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.

response 76 of 119:

Aug 23 02:17 UTC 2001

Oops.

response 78 of 119:

Aug 24 08:35 UTC 2001

  Is anyone particularly happy with Easy CD Creator?  I'm rarely happy
  with the CDs I've produced since I switched away from my older CD-RW
  drive to a newer combo drive (CD-RW & DVD-ROM)

  I can't decide whether the problems I've been having burning CDs
  have been a result of (a) the CD-RW drive I'm using, (b) the Adaptec
  software, or (c) Windows 2000.  Actually, I suspect it's some sort of
  complicated interaction, as the results don't improve a great deal when
  I switch to another CD-RW drive and the performance using the Adaptec
  software was similarly crappy under Windows 98 (using either the old
  or the new drive..)  At the same time, though, so many people are using
  Easy CD Creator that I have a hard time believing it could be solely
  responsible for all of the trouble I've been having.

  I'm going to move one of the CD-RW drives to my old Pentium system,
  which has Win95 installed, just to see whether the same drive's performance
  is notably different under a different OS.  I'd planned to give the old
  computer away, but guess I'll be keeping it until I get the situation
  completely worked out.

  Does anyone want to offer advice on a foolproof software and hardware
  combo, assuming there is such a thing?  I'm getting so tired of burning
  CDs with clicks and pops that I'm willing to more or less junk what I've
  got now and start over.  I'll throw a reasonable money at this problem
  to make it go away if I can count on ending up with a system that flawlessly
  duplicates audio CDs while my machine is running Windows 2000.

response 80 of 119:

Aug 26 23:29 UTC 2001

  No, Ken's the one with a USB CD-RW drive.  I won't even trust USB mice,
  after having innumerable USB peripheral problems at work.

  My first CD-R drive was SCSI, but SCSI's just too expensive for me these
  days.  My other drives have all been EIDE.

response 82 of 119:

Aug 27 02:26 UTC 2001

Oops, sorry about that, Mike.

I've had pretty solid success using Linux (Caldera 2.4 and now Red Hat 7.1)
and the most popular CD programs (X-CD-Roast, cdrecord, and cdrdao).  The
latest X-CD-Roast is pretty good, although if I do anything more than once
it's easier to write a script for cdrecord.

response 84 of 119:

Aug 27 15:56 UTC 2001

That answers my question, but I didn't know that a SCSI drive is more
expensive than a USB drive. (I have some interest in this as I have
been backing-up my computer on CR-R with Retrospect Express, which adjusts
its own write speed, and only doing a little direct archiving with Toast
on a USB CD-R, where I have to simulate the burn first to be sure I
wont get an overflow.)