Music CD...burning question for the techies

by **BarbaraC** » Fri Nov 02, 2007 8:41 am

All I wanted to do was make a nice clean copy of a music CD because the original was a tad roughed up. I tried:

(1) a straight copy from the original to a blank (result: two tracks had periodic loud ticking and snicking)

(2) intermediate step of creating an image to the hard drive first (result: same two tracks with troubles, but not quite as bad)

(3) conversion to MP3 files first and then burning them as .cda files on the disk (result: least amount of errors, though a careful ear could hear a few of them)

I burned all three at 16x, which for some reason was the lowest speed Roxio would allow. Also, I heard what I think were vague trouble spots on the original CD, but I can't be sure.

Does anyone know of what's likely to be the surest way of getting a clean burn, particularly in the case of a well-used CD?

Barbara

by **DickK** » Fri Nov 02, 2007 9:15 am

Barbara,

From your post, I gather that
1. You can't hear the problems when just playing the CD--correct?
2. When you ripped the tracks to MP3 files can you hear the problems if you play back the MP3s themselves?

Seems to me that if you can't hear the problems when playing the CD that means something in the player is correcting the impulse noise that's showing up in the extracted data but (assuming the noise is there in the MP3's) the encoding process is seeing the errors on the CD and just encoding them without correcting them.

In this area, I don't have a lot of experience but here's what I'd try:

-- rip one of the problem tracks to a WAV file (no compression) and assuming I hear the noise,
-- load the WAV file into Audacity and see if I can see the impulse noise in the waveform display and hear it in playback
-- if small, clip out the offending bit entirely
-- if not small, see if I could push the level of that bit down so that at least it wouldn't be as audible.

Hopefully, others may have more experience here or that will give you some ideas on getting there.

Dick

by **BarbaraC** » Fri Nov 02, 2007 9:35 am

Dick, I can't hear the problems in the MP3's. When burned to a CD as regular audio files, the problems can be heard, but not nearly so bad as when the tracks are burned direct from CD to CD or from an image file. However, I'm listening to the original CD right now, and I now realize it's in horrendous condition. Noise and skipping in spots.

Thanks for your thoughts. It's interesting to note, though, that the MP3 files are in much better shape, isn't it?

Time to buy a new CD. Life is not nearly so good without Michael Hedges.

Barbara

by **gpsmikey** » Fri Nov 02, 2007 9:40 am

Barbara -- here is one approach that works well ...
http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/

mikey

by **DickK** » Fri Nov 02, 2007 9:58 am

BarbaraC wrote:Dick, I can't hear the problems in the MP3's. When burned to a CD as regular audio files, the problems can be heard, but not nearly so bad as when the tracks are burned direct from CD to CD or from an image file. However, I'm listening to the original CD right now, and I now realize it's in horrendous condition. Noise and skipping in spots.

Oh, well, then the quickest and simplest thing to do is replace the CD and then rip that. If you can't do that, then I'd go looking for software that was specific for processing out the impulse noise--but for one CD, that would be much more work that it was worth, to me anyway.

BarbaraC wrote:Thanks for your thoughts. It's interesting to note, though, that the MP3 files are in much better shape, isn't it?

There's a lot of processing that goes on in the making of an MP3 and I'm not terribly surprised at that result. At low bit rates especially, there's a lot of stuff getting compressed out and that can be one result--tho' with some kinds of errors/noise just the opposite can happen.

BarbaraC wrote:Time to buy a new CD. Life is not nearly so good without Michael Hedges.

I'm not a huge fan of his but I have Aerial Boundaries and I really like his music. Not unexpected since I'm a guitar music fan in just about any genre.

Dick

by **BarbaraC** » Fri Nov 02, 2007 9:58 am

Mikey, I just downloaded it and will see what it can do about this poor CD. Thank you. More thanks coming if it cures me of having to spend eleven or twelve dollars.

Barbara

by **BarbaraC** » Fri Nov 02, 2007 10:01 am

Dick, I ripped at a 320-bit rate, so the compression wasn't too horrible.

What an odd thing to say--that you really like his music but you're not a huge fan of his. Can you explain this?

Barbara

by **gpsmikey** » Fri Nov 02, 2007 10:10 am

Barbara - there are also a couple of things you can do to the CD to make it
read better. One is to polish it with toothpaste - the fine abrasive in it will help
clean the scratches a bit. I had one CD several years ago that was no longer
available and I needed to get the data off of it. Kids had scratched it pretty
bad. Tried the toothpaste etc - what finally worked was to spray it with a
silicone spray that filled in the scratches - read fine and I was able to copy it.
No telling what it did to the CD in 6 months though - I didn't care since I had
been able to read it. If you do a google search for "CD scratch removal"
or some other terms like that, you can find a number of ways and procedures
that work with varying degrees of success.

mikey

by **BarbaraC** » Fri Nov 02, 2007 10:22 am

Mikey, in doing a search, I found there was a nice step to follow the toothpaste, which was to apply a little car wax. I remember watching my son use car wax alone to get a DVD to play for him. Maybe I'll try that first, and if it doesn't work, I'll go for the bigger toothpaste gun.

Barbara

by **hardsoftware** » Fri Nov 02, 2007 1:35 pm

I have Aerial Bounderies

Humm, brings back memories of when I was a wannabe "audiophile". I used to go to the local HI FI shop and listen to high end Stereo audio equipment back in the 70's and 80s. Aerial Boundaries was one of the albums folks used to test the equipment. Back then vinyl and turntables with real expensive cartridges and tone arms were the prefered method of playing recordings, at least for the hi end stuff in the store. I own the vinyl version of Arial Boundaries which I bought back in the late 80's and have digitized it for my own use..

Ben

by **gpsmikey** » Fri Nov 02, 2007 1:55 pm

Give me "Monster cable" and tube amplifiers (of course when the kids are
running around, the dog barking and the garbage truck doing it's thing
up the block, it's a bit hard to tell what you are listening to sometimes

As far as the scratches go, the ideal situation (other than the obvious don't
have the scratches) is to have it polished and any scratches filled with
something that has the same index of refraction (or close anyway) as the
polycarbonate disk itself. Hmmm - I wonder how that stuff you can
buy for scratched eyeglasses would work ???

mikey

by **BarbaraC** » Fri Nov 02, 2007 1:58 pm

Ben, that's what I still have to get around to doing--digitizing the vinyl--but I look at the collection my husband and I have, and then I look at the collection our son has that was simply given to him one day by a stranger (about 5-600 albums), and I walk away. It's like seeing doom right before my eyes.

Barbara (whose son is also named Ben)

by **BarbaraC** » Fri Nov 02, 2007 2:00 pm

Hmmm - I wonder how that stuff you can
buy for scratched eyeglasses would work ???

You give it a try just like a good Mikey ought to, and if it works, then I'll try it too.

Barbara

by **gpsmikey** » Fri Nov 02, 2007 2:02 pm

Heh -- I'm not the one having problems reading my CD ... :twisted:

Remember - the data is on the TOP of a CD (and middle of a DVD) not
the bottom like a lot of people think.

mikey

by **BarbaraC** » Fri Nov 02, 2007 2:05 pm

I just noticed that the smiley and I look terrifyingly alike.

B.

Edit after talking with my husband: That eyeglass scratch-removal stuff melts the plastic slightly. It may not be a good thing to use on CD's.

Music CD...burning question for the techies

Music CD...burning question for the techies

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