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| Author |
Message |
| 25 new of 119 responses total. |
krj
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response 75 of 119:
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Aug 23 02:13 UTC 2001 |
Now linked twice to the restarted music conference! :)
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scott
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response 76 of 119:
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Aug 23 02:17 UTC 2001 |
Oops.
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scott
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response 77 of 119:
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Aug 23 02:18 UTC 2001 |
OK, done. Sorry about that...
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mcnally
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response 78 of 119:
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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.
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scott
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response 79 of 119:
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Aug 24 12:12 UTC 2001 |
Win95? Didn't you buy USB drives, and if so do you have the Win95 with the
USB backport?
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mcnally
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response 80 of 119:
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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.
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rcurl
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response 81 of 119:
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Aug 27 01:14 UTC 2001 |
Why don't you use the old SCSI?
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scott
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response 82 of 119:
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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.
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mcnally
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response 83 of 119:
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Aug 27 05:18 UTC 2001 |
re #81: the original SCSI Ricoh CD-R drive I have is a single-speed drive.
backing up a CD thus takes 40-70 minutes just to write the disc, during
which time overtaxing the computer can cause an underflow in the CD-R
drive's buffer, which is quite small compared to those found on current
models..
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rcurl
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response 84 of 119:
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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.)
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mcnally
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response 85 of 119:
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Aug 27 18:34 UTC 2001 |
SCSI peripherals are quite expensive these days, at least compared to
(more or less) equivalent products that use a different interface.
USB drives cost more than EIDE, it's true, but the price difference is
largely accounted for by the fact that the external USB devices need a
case (and power supply? I doubt they run off the power supplied by the
bus); otherwise the USB interface adds only $10-20 to the cost.
The least expensive SCSI drives I've found around here would cost at
least $250, which is double to triple the cost of a same-speed EIDE drive..
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rcurl
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response 86 of 119:
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Aug 27 18:45 UTC 2001 |
It's true you can't get external SCSI devices for Macs anymore - have
to opt for USB or firewire. Except I found a PCI board for my G4 that
supports both SCSI and Serial - apparently it is quite popular for
Apple users' legacy devices.
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tpryan
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response 87 of 119:
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Nov 2 18:35 UTC 2001 |
Well, since August I've been learning and using my new
PC and the CD burning software.
The Sony Vaio computer came with Prassi Primo 2.0, made
by Veritas Software as the CD burner. The CD burner is a
Pioneer that will burn up to 8x.
I installed EZ CD Creator, as that is what other people
have, and if I am to learn from them, It is something they know.
Found out that version 4 does not know about my CD burner (it's
to new), so I have version 5 installed.
The PC also came with Sonic Foundry Sound Forge XP 4.5 as
an editor (not the complete version, it only gives me 24 or so
free conversions to .mp3). A rather good editor. Shape fades
as one likes. Process selected or overal volume adjustments.
Fixes DC bias problems on demand. It's pitch control is in
musical terms, and I played with it some--I found a formula
to make it sound like a 33&1/3rd rpm is spinning at 45 rpm;
mostly by fiddling with things until the processed track came
out at the calculated percent. I found that it does read .mpg
(MPEG *video* files) and can leave me with a .wav file--that's
what I used to take the PC recorded 'A Tribute to Heroes'
concert and used it too make an audio CD for myself out of the
songs.
In putting together my (Halloween) Creepy Collection
(see recent item), I found the first compilation disc made up
of extracted CD cuts and line-in recorded tracks had some
clicks at track change time. Is there something in that a
.wav file should really be some multiple of 1/75th of a second?
if it is to be recorded to CD that has 75 frames (or sectors)
per second? I was wondering if that lack of a totally filled
frame might be giving me an end of track click, particularly if
the missing part is about 1/150th of a second? I got the click
when I recorded using Disk-At-Once using the Prassi software, but
did not when I used the Roxio software. Could it be filling in
the missing bits for me? Again using DAO, so that I may record
with CD-Text as the drives support that. (My new CD player for
the stereo system also shows the CD-Text, as does the Roxio
portable).
I also had fun with clicks and such during the song.
On one, I found the click in the .wav file. I don't know if
it came during the digital recording from the cassette tape, in
the original material. However, using the editor, I found out
I can put up with a two-thousands of a second hole more than
I can put up with a two-thousands of a second click.
I am having fun yet?
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other
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response 88 of 119:
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Nov 3 19:03 UTC 2001 |
I'm having defective prodcut trauma with a CDRW I just received from
Formac Electronic Inc. in Berkeley, CA. They want me to bear the cost of
shipping it back to them for replacement when it arrived in damaged
condition.
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tpryan
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response 89 of 119:
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Nov 8 16:53 UTC 2001 |
I discovered that the Sony 5 CD changer I got earlier this
year is capable of playing an audio disc burnt onto a CD-RW. Great!
Now I can make a test-listen CD before a final version.
The Roxio portable player also plays CD-RW discs.
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krj
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response 90 of 119:
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Nov 13 05:08 UTC 2001 |
Either the Iomega Predator USB drive, or the USB drivers on the laptop,
have started malfunctioning badly. For a while the CD writing process
would abort somewhere in writing the first track. I was blaming
this on the Imation CD blanks I had switched to, and so I picked
up some more TDK blanks, the ones I'd used with good success.
Tonight, problems have worsened to the point that one does not even
get around to putting a blank CD into the unit.
On my first try, the CD-R drive would not recognize that it had a disk
inserted, and after a reboot the computer does not recognize that
it has the USB drive attached. I suppose we'll de-install and
reinstall the software that came with the drive and see where
we get.
I've also now got a friend who bought one of these devices, so
if he gets his up and working, then we can swap drives to
on his machine to try to rule out hardware problems.
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flem
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response 91 of 119:
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Nov 16 19:08 UTC 2001 |
Hmm, this might be a good place to ask a question that's been on my back
burner for years.
My family has this (vinyl) record that is traditionally played at Christmas
time, when decorating the tree. We've had this record for something like 30
years, and it's getting pretty gruesome. I've tried to find a newer copy of
the music, but it seems to be a doomed effort. The record company that made
it no longer exists (well, actually, a record company by the same name does
exist, but seems to be a small seattle-based company specializing in
bleeding-edge hip-hop. Probably not the same people), and no one seems to
have any secondhand copies of the record kicking around. I did run across
one reference to it, on the playlist for a late-night radio show on a Berkeley
station in 2000, which might be worth tracking down if it turns out that our
copy is too trashy to use.
What I'd like to do, obviously, is get this music to a digital form.
Ideally, I would run it through some kind of cleanup process to extract as
much as possible of the original sound.
The question then becomes, how do I go about doing this? I have no real
knowledge of these matters. Are there professional services that could do
this sort of thing for a non-astronomical price?
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micklpkl
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response 92 of 119:
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Nov 16 19:24 UTC 2001 |
You might try the following websites who will convert LPs to CD:
http://www.lp2cd.com (which appears to have been hacked at the moment,
alas) http://www.vinyl2CD.com
As far as guidelines for doing this yourself (which I have never done, nor
have I experience with the above-listed companies) you might try the following
sites:
http://www.technocopia.com/read-20000206-cdfromlp.html
http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~abcomp/lp-cdr.htm#record
I'm sure there are others with more direct experience in this.
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scott
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response 93 of 119:
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Nov 16 19:30 UTC 2001 |
I've transferred vinyl to CD, but not done cleanup aside from trimming. Greg,
I'd be happy to at least get it onto a CD for you.
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orinoco
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response 94 of 119:
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Nov 16 19:48 UTC 2001 |
(Out of curiosity, what's the recording?)
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rcurl
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response 95 of 119:
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Nov 16 22:03 UTC 2001 |
I was going to say...the first step is reading the label.
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flem
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response 96 of 119:
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Nov 18 20:47 UTC 2001 |
A Children's Introduction to the Nutcracker Suite. Narrated by Captain
Kangaroo. :)
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tpryan
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response 97 of 119:
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Nov 19 19:18 UTC 2001 |
If I record a CD (on a CD-RW this time) then re-extract those
tracks to .WAVs and record them again, am I getting any loss?
I am using this routine to use the volume Normalizer in
Audiograbber, as the Normalizer in Roxio EZ CD Creator seems to
add an additional DC bias to the .WAV file. (I can see DC bias
in the WAV editor, as the center of the wave being above the
center point/zero point of the viewer.) I also use the technique
to get .WAVs that are an even multiple of one CD audio frame long.
Fractional frames seem to leave a click at the begining or end of
a track.
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krj
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response 98 of 119:
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Mar 11 01:32 UTC 2002 |
After several months of total discouragement, we tried to start working
with the Iomega Predator USB cd writer again. The first step tonight
was to attempt the firmware upgrade which Iomega recommended for
the unit. Unfortunately after the firmware upgrade, which by all
appearances ran successfully, the CD writer is no longer recognized
by windows, at all. We can't find any sign that it's connected
to the computer. Uninstalling and reinstalling the supporting software
doesn't seem to do any good.
This is probably the last straw. We've wasted $300 and a year screwing
around with this outstanding product; we got about 10-15 good
CDs out of it in a brief period around May and June 2001, and that
was it. Right now we're fighting the urge to smash it into pieces and
ship it back to Iomega.
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dbratman
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response 99 of 119:
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Mar 11 22:26 UTC 2002 |
And another "early adopter" bites the dust.
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