how to record your CD-Rs

[MacGyver]

be sure to always record your CD-Rs no faster than 8x to ensure maximum compatibility with vintage CDPs...

[Des-Lab]

When most folks think of 'burning CD's", they are simply assuming it's done through the drive on their PC.

I thumb my nose at that. I use (what many don't even realize exists) a stand alone CD-R audio component. For my system, I have a Denon DN-C550R and I LOVE it. It's a dual well unit, with one being the actual recording tray and the other being a 'master' or 'source' drive to dub from. I have it wired in such a way that I can use any other component in my system as a source including my reel to reel, cassette deck(s), the mixing board, and the stand alone CD player.

So guess what speed I record at?

Yep. Good old real time 1:1. Even though this unit has 2X dubbing ability and is a digital CD unit, I still use it the old fashioned way just like a tape deck: I set the readings on the input meters one song at a time, count off my 'gap' space, press 'record', 'stop', and 'play', and at the end, fade out the track.

So I get the best of both worlds: the hands-on interaction like a tape deck. But with the end product of a CD (that I listen to in the car). Also, unlike a tape, I can manually set track increments anywhere I want (really handy when doing mixes and overlays or a dub off a reel tape) without stopping, program it to set tracks at certain intervals (such as when it detects 4" of silence), and 'finish' what I want. Unlike a tape, where if you don't record to the very end, that tape is wasted and cumbersome to cue, on a CD, it doesn't matter. I can record any length I want, whether it's one track and ten minutes or fifteen tracks pushing 77 minutes. Anything that's left over is simply not included when the deck is finalizing and setting the file allocation tables.

The downside of course is the Achilles Heel of EVERY manual recording: If I slip up, I can't 'erase' it.

But I can program the FAT encoding to 'skip' that 'error' track. But the problem with doing that is the 'skipped' track becomes a phantom track and screws up your sequencing. For instance, let's say I made a mistake at the beginning of track #8. I re-do it with track #9. Then I finalize the CD. It will still count all tracks. But on playback, it will not recognize #8 and automatically skip from #7 to #9. And if trying to do a direct cue, it will show #8 as a track. But it will not cue up. It will error out to #9 and start there.

[MacGyver]

that's a nice deck! however, don't all consumer component CD Recorders suffer from SCMS Encoding?

[Des-Lab]

Yes and no. For straight CD-to-CD dubs in *DIGITAL* mode, yes. If the copy is made in digital mode, subsequent digital 'rips' cannot be made. They are SCMS encoded. However, the workaround to that is to 1) NOT use the 'source' player (the drawer on the left) *OR* to simply record in analog mode. That's what I do: I set the input to UNBALANCED ANALOG IN. And thus anything that is recorded in analog mode can be copied off of for an indefinite number of generations-with no tape hiss.

So while it's *technically* not a bit-for-bit clone, in practice, I have yet to hear any audible difference in sound.

[Web Police]

I have a Marantz stand alone CD burner and do pretty much as Des describes also. I use if to dub cassettes to Cd's for other people and use it myself to make compilation cd's

[braxus]

I bought myself a used Sony SCD-W500C CD recorder deck for $89 plus shipping. It worked out close to $160 when done, but still way better then the $500+ the store wants for a new one. I only use it for the home based business I do for audio video dubs. I've used it a few times for recording and its finicky to set the levels where you want them. If you record too low you are not using all the "bits" on the A/D converter and if you shoot too high, you run into the brick wall digital distortion. My deck tells me when I'm "Over" the max levels. The easiest thing to do is find the loudest track and set the levels accordingly. But this "over" thing is one reason why I still love tape. If you are over to saturating the tape, then that little extra once in a blip won't kill the recording. On digital you either get it right the first time, or through out the disc and start over. Plus its still digital.

Here below you can see a couple units (including the Sony burner) for my business system. This rack will change later.

[Emo-Fan]

I had a CD recorder which I used to record my own keyboard music and I concur with everything that DesLab says. I used to use DCC too (and sometimes still do) for the same purposes.

Does anybody have any thoughts on SACD? I have read somewhere that SACD (aka Direct Stream Digital) is higher rez than everything except a reel tape moving at 15 ips. In my entire collection of CDs, records, reel tapes, cassettes, etc, the best sounding recordings to my ears are those that began life on a reel tape. Specifically, the classical stuff on RCA Victor Red Seal. The material that has been re-released on SACD has a level of resolution heretofore unknown (to me, at least) on a digital format. Their engineers (in 1954!) used what I believe was an equilateral triangular formation for their microphones. CD gives you a left-to-right stereo image. SACD gives you a front-to-back image of the symphony orchestra. Instruments at the rear of the orchestra sound like they are coming from there, (as they do on an LP wiht a reasonably good cartridge and tone arm). I play them in multi-channel mode on my universal player and mix them down from 3-tracks to two on a mixer, which I feed right into my amp. If I don't do that and leave thr SACD player in the stereo mode, all I get a low rez downmix which isn't much better than CD (PCM).

Unfortunately, DSD recorders aren't available for home use (or if they are, you have to take that recording to a studio and have it burned onto an SACD). So now I use my TEAC reel to record all my own stuff and mix it down to DVD or CD.

CD can sound pretty good, but life for a truly astounding recording really needs that reel-to-reel, and SANS noise reduction!

Then again, what do I know?...

[niklasthedolphin]

I use a digital studio mixer/recorder with 12 tracks x 16 subtracks working in 24 BIT/96 kHz sampling until downmix in Redbook format.

I can either bypass everything or I can choose to use one or more or the tremendous amount of features built in like Eq, Pan, Exp., comp., efects, editing (cut/copy/paste/whatever), record mic's over music and vice versa, normalize, pitch, USB controlled...............well................you name it.

Let me just put it this way:
The result, when bypassing everything, can, if the source is good, be better than any CD I ever bought (guess I have around 1000 CD's), including Waltz for Debby.

It can be quite a headache to understand how to use it, though.

I still cheris my R2R and my best cassette deck more.
Digital sound has been damaged for good when encoding.

But not everything deserves to be recorded on R2R in 15 or 30 ips ½ track.

"dolph"

[retrokeeper]

I have a Teac and an RCA CD dual tray audio recorder,both have the same face/button layout,and both work well.I did have to clean the CD eye on one of them,can't remember which one,but what a PITA that was*fit*,they wrap the CD tray in a metal cage,and there are about 1000 screws to remove...well not that many...but alot!!Before cleaning it wouldn't read a disc to record onto,now she works great.I was at record/audio swap meet yesterday,and seen A Pioneer 3-disc CD player/changer AND single disc CD Recorder,sort of a cool deck.Didn't buy it,wish I would have,but...oh well. Rob

[braxus]

Does anybody have any thoughts on SACD? I have read somewhere that SACD (aka Direct Stream Digital) is higher rez than everything except a reel tape moving at 15 ips.

I have SACDs here and a player to use them on. I think its the next best thing to analog you can get. Im actually planning to buy the hard drive recorder which uses DSD next year. But yes if you want a hard copy, you can either spend $5000 for software to use your DVD drive to burn one, or send out to get one made. Neither will be a cheap proposition.

Tape will always be an inexpensive way to record something.

As for the sound of SACD discs, they do indeed sound very good. Smoother sounding then PCM, and more air and soundstage then PCM. Too bad the format never really took off and today is a niche market only audiophiles embrace.

[Emo-Fan]

While still a niche market, in Europe, SACD is doing much better. If you read the classical music magazines, there are more than a dozen new SACD releases each month. Sadly, though, only from the smaller labels. The big companies won't bother with it too much.

I use a 16 channel 32 track disc drive for my digital keyboards and mix at least some of the time in the digital domain. I can then record directly to my DVD recorder. But most everything finds its way onto reel tape for final mastering. Nothing beats that warm analogue sound!

[gamve]

For any who had read my previous post, you will know I am not a fan of the digital format. Trouble is there is too much good music not available by any other format. Subsequently over the years I ended up with with over a 1000 cd's. Most of them were hard edged sounding were recorded at horrible levels either too high or too low and generally speaking if they were Lp's you would go looking for a better pressing.

Now getting to the point I have worked out a way to get exceptional results from remastered reburnt Cd's to the point that I have sold all my original CD's as the copies sound much better. I am willing to share the techniques if anyone is interested but it does involve some PC software and hardware and some time. I spent nearly a year of spare time doing a thousand CD's. (now you know why I hate digital Ha Ha)

Briefly the steps are as follows

Rip the cd to your hard drive(s) using EAC (exact audio copy, free download)
in .wav file of course

Remaster using software (I used stienburgs wavelab)
1. remove DC offset (calibrate your burner first, notes on burner below)
2. Normalise
3. Declick (if you need to)
4. Normalise
5. Run sony UHR22 filter
6. Normalise
7. Save track
this can all be automated in Wavlab (I discovered this when I had 100 left to go Doh)

Now burn your CD. This is the hard part. You must use a Yamaha CD Burner with the QR Audio Master burning feature that is only supported by some versions of Nero. The Yamaha has not been sold for some time and there is no replacement technology offered by anyone else. Before you storm Fleabay looking, just remember You wont worry me i have 3 new ones and about ten good second hand burners that should last me my lifetime. The Yamaha burns longer pits and lands into the CD, this feature makes your cd players reader run slightly faster which significantly lowers jitter. This is where most of the improved sound quality comes from. The down side is if the CD being copied is longer than 700MB you will need to split the album and burn onto two blanks.
Lady Ayeka is right on the money I found by experimentation that the best burning speed is 4X. I did a lot at 1:1 but could not pick an audible difference and the 1:1 speed means I would bloody still be burning the buggers now two years later. This might well be different with an actual CD recorder as Matt suggests.

I use and recommend Taiyo Yuden blanks. These guys make all the high quality CD blanks for all the major brands. They are cheap are inkjet printable and have guaranteed lowest error rates of any blanks made. I found no errors in 1000 cds.

The other bonus is hard drives are now extremely cheap. Keep all you digital music stored on a drive either external or internal and keep a backup copy away from your house.

I have also worked out how to get your PC to play via RAM only into an external dac strait into the preamp. Music with no moving parts, no transport no nothing. Still testing this.

PS my CD playback in my main system is a modified (clock and output stage) Pioneer PD77 which is a 240V 50Hz European model of your PD75 elite. This is a very sweet unit

Enough of my raving
cheers
Graham