response 50 of 119:

Jun 1 18:24 UTC 2001

        It took several attempts for a freind to make a CD for me
on his own equipment.  Found he also needed to turn off virus 
protection and isolate the machine to be more reliable.  Something
humorous about fiddleing with NERO to burn a CD-ROMe.

response 52 of 119:

Jun 2 12:21 UTC 2001

Look for the "cdrdao" program.  I've got it on Linux, but I think there are
versions for other programs.  It lets you rip a CD to a big binary and then
burn that back to CD-R for a copy with the spacing intact.

response 54 of 119:

Jun 2 18:57 UTC 2001

I'm not sure I understand how what Scott and ashke are describing differs
from how Roxio/Adaptec CD Creator works.  CD Creator builds an image of the 
CD in the windows\temp directory and then burns from that.
 
The question seems to be, what are between-track pauses -- are they 
instructions in the Table of Contents to stop for a few seconds?
I start to suspect that the gaps are not represented by a data stream
with playing time, as they would be in an analog medium.

If so, I can see where problems would develop, since if you are 
building a disc image one track at a time, from multiple source 
discs, then there would be no reason for the program to preserve
between-track information from source disc Tables of Contents.

I need to experiment and see if "CD Copier", part of the Adaptec/Roxio 
package, preserves between-track gaps.
~

response 56 of 119:

Jun 3 03:33 UTC 2001

My impression with Disc-at-Once (DAO) was that its entire purpose was to
eliminate the 1-2 sec pause between tracks, which was the result of the laser
physically stopping and starting again. I haven't noticed this issue, mostly
because I rather like having one song start immediately after another. I'll
have to check to see how this works with my version of EZ CDCreator. It seems
unclear whether the software copies one large binary to the \temp when DAO
is selected (as Scott says that this "cdrdao" program will), or if it copies
each file as a separate .wav file and then merely instructs the laser not to
stop during the burning process. I believe that the between-track pause is
indeed a TOC entry, not a physically recorded blank space. 

Mostly, I use the DAO option in EZ CD because it is the only recording method
that will save CD Text information, and I've found that very helpful for when
I forget to label what the disc is and then it sits around for weeks. When
I need to know what sort of obscurity is on the disc, I can put it back in
the computer and get the information again. 

I wonder, do you notice the songs running together on the CD-Rs I've sent you?
I'm 99% sure that all of those were recorded using disc-at-once ... especially
the ones that began as mp3s, e.g. Luar Na Lurbre & Lais. Only once have I
encountered a set of mp3s that had to be recorded without the gap between
tracks, and that was because the original CD had been recorded in the same
way. 

For clarification, ashke, were you saying that when making a CD-R from several
CD sources, you find it helpful to copy each redbook audio track to a .wav
file on your hard drive, and then direct EZ CD to those wave files for
assembly onto CD-R?

Ken, I've been listening to the 3 CD-Rs you sent me extensively over the past
26 hours, and I've found them of extremely good quality. You must be doing
something right. ;-)

response 58 of 119:

Jun 3 18:16 UTC 2001

Yes, Mickey, thank you very much.  That is what I was saying.  

response 60 of 119:

Jun 10 15:04 UTC 2001

There's a Unix/Linux program called "cdparanoia" which is designed to work
around that sort of problem by reading the data directly and cleaning up the
data as needed.

I just finished (well, not really finished, but read on) a vinyl-to-CD copy
of Adrian Belew's "Twang Bar King".  I use Linux, and on Linux use "yarec"
to record and "snd" to trim the track files.  The snd package isn't the most
elegant thing in the world (maybe on it's native platform Solaris it is), so
I have to follow certain steps to avoid problems when using it.  One thing
I have to do is click the "sync" option so that changes I make affect both
left and right channels.  I was wondering what would really happen if I missed
doing that, and it turns out I found out on the currently-playing track on
the test CD.  The right and left channels are about 1.5 seconds out of sync.
D'oh!  Guess I have to re-record that track.

I also think I need a subsonic filter for my turntable and preamp.  Since the
last vinyl copy I repatched things so that I'm getting my signal direct from
the RIAA preamp without running through the rest of the receiver.  What I'm
seeing in the wave file editor is some inaudible low frequency stuff, perhaps
footsteps through the concrete floor and other vibrations.

response 62 of 119:

Jun 11 01:33 UTC 2001

(Dammit, that's the second time in recent days I've misapplied the apostrophe
in "it's".  Getting sloppy...)

response 64 of 119:

Jun 14 06:37 UTC 2001

resp:63 ::  The playback is at 1x but the disc was definitely 
spinning at a much faster speed; I was hoping I could slow down 
the physical disc spinning speed, but I don't have any control over it.
This is kind of a moot point now, since I no longer have access to the 
troublesome source CD.
 
Scott in resp:60 ::  I haven't thought about subsonic filters in years.
I had a gorgeous active filter made by Nakamichi which was lost in 
The Great Stereo Burglary of 1982; after that I had passive filters, 
again from Nakamichi, until I moved to Ann Arbor.  And now I don't think
I have seen them since I moved; I haven't been playing vinyl much.  I was 
starting to think about them just recently, while noting the low-frequency
turntable stuff in the minidiscs I've been making from LPs recently.

response 66 of 119:

Jun 14 20:55 UTC 2001

Heh.  Turns out to be the typical Linux story.  I've already got an editor
which will do low-cut filtering, if only I can figure out how to use it.

response 68 of 119:

Jun 29 13:47 UTC 2001

The rumors about Easy CD Creator 5 causing problems with Win2K systems?  
They're all true.  I made the mistake of installing it on my Win2K 
system, and promptly discovered that it made the boot-up time go from 2 
minutes to a somewhat frozen state (I later found out that if I had 
waited longer (I waited 10 minutes) it would have eventually booted).  I 
found a website that said the way to fix this was to remove a certain 
.sys file by booting from the Windows cd and using "repair console 
mode".  I removed the file, rebooted, and had to go to work.  When I 
came back, the computer was sitting at it's logon screen, so I thought 
everything was working.  Wrong.  My cd drives (both the regular cd 
drive, and the burner) did not work at all.  I am still working to see 
if I can fix the problem.

response 70 of 119:

Aug 14 03:49 UTC 2001

Boom!  I took another run at the source disc described in resp:68.
Yesterday, try #1 failed while writing the TOC.  Try #2 produced a 
disc with clickity-pops in the last two tracks.
 
Tonight, on try #3, EZ CD Creator crashed while writing the TOC.
The CD writer stopped and started several times on the Imation blank
-- first one of those I've tried -- and then *splat*.
Cool, I haven't crashed EZ CD before.
 
I think I've got a early copy-protected CD from back in 1995.  :)

response 72 of 119:

Aug 15 05:43 UTC 2001

Wow ... I'm certainly glad that I don't have this much trouble making audio
CDs. Since you mentioned your problem in party, I began to wonder what is the
cause of these "clickity-pops" --- I have made a couple of these myself.
There's some good information in the CDR FAQ in a couple of places:
http://www.cdrfaq.org/faq03.html#S3-3 (How do I get rid of hisses and
clicks on audio CDs?) and http://www.cdrfaq.org/faq04.html#S4-47 (Audio
discs have crackling sounds on the last few tracks)

In particular, I found the entire concept of seek sector or "jitter" errors
very illuminating. I had always thought that "bits are bits" until I read a
little more about digital audio extraction. Even two consecutive extractions
of a track from CD can differ in the resulting .wav file, apparently.
http://www.treworgy.com/cdr/test.html#dae

My suggestions? 

If you have access to a regular CD-ROM, use it to extract the audio from CD.
Listen to the resulting files before burning. 

Use another, more full-featured program to extract the audio. Exact Audio Copy
looks good to try.

response 74 of 119:

Aug 23 01:56 UTC 2001

Now linked to the restarted music conf.  Oddly enough, pretty much all the
technology discussed is still relevant, even though it's almost a year later.