Advice on copying music cd's.
September 18, 2005 4:31 PM Subscribe
Why does my computer copy music CD's so poorly? I have a Dell 2400 computer with a 48X CD-RW DVD combination drive. Sonic Record Now version 6 software came with it. When I copy music CD's, unless the original is absolutely pristine, the copy will contain skips, even though the original CD plays perfectly on my computer or any other CD player. Any suggestions? Thanks.
and when burning is going on try not to do anything else on the machine..meaning leave the keyboard and mouse alone...see if that helps at all..By the way can you rip the files to your hard drive ok ?
posted by flyby22 at 4:48 PM on September 18, 2005
posted by flyby22 at 4:48 PM on September 18, 2005
Unlikely possibility, but if is the problem the same with CDs that are 5-10 years old but in good condition, or are the problem CDs more recent?
Depending on your music tastes, you might have a bunch of CD mastered with flaws deliberately introduced with the intention of throwing off a CD-ROM trying to read every last bit, while normal CD playback is intended to be unaffected, due to different error correction methods.
As far as I know, most (all?) of these system tend to create problems during normal playback on some CD-ROMs, so the fact that they play in your machine leans to suggesting it's the machine rather than the CDs, but you might want to rule out the possibility just to be sure.
I also second flyby22: Almost no operations I do on a computer while ripping affect the rip, but I did find some obscure thing I could do that would create skips. (I can't remember what it was, but leaving the machine alone obvious means I won't be doing it :-)
posted by -harlequin- at 5:03 PM on September 18, 2005
Depending on your music tastes, you might have a bunch of CD mastered with flaws deliberately introduced with the intention of throwing off a CD-ROM trying to read every last bit, while normal CD playback is intended to be unaffected, due to different error correction methods.
As far as I know, most (all?) of these system tend to create problems during normal playback on some CD-ROMs, so the fact that they play in your machine leans to suggesting it's the machine rather than the CDs, but you might want to rule out the possibility just to be sure.
I also second flyby22: Almost no operations I do on a computer while ripping affect the rip, but I did find some obscure thing I could do that would create skips. (I can't remember what it was, but leaving the machine alone obvious means I won't be doing it :-)
posted by -harlequin- at 5:03 PM on September 18, 2005
Try different software - different programs have remarkably different methods in synchronisation when ripping CDs.
Exact Audio Copy is well worth a go, it seems to have the most options, ranging from a care-free rip as fast as you can go, to a completely paranoid mode that tries to avoid any errors.
posted by Jimbob at 5:09 PM on September 18, 2005
Exact Audio Copy is well worth a go, it seems to have the most options, ranging from a care-free rip as fast as you can go, to a completely paranoid mode that tries to avoid any errors.
posted by Jimbob at 5:09 PM on September 18, 2005
When I rip, I turn on all of the 'paranoid' options, never use the maximum speed, and things usually turn out fine. If that doesn't do it, you might just have a lousy drive. Most of the drives that come with prebuilt systems are fairly cheap these days.
posted by bh at 5:21 PM on September 18, 2005
posted by bh at 5:21 PM on September 18, 2005
Also, don't copy "on the fly" - i.e. a live copy from one CD drive to the other. I always cache the source to the hard drive first. I use Nero and it's not failed me yet.
posted by coach_mcguirk at 5:24 PM on September 18, 2005
posted by coach_mcguirk at 5:24 PM on September 18, 2005
Response by poster: All above - it works - should have mentioned I'm not too bright and didn't even know you had an option on copying speed - once I found that option and changed from Max speed to 4x, it worked perfectly. Thanks very much.
posted by Jackson at 5:55 PM on September 18, 2005
posted by Jackson at 5:55 PM on September 18, 2005
You need to use better software that does jitter correction. EAC as suggested above is decent and it has the added bonus of reading EMI "copy controlled" discs if your drive supports it. Any ripping engine using the cdparanoia engine will also work very well, have a look at CDex.
posted by polyglot at 6:12 PM on September 18, 2005
posted by polyglot at 6:12 PM on September 18, 2005
Not sure if this is your problem, but I tried the same thing on my new PC yesterday and found that music CD copies burned at 48X (on a DVD+R/W drive) were unusable by either CD players or DVD/CDROM drives on any of my PCs. Burning at 16x worked fine, however. Didn't matter if I copied from one drive to another or copied to hard drive first. 16x worked, 48x didn't. Then I found another sleeve of CDRs in the closet and they worked fine at 48X. Make sure the media you are using is certified for the high speed. The first batch of CDRs I tried wasn't.
posted by AstroGuy at 7:26 PM on September 18, 2005
posted by AstroGuy at 7:26 PM on September 18, 2005
If you're actually curious as to the "why" here, check out the FAQ for cdparanoia. It gives one an idea. Look for the entry labeled "I can play audio CDs perfectly; why is reading the CD into a file so difficult and prone to errors? It's just the same thing."
posted by teece at 9:16 PM on September 18, 2005
posted by teece at 9:16 PM on September 18, 2005
I asked almost this same question some time ago and got some great answers.
posted by anastasiav at 9:35 PM on September 18, 2005
posted by anastasiav at 9:35 PM on September 18, 2005
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by Brian James at 4:44 PM on September 18, 2005