CD burning Question

John Casler · « **on:** 16 Dec 2004, 08:41 pm »

I had two CD burning issues come up that puzzled me.

1) In burning a compilation of X-mas tunes on my computer, I was trying to burn the James Taylor version of "Have Yourself a Merry......." and each time I "ripped" it to HD, I would find "snaps and cracks" in two or three spots.

These were not just a couple of ticks like you might hear from dust on vinyl, they were "piercing" cracks.

Finally after ripping it 4 times I got a copy that was not "snapping".

Any guesses as to what this is?

2) Finally after burning a clean compilation on the computer, I shoved it in my HK CD recorder to see if I could make copies, not expecting to be able to do so.

Well Hello!!! I was able to make one for my car, my daughters room, my room and a back up.

I didn't think CD recorders allowed this!!

Mad DOg · « **Reply #1 on:** 16 Dec 2004, 09:51 pm »

Quote from: John Casler

and each time I "ripped" it to HD, I would find "snaps and cracks" in two or three spots...

do you mean the burned CDs have snaps and cracks? or the converted music .wav file on your computer's HD has the snaps and cracks?

John Casler · « **Reply #2 on:** 16 Dec 2004, 11:34 pm »

Quote from: Mad DOg

Quote from: John Casler
and each time I "ripped" it to HD, I would find "snaps and cracks" in two or three spots...

do you mean the burned CDs have snaps and cracks? or the converted music .wav file on your computer's HD has the snaps and cracks?

After "ripping" to the HD, when listening to it "from" the HD it had the snaps. And the crappy thing was they weren't in the same spots.

So I also (thinking it might be static electricty discharge) did a Bedini Clarifier on it but it still had 1 snap.

Finally ripped it one more time and "Voila" no snaps.

Interestingly enough no other cuts had this problem either.

So now I "burned" a copy and listened and it burned fine

jpsartre · « **Reply #3 on:** 17 Dec 2004, 05:37 pm »

I've had this before and it was because of copy protection on the CD when making a digital copy. Your HK may be doing D-A-D conversion when copying which of course bypasses digitla copy protection. Just a thought!

MGDeWulf · « **Reply #4 on:** 21 Dec 2004, 04:22 am »

I've had what you describe when I'm coming very close to the maximum time I can burn onto the CD-R. Just a thought.

Marty

John Casler · « **Reply #5 on:** 21 Dec 2004, 04:58 am »

jpsartre:

Yeah, I was pleasantly surprised that I could burn a compilation (like a Christmas Mix. and could make a copy of it for each CD palyer in the house, and a copy for my car. (hate runing all over looking for a CD)

Marty,

This is a "first time" for me on this one. And the cut with problems was the "first" cut on the CD????

It was from the James Taylor, "October Road" CD (not SACD) and it was the "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" cut.

But at least I was able to get it snap/click free after about 4-5 tries.

Thanks for all the ideas guys, but it still seems a mystery

BradJudy · « **Reply #6 on:** 21 Dec 2004, 05:22 am »

Since you said the pops were in different places, this is likely a soundcard/driver playback problem and the files are probably good. Did you try burning the 'popping' tracks to a CD and playing them back in a CD player? I wouldn't be surprised if there weren't any pops in the file itself.

bubba966 · « **Reply #7 on:** 21 Dec 2004, 05:39 am »

Quote from: John Casler

This is a "first time" for me on this one. And the cut with problems was the "first" cut on the CD????

That sounds exactly like a copy protection issue.

I was trying to burn a Bjork CD for a friend. I got the same nasty ass pops/clicks in the first track, and the first track only.

After burning about 8 coasters,

I finally got a copy that didn't have a problem.

And then I could take that copy and make a copy of it, no problem (as the copy protection wasn't copied).

Rob Babcock · « **Reply #8 on:** 21 Dec 2004, 05:43 am »

I've heard of such a thing, but I've never run across any such copy protected discs. I wouldn't be very happy to have a disc I couldn't rip to my PC.

Rob Babcock · « **Reply #9 on:** 21 Dec 2004, 05:44 am »

Hey, check it out! Over 4,000 posts!

I really need to get a life!

bubba966 · « **Reply #10 on:** 21 Dec 2004, 05:47 am »

Quote from: Rob Babcock

I've heard of such a thing, but I've never run across any such copy protected discs. I wouldn't be very happy to have a disc I couldn't rip to my PC.

Well, I've gone through quite a bit of blank discs (800 or so I'm guessing) and that was the only disc I've ever come across that had that sort of copy protection on it. They're rare, but they are out there.

Rob Babcock · « **Reply #11 on:** 21 Dec 2004, 05:49 am »

What are you copying that much music for?

I didn't think you were much interested in Redbook CD...

bubba966 · « **Reply #12 on:** 21 Dec 2004, 05:57 am »

Quote from: Rob Babcock

What are you copying that much music for? I didn't think you were much interested in Redbook CD...

Most of it was for other people. I had a burner a long, long time ago (back when 2X drives were as fast as you could get). I still remember buying blanks at Costco for a bit over $2.50 each!

And not all of 'em were used on CD's. There was more than a couple of PSX games in there as well...

John Casler · « **Reply #13 on:** 21 Dec 2004, 06:04 am »

Quote from: BradJudy

Since you said the pops were in different places, this is likely a soundcard/driver playback problem and the files are probably good. Did you try burning the 'popping' tracks to a CD and playing them back in a CD player? I wouldn't be surprised if there weren't any pops in the file itself.

Hi Brad,

Yeah that is exactly what I did. I built the "mix" on the HD. Burned a copy to a "master mix" CD, and then burned my "copies" on my Harman Kardon CD recorder.

I burned 3-4 copies and then listened to the them. All had the pops/ticks in the same places, so they were coming from the master, which was made from the HD file.

I re-listened to the "actual sorce" CD (original) and it was as clean and clear as a babies bottom (Bad example

)

I then listended to the HD version and there were the pops.

Ripped it from the "original" a few more times, with snaps and pops at "different" places, then finally a "clean" cut on the HD, and when I burned the Master CD, it too was clean and clear.

And I re-burned my copies

SWG255 · « **Reply #14 on:** 21 Dec 2004, 03:00 pm »

John,

If I'm not mistaken the "Have Yourself a Merry..." is the LAST track on the James Taylor "October Road" CD. This is important because it indicates why you were having problems. Unlike a TT, the CD plays from the center outward, so the last track on the disc is on the outside of the disc, with the TOC closest to the disc's edge. If your CD drive or your PC isn't quite up to snuff you'll have more problems ripping the cda file at the outside of the disc, i.e. the last track on the redbook CD. You can reduce the chances of this happening by reducing the speed at which you extract audio from the CD. I find that Exact Audio Copy (EAC) often extracts audio at 8X or less from my Plextor 48X burners. Next time you're ripping a disc, watch to ensure your extraction speed doesn't exceed 24X. Also, try not to run any other software on the PC while you're extracting audio. If Windows takes an interrupt at an inappropriate moment, you'll get a digital glitch in the wav file, and it might be audible in the way you describe.

As for your copy protection theories, the James Taylor "October Road" redbook CD is not copy protected. Most "real time" CD recorders (as in stand-alone audio recorders like the Philips or my Marantz CDR-630) will probably ignore any copy protection on the disc because it has to play the disc back in real time. Thus the digital stream from the CD can be copied in real time onto recordable media. Where problems are going to occur is in the kind of copy protection that writes a "digital watermark" on each track, which is supposed to be degraded when copied, leading to audible artifacts when the copy is played. Earlier copy protection schemes worked by putting invalid data in the CD's table of contents (TOC) at the outside edge of the disc, which would cause a computer-based software package to crash or indicate the disc is unreadable when attempting to rip the CD. That's why the copy protection could be defeated by drawing a thin black line on the outer edge of the disc, obscuring the TOC and the erroneous data deliberately placed there.

As convenient as CD copying is on my computer, I'm going to hang onto my Marantz CDR-630 so i will always have the option of burning discs in real-time from the digital output of my CDP, just in case I want tracks from a copy-protected disc i might buy.

John Casler · « **Reply #15 on:** 21 Dec 2004, 05:07 pm »

That would seem to be the most reasonable explanation.

Last track read problems.

I guess I could try burning it as a "first track" on a CD-R, and then ripping it to the HD to see if it got any better.

JAC