Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with audio and CD

Seeking guided relaxation / meditation cd's / podcasts.

mola — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 14:52:48 -0800

Seeking guided relaxation / meditation cd's / podcasts. I've been suffering from anxiety and insomnia lately, and want to get back to normal. The cd's I've tried so far are The Mental Medicine Collection (Sacred Moment and Sleep Ease, both with Pakvilai Sudhaswin), The Calming Collection (Sleep Solutions, with Roberta Shapiro), and Living Meditation (with David Harshada Wagner).

The ones intended specifically for sleep seem best so far. I do not want any religious-specific cd's.

How to physically speed up MP3s for CD burning?

querty — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 01:28:05 -0800

How can I speed up the tempo of some MP3 files and burn them onto a CD for faster playback? For audio books / podcasts, I play them in Winamp with the Pacemaker plugin setting the tempo 20% ~ 30% faster as I can comprehend much faster speaking.

How can I do this for off-computer use? Specifically, make an MP3 disc to play in my car. I'm sure the MP3 file would have to be physically altered before it is burned onto a CD, so what tools are out there that will do this?

Here is one answer I found on the Winamp forum but it is not a viable solution because some the audio books I have are over 12 hours long.

Give me knowledge with a side of head nodding

reenum — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 09:48:06 -0800

I need intelligent hiphop/rap with good beats. Any recommendations? I was a huge hip hop head back in the day. I love a lot of '90s west coast rap with phat beats. The misogyny and gunplay is a bit much for someone my age though. Some of my favorites in terms of good beat/bad content artists are Snoop, Dre, Nelly, DJ Quik, E-40, Ice Cube, Mack 10, WC.

The problem I have with a lot of underground or intelligent hiphop is the lack of good beats. Some lyricists I love who often have horrible beats are Ras Kass, Saafir, and Aceyalone.

Yesterday, I picked up Talib Kweli's "Eardrum" and it was exactly the sort of thing I love. Intelligent lyrics with slammin' beats. I also liked Hieroglyphics back in the day. Blackalicious and the rest of Quannum are awesome too. I'm not a big Jurassic 5 fan, and I've seen them mentioned a lot in previous threads.

I've checked the other hip hop related threads and none of them seemed to directly ask this question. I'm open to all styles of hip hop as long as it meets the preceding criteria.

Thanks!

How to replace a car's stock CD player with an aftermarket?

WizKid — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 14:50:38 -0800

CD player in my car stopped working (everything else works tape and radio) and when I asked from the dealer I was quoted around $400 to repair it. Since it's not worthwhile spending $400 for a repair I thought of getting an aftermarket player. 1) I'm looking for a low cost player (below $100) and I'm not too picky about sound quality (even the sound of my stock player is good enough for me). Support for a SD card or a USB thumb drive is preferred. Any suggestions?

2) This is a picture of my current CD Player. As you can see it's height is about 3-4 inches. So If I remove that player and fix the aftermarket player (which are generally about 2 inches tall) there will be an empty space. How do you fill that space? Are there any face plates or something that's specific for my car model that would allow you to fix after market players?

3) If I can leave the current setup intact and find a CD, MP3, USB or a SD Card player that I can have in the glove box or the trunk that would be great. Any ideas?

- The reason I'm not using an adapter with my MP3 player is, it's a pain to switch it off every time I park the car and go somewhere. So basically I need something that will be turned off when I just stop the car and took the key out of the ignition.
- The car is a Avalon and CD player gives the "Error 1" and after going through some forums I tried a solution they have provided. Disconnect the battery for 15 min and reconnect. After that it worked for about 2-3 days. Tried the same trick again but no luck. If you have suggestions on how to fix it pls share them.

New car stereo solution?

ObscureReferenceMan — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 14:37:40 -0800

Car stereo solution for someone non-technical. I have a 1990 Acura Legend with original stereo & speakers, but the 10-disc changer my brother installed is having issues (discs aren't always recognized, and the remote is broken). And the rear speakers are buzzing. So I'm in the market for something new. I don't want to spend more than $500 (for stereo and speakers). My requirements:
- Input for iPod (will be purchasing that soon also)
- Should play at least one CD (in case on a road trip, someone brings tunes)
- Some kind of equalizer (not just treble/bass control)

My question is not so much "which unit" (but I welcome input/feedback), but "where to go?". My gut tells me BestBuy. I've browsed, and they seem to have a decent selection, and installation is minimal. Or do I go to a car stereo place? There are plenty on Long Island (suggestions for/against would also be appreciated). Would $500 get me something good?

One qualification: I do NOT want to buy individual components and install them myself (I know it's cheaper). I am NOT handy. I CANNOT do electrical installation. This is non-negotiable. Sorry.

Any other suggestions (units to be aware of +/-, forums, review sites, etc.) are welcome. Thanks!!

My ears! My ears!

Blazecock Pileon — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 14:20:59 -0800

Some sound design questions to follow up on this golden moldy oldie... Red Book standard CDs seem to offer an output range of 20 to 20000 Hz.

• Can I publish a CD which can output mono frequencies between 20 kHz to 48 kHz through common CD players?
• Would I have to use SACD? In general, what would I use (hw/sw) to author an SACD?
• Are standard consumer speakers incapable of playing back > 20 kHz, or is it just that speakers aren't tested any higher for obvious reasons? (If I distributed a CD/SACD with said high frequencies, would consistent playback be impossible?)
• If no, would audiophiles have speakers capable of said playback range?
• If I used Max/MSP to generate pure tones, is my only frequency output limitation the audio adapter?
• If I recorded those (inaudible) pure tones to a sound file, what file formats could I use for storage?
• Are there caveats about the cycle~ MSP object with respect to generating tones > 20 kHz?
• If I wrote a Max/MSP Runtime program to generate tones, what sound adapter/speaker combination could I use for testing which would work with both Windows XP and Mac OS X, which would reliably output 20 - 48000 Hz?

Sorry if some or all of these are dumb questions. Thanks for your help!

Maybe the problem is that the world CAN'T listen.

punchdrunkhistory — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 14:24:13 -0800

Why won't this CD rip properly? 12 out of 18 songs are completely garbled, regardless of which program I try to use. I've been trying to rip the Smiths' "The World Won't Listen" to my computer for about three weeks now, and it always fails. The first four and last two tracks are fine, but 'Shakespeare's Sister' through 'You Just Haven't Earned It Yet, Baby' are garbled completely -- each song is at the proper running length, but is made up entirely of approximately five-second bits and pieces of other tracks from the album. Occasionally it plays the correct song for about fifteen seconds, and then returns to the mishmash.

This has happened no matter what program I use. At first I used solely iTunes to rip and play the tracks, but I've had the same results ripping in CDex and playing in foobar2000. The CD plays fine in regular CD players, and is in no way scratched. I get bad results when I try to simply play it as an audio CD through iTunes as well.

I don't believe that the CD is copy-protected. I purchased it new from a record store in Omaha, but it appears to be an Australian import -- if it matters, the inner bit on the underside of the CD reads "D.A.T.A. IFPIL 311 4509918982 D E1" (D.A.T.A. apparently stands for "Digital Audio Technologies Australia).

This hasn't happened with any other CDs I've ripped -- only this one, so I don't think it's a problem with the drive. Thanks!

The Ripper's blues

Iosephus — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 00:11:59 -0800

One-CD-to-one-audiofile software ripper? Failing that, audiofiles merger software? Quick version: what it says up there.

Anecdotal version (well, if I got you to kindly read this at least I could provide you some entertainment!). Being the happy owner of an iRiver T10 2GB, after some fiddling around I realized that ripping my not numerous CD collection to OGG VBR 64 kbs was just fine for me (I'll now dodge decaying produce from the hardcore audiofiles, do excuse me for a moment). Trouble is, this would easily put around 1200 tracks on the T10, which (and this is the first and only bad thing I've found so far about the lovely T10) can only endure 1000. So either I rip (some/all) CDs as whole tracks, or find some decent merger. I've tried some of the mergers around and they produce files that don't get read past the equivalent of the first unmerged track (not sure where the fault is, merger or T10's decoder).

I'm afraid there weren't any monkeys wearing a fez in the anecdote, which makes me sad.

SoundPlaybackDeviceFilter: I need to play back audio for a specific purpose. Please tell me what devices (mp3 player, sampler, etc.) have worked for you!

gaiamark — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 08:26:33 -0800

I'm looking for something that will be able to play back either an uncompressed WAVE file or that will record an actual audio signal for later playback. It has to be totally shock/shake-proof, and it must be able to automatically stop after every track/file and wait for input to start again. Preservation of sound quality is absolutely essential. If any of you have experience with such a device, please share. So, this device would be used to play a track of audio to a mixing board to be mixed in with a live performance. Obviously, it needs to stop at the end of each track so that it can be restarted at the band's convenience.

It would have to output to 1/8" or 1/4" stereo, RCA, or XLR (preferably not XLR).

It could be a CD player, but I think that would probably cause too much trouble, and they never seem to be totally shock-proof.

It could be an mp3 player that supports WAVE files. Once again, it would have to be able to stop at the end of each track and wait for the "play" button to be pressed to start the next track.

It could be a sampler, but I know nothing about them. If it is a sampler, it would need to hold at least 40 minutes of sound.

I don't trust CD players for this, and I really have no experience with either mp3 players or samplers, so I don't know if any of them could do the job. I trust the hive mind to point me in the right direction!

And once again, preservation of sound quality is essential.

Oh, did I mention that I would like to spend less than $200? I wouldn't mind spending more if it is for something really worthwhile, but my gut tells me that the right device exists and can be found (Ebay? Craigslist?) for under $200.

Thanks in advance to anyone who responds.

How do I get everything off of a CD?

reventlov — Fri, 29 Dec 2006 22:39:53 -0800

I want to make sure that the next time I rip my CD collection is the last time. What should I know? I want to rip all information that I possibly can from my CD collection--CD TEXT, CD+G, ISRC codes, data tracks/sessions, audio tracks, audio in the space before track 1, audio in the gaps between tracks, and index marks. Am I missing anything? And if I am, is there a tool available for Linux that will let me read it?

How do I burn copies of an audio CD with a .cue file on OS 10.4.8 using either Burn or Firestarter?

jack_mo — Tue, 12 Dec 2006 14:26:46 -0800

How do I burn copies of an audio CD with a .cue file on OS 10.4.8 using either Burn or Firestarter? I've downloaded a losslessly compressed copy of a music CD, and decoded the .flac files to .wav.

Now I want to burn an audio CD using the supplied .cue file. I've got Burn and FireStarter, the only two free applications I could find that seem to support doing this, but neither have any documentation that I could find.

I've tried everything I can think of - my best guess seemed to be using Firestarter to turn my folder of .wav files into a .bin image, then trying to burn a CD using that .bin and the .cue supplied, but it doesn't work, it just says 'error: illegal'. Burn is more cryptic still - it just fails silently if I give it the .cue file.

Does anyone have any idea how to do this? Am I misunderstanding what a .cue file is for?

Recommend a good HD-based hi-fi separate

saintsguy — Tue, 24 Oct 2006 14:42:28 -0800

Audio separates. Looking for standalone hard-disk based mp3 player. My father has a collection of his favourite mp3s on the PC (few hundred), and wants to be able to play them in the living room, on endless shuffle.

The device needs to store the mp3s locally, in order that it is not dependent on the PC being turned on, or the wireless network being up and running.

Loading of the songs to the device could be in the form of a wifi network connection, or by any of the common flash/sd/memory stick formats. Audio CD would not be preferred method for importing the tracks as he (or rather I) wouldn't want to have to burn everything to Audio CD first just to then rip them back to HD on the device.

Needs to be in the form of a "normal-looking" audio separate, with remote control etc. rather than, say, plugging an iPod in to his amp, or one of the standalone network streaming boxes.

I guess this could also be done in the form of a normal CD player that can handle mp3 format if anyone can recommend a good one, as the collection could sit on a couple of CDs if stored in mp3 format. That would not be the preferred solution though.

UK based, so would want products available here. No price point to aim for, so any suggestions appreciated.

Bonus points for a system that plays non-mp3 formats (particularly AAC).

How to extract metadata from a CD

gfrobe — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 08:24:59 -0800

Is there a program that can extract all of the metadata including ISRC codes from an audio CD in my drive? I need to catalog about 60 audio CDs and include all metadata including ISRC codes and copyright info into an Excel spreadsheet. Assuming all of this info is embedded in the CD, is there a program that will do this easily? Ideally, I'd like to extract the info from the CDs one at a time and then import it all into one master spreadsheet.

Didn't they promise us it'd be easier than analog?

Miko — Mon, 17 Oct 2005 20:50:29 -0800

Why can't I burn a music CD? Help! So many great playlists to burn, and this problem arises. I'm running Windows XP on a Dell desktop. When I first got this computer, it burned CDs with no problem. There have been some changes, and now when I try to burn audio onto a CD, I get non-specific error messages during the 'initializing' phase (2122 and 2123, if it helps) and the disc ejects. I've poked around on the horrendous Windows support sites, but I just can't make sense of half of what I'm reading there.

Here's what's changed since I got the machine:
1. I wiped the hard drive and reinstalled Windows because the machine became loaded with adware and spyware. I also reinstalled all the drivers, etc., that the system came with.
2. The computer's been free of ad/spyware since the reinstall.
3. I used to use Windows Media Player, and I just switched to iTunes.
4. But I can't burn in WMP either.
5. Oddly, I can burn text files and picture files to CD.
6. I've run the normal diagnostics and gone through the Windows troubleshoot, to no avail.
7. I thought it might be memory, and I defragged and ran Disc Cleanup. Didn't help.
8. I tried several different burn speeds, even the lowest, and that didn't help.

So I'm kind of at a loss. I can't fathom what's wrong, and I'm in over my head on those techie Windows pages. I'm hoping maybe someone here has some insight before I have to go to the computer doc. Thanks.

Looking for a car stereo with a good UI.

Plutor — Mon, 17 Oct 2005 06:36:24 -0800

The factory-installed stereo in my car has stopped playing CDs, and my commute is fairly long, so this is essentially unacceptable. I've looked into getting it repaired, but the whole stereo'll have to be sent away for weeks, and it'll end up costing a bunch. But I've yet to find an add-on in-dash stereo for $200 or less that isn't terribly ugly. I have a 2003 Nissan Altima; the current stereo (and dash) looks like this, which I'm otherwise 100% happy with. I'm not really an audiophile, so pretty much any stereo will probably sound good enough for me. I've considered buying an MP3 player, but my stock stereo doesn't have an aux port, and it'd require a lot of CD-ripping time to convert all of my collection. I'm savvy enough that I have absolutely no problem mounting a stereo myself.

But I absolutely hate the trend of blinking lights and tiny lettering on tiny chrome buttons that seems pervasive in the car stereo market. My priority is a good UI. Is that too much to ask for?

Broken Jetta CD Player

brock — Mon, 03 Oct 2005 21:37:57 -0800

i innocently inserted a CD Laser-Lens Cleaner-type thing into the slot-loading CD player of my '99.5 VW Jetta. It was playing ~60% of CDs inserted into it, but now plays 0%. Is there a remedy, or is iPod my only hope?

Need a very reliable cd burner for audio cd burning

EvilKenji — Thu, 29 Sep 2005 00:12:38 -0800

Need a reliable cd burner to burn audio cds for radio show. I recently have a radio show on college radio and i need to burn audio cds (from mp3s). The worst thing that has happened (a lot so far) is that my burner sucks and the cd's i have burned dont play/ are corrupted / skip. Mostly...they just dont play and i get owned. I am using Nero, which i do not suspect to be a problem. I am using these generic brand of cd-r's from a company called "prism"...but i dont think the media is a problem either as the person who has a show before me uses the exact same brand and has had no problem with his burned cd's. My friend burned me an audio cd from his burner as well using this media and it worked fine.

Further complications to this is the fact that I used cd check "http://www.elpros.si/CDCheck/" to check the cds for readability. so far like 10 out of 12 of my cds have some corruption (very bad). Further more, i played a cd that had a certain track corrupted but i didnt play the corrupted track (track 13 on this cd was bad, but i played track 5)...still didnt work out. This other cd i burned that had no errors according to cd check (one of the few), actually played fine, but a few of the tracks skipped. To make matters worse, it is very hard to check whether these audio cds will work in the station or not because computer drives seem to be able to read this semi-corrupted audio fine.

I really need a burner that will burn audio cds reliably. I don't know which drive is particularly reliable and was hoping for suggestions. I did some price checking and actually found that a lot of dvd-/+r drives are around the same priceas the cd-rw/dvd drives. I know that most dvd-r drives can also burn cds so it doesnt matter if it is a dvd burner either. As long as it is reliable, burns 40x or faster and is decently priced. Some of the newer drives have all this error detection technology; that sounds nice too. One last note is that i'm on a laptop, so usb 2.0 external or a suggestion for a good external enclosure would really help :).

Cassette to CD Service

tranquileye — Mon, 27 Jun 2005 06:33:51 -0800

I possess a number of rare demo tapes (audio cassettes) from the 1980s Halifax music scene that I would like professionally restored and transferred to audio CD. Can anyone recommend a service that can do the work? (One of the cassette needs to be repaired.)

Why are CD/DVD releases always on Tuesday?

clgregor — Tue, 07 Jun 2005 08:57:58 -0800

They're talking today about "Super CD Tuesday" on MSNBC...Why are CD/DVD releases always on Tuesday?

How to inspect audio CDs for errors?

romancer — Wed, 09 Feb 2005 19:58:31 -0800

Any advice on inspecting audio CDs for errors? Ideally, via software.

Audio files sound like they've gone through a cheese grater.

tizzie — Thu, 20 Jan 2005 18:58:51 -0800

SoundsLikeSomethingMomWouldAskMe: When I try to play mp3s, QuickTime, or other audio files, it sounds like they've gone through a cheese grater. I can play CDs only on the computer's CD player - not through QuickTime or Music Match. This started around the time that two other things happened - upgrade from Win98 to 2000, and a new fan installed. Anybody know what's wrong?

What is the current best freeware audio editing application?

gnz2001 — Tue, 20 Jul 2004 13:17:02 -0800

What is the current best freeware audio editing application? The specific need is for ripping a cd, then playing it back slower without altering the key.

How can I make mp3s meant to lead into each other actually lead into each other without pausing first?

PinkStainlessTail — Sat, 26 Jun 2004 17:06:21 -0800

Ripping a CD that has tracks that lead into each other and then converting to MP3 has presented me with a problem. When I try to play the MP3s back in order there's a slight stagger when the next track starts (not a crossfade or optional pause), where on the audio CD the transition would not be noticeable. I'd like to either eliminate this error and keep the individual MP3s or rip the CD as one big audio file and convert that to one big MP3. Advice? [specs inside] Ripper tried: CDex
Players tried: QCD and Winamp5
WinXP home, Athlon XP 2400+

Rack Ears (for 19" Rack) for a Consumer CD Player

Mars Saxman — Thu, 29 Apr 2004 08:48:27 -0800

I want to mount "rack ears" on a consumer CD player and install it into a standard 19" equipment rack. Do people sell aftermarket rack ears? Where do you get them?

CD Player Issues

Jaybo — Sun, 04 Apr 2004 12:42:59 -0800

Help! CD Player Laser Lens Not Working - Why? [more inside] I have a very old (1990-ish) Sony 5-CD Changer as part of my stereo system. It's always worked great but lately, tracks on CD's (regular as well as CD-R) had been skipping or stopping completely.

I thought that this was probably just dust in the machine and bought a CD lens cleaner. I followed the instructions exactly after the CD was inserted but when I took the cleaner disc out, the CD player no longer recognized ANY discs - regular ones, CD-R's or the cleaner that had just given me verbal instructions on its use two minutes earlier! When a disc is inserted now, the player "whirs" trying to find it but then shows "No Disc Found".

I'm assuming that either somehow the laser lens got scratched by the cleaner (fresh out of the box - shouldn't have had any impurities) or that maybe this process somehow conked out a very old laser reader completely (though this seems less likely.)

Any expertise or similar experiences? I know a new CD changer is WAY cheaper than what I paid 10 years ago for a top of the line Sony unit. But I'd love to be able to fix this one if possible before I spend the cash to buy a new one.

Thanks in advance!