CD Player or a CD-Rom drive will often be readable in a CD-R drive.

7. Burn at DAO
DAO , or Disc-At-Once, burns all tracks without any additional gaps between tracks. This is particularly important when two tracks are meant to be played contiguously with no gap between the tracks. Batman Returns is good example of this. Birth of a Penguin is split into two tracks but when played, it plays without a break. Check your burning software for instructions on DAO or removing the 2 second gap that it adds. (Don’t worry about gapping normal tracks. Most tracks include 2 seconds of lag time anyway so you really don’t need to add it.)

8. The player’s the thing
Sometimes you can do all of the above and listen to your copy and it sounds fine, but when played in other machines sounds awful. It could be a bad burn but most often it comes down to the player that the CD-R is being played on. A CD player is designed to use a laser to detect physical lands and falls that are impressed from a CD Master directly to the foil of a CD. CD-R’s on the other hand, use a heat sensitive ink that mimics a physical land or fall by returning similar, but not identical, readings from a dark or light spot. However, some players are more sensitive to the differences and are not able to read them reliably. Have your friend try them on another player and see how they sound.

There are some other things you can do to decrease the chances of burning a coaster (blow dust out of the machine, use a UPS/Power filter, stand alone burners, etc) but the above hints should clear up most problems.

I was talking about this very same subject to a friend of mine a week ago. He tells me that there is a difference (not extraordiary, but a difference) when you burn at slower speeds. Most of the time he and his people (at his work) make CD's at either 4x or 8x.

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Originally posted by Jeron:
I dunno Kev, I burn my audio cds at 40x and they are flawless.

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Well.... not ALWAYS....

Dan

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Originally posted by Jeron:
I dunno Kev, I burn my audio cds at 40x and they are flawless.

Jeron

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I wonder if your friends were doing a straight copy without downloading to the hard drive?

Maxell have also been a little troublesome before, as well as Teon's(Hi Justin!! )....personally, I love the 25 pack of Verbatim's you can get at Best Buy that come with full size jewel cases. I guess this post is pretty pointless(aren't most of mine anyway? ), but it brings up the question, does anyone even use or care about those silly 'small' jewel cases, the ones that allow a front cover only? Good for trades, sure, but I hate having them on my shelf! The retailers sure like offering them up though, and it's getting harder and harder to find the full size jewel cases.

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Originally posted by Kimiakane:
Incidently, they were all direct burns from disc to disc. No wav files were used.

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As MWRuger said: Bad! You can use that for data CDs (if a read error occurs, you may get a buffer underrun - if your burner doesn't prevent those, like modern burners do - but at least you'll know there was a problem. With audio CDs, the burner will simply continue writing a clicking track, so unless you listen to the WHOLE thing very carefully and with headphones, you can't be sure when making direct copies).

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Originally posted by OHMSS76:
...it brings up the question, does anyone even use or care about those silly 'small' jewel cases, the ones that allow a front cover only?

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I hadn’t thought of using the CD-R spindles. I think it might make it hard to locate a specific CD. But with archival data that you only access every year or so it should be just fine.

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Originally posted by MWRuger:
I hadn’t thought of using the CD-R spindles. I think it might make it hard to locate a specific CD. But with archival data that you only access every year or so it should be just fine.

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Exactly. For 20 different versions of Windows and Linux, I'm happy if I can put them all on one spindle, with the current versions on top. Besides, since I was too lazy to label most of my data CDs, it was never easy to find anything. With spindles, at least I don't have to open dozens of cases to find the right CD.

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For music CD-R’s I am a traditionalist and only use the regular Jewel cases.

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Same here. A pity the old, "thick" (non-slimline) 2CD cases are hardly available anymore, but as I posted somewhere else on this board a while ago, you can fake those by putting two jewel cases together.

Oh, and one more hint for Gala: Do NOT use CDRs that were specially produced for audio recording. Those were made for standalone audio CDR recorders only. Their only difference is a special code, which the standalone recorders require to work (to make more money, since the audio CDRs are more expensive). With computer burners, you don't need this code. So while those CDRs work as well as any others, you gain nothing, but they're more expensive.

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Originally posted by OHMSS76:
Maxell have also been a little troublesome before, as well as Teon's(Hi Justin!! ) ....personally, I love the 25 pack of Verbatim's you can get at Best Buy that come with full size jewel cases.

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Those darn Teons! I also just love those Verbatim discs I get them at Sam's club in 40 packs. But recently they were out of them so I've been looking into other brands with no luck whatsoever.

And it is better to record at slower speeds than at 24x? The slower the better, right?

Incidently, if it matters, my burner is a new 2002 Gateway CD-Burner, so I don't think it's a problem with the burner itself. The slower speed, or the disc-to-disc recording sounds like the most logical reasons for the problem, doesn't it?

I'm tired....

I use Kodak discs. An unlikely sounding choice, but I find their silver-gold surfaces very friendly - my DVD player used to have trouble playing any other brand of CDR, but absolutely loves Kodak. I buy them on spindles of 50, and bulk-buy empty jewel cases, so it all works out pretty cheap per disc ... as you may well know

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Originally posted by OHMSS76:
Maxell have also been a little troublesome before,

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What type of problems have you had with the Maxell brand. I hope it's nothing too serious, I just bought a bunch of them!

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personally, I love the 25 pack of Verbatim's you can get at Best Buy that come with full size jewel cases. I guess this post is pretty pointless(aren't most of mine anyway? ), but it brings up the question, does anyone even use or care about those silly 'small' jewel cases, the ones that allow a front cover only? Good for trades, sure, but I hate having them on my shelf! The retailers sure like offering them up though, and it's getting harder and harder to find the full size jewel cases.

If anyone knows what the hell I'm talking about, knock three times,
Sean

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I sure do, that's the crap packaging my Maxell discs came it. Sheesh, they are always trying to pinch pennies aren't they?

I was going to get my discs in just the standard jewel case, but, it seems most only come in those or those spindles that hold 20 or more. Oh well...

BTW, does anyone use the Fujifilm brand? They were the only one that had the jewel cases I was looking for. However, I don't have any previous knowledge of their quality, unlike Maxell, TDK and Memorex. All of which, seem to have worked fine for me thus far.

Knock, knock, knock!

All I can add is that the Maxell's seem to be pretty skip happy, at least on my poor,feeble equipement that would make Mr.Rutherford guffaw out loud

The Maxell brand has worked for me previously, though, guess I'll get another brand before sending any out to you...

On a related topic, which brand do you all think gives the best quality and longevity?

Apogee were also great pro cd's,but I believe they stopped producing those for some reason.But they may still be available some places.

If you can find them and don't mind paying a little more for quality,give Quantegy a try.You won't be disappointed.

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Originally posted by Kimiakane:
Am I to understand that CD-Rs are not durable? I thought that they were supposed to last even longer than a manufactured CD does...I'm sure I've read that from more than one source. It's not true then? Things I've recorded to disc will not last my lifetime?

the filmscore Gal

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CDRs are not as stable as "pressed" CDs. They'll last a good long time, but if you want to maintain an archive, you'll have to re-record them digitally on some kind of schedule.

Regards,
Sean Robert Abbey

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Originally posted by Matthew:
If you can find them and don't mind paying a little more for quality,give Quantegy a try.You won't be disappointed.

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I don't think I have ever heard of this brand. Though, if I can find some, I'll definitely give them a try. Thanks!

Regards,
Sean Robert Abbey

Besides, pressed CDs only have a life span of 75 years. So digital archiving lies in all our futures.

(PS. The number above reflect the industries best wild a$$ guess. I have seen numbers ranging from 25 to 150 years depending on who was testing what.

I still have floppies that are readable that were recorded in 1980 on disks that supposedly had a life span of only 5 years so that estimate was only off by 400%.)

Nothing lasts forever anyway. If, god forbid, I get hit by a meteor tonight, my CD-R's lasted an entire lifetime. So what?

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Originally posted by MWRuger:
PS. The number above reflect the industries best wild a$$ guess. I have seen numbers ranging from 25 to 150 years depending on who was testing what.

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The problem is that CDRs aren't even around yet as long as they're supposed to last, so everything is just speculation.

I have a few "Platinum" CDRs (don't know if they exist in the US too?) that became sort of blurred on the surface after about two years or so and are now completely unreadable. The problem in this case seems to be the top layer though (on the upper side), not the disc itself - which doesn't help a lot, since the top layer is most important.

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I still have floppies that are readable that were recorded in 1980 on disks that supposedly had a life span of only 5 years so that estimate was only by 400%.

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From my experience, floppy disks are perfectly well after many years, and you can also read and write them in Amiga drives. But once you put them in a PC drive, chances are they instantly become unusable. Last time I had to submit a program at the university on floppy disks, I brought three copies, just to make sure.

The disks I mentioned were for my archiac Apple II! Still plugging away since 1980...

I am on my 5th PC in less than 10 years!