How to make quality CD repoductions?

[rounder]

My repro's have been weak sounding. I thought maybe a mixer would help, or an equalizer for the pre-burner player.

How and with what can I improve the sound quality prior to the burner?

Can anyone with some real cd-burner experience help me out?

[ABAB]

What are you trying to burn?. If you are burning downloaded Mp3s some of them are of a low bit rate to start with making them sound tinny or muffled. in this case try only downloading those tracks with a bit rate of 128 or above. other wise you could try editing your tracks with a programme like 'cool edit' to beef it up a bit.

[ABAB]

More 'pre-burn' editing programmes.(Free)I havn,t used these but they will probably do the job

Millennium Mp3 Studio 1.2

Audacity 0.98

Mp3 2000 1.0

[DrMDJ]

As ABA asked, what's the source of the music (MP3's, direct cd-to-cd copies)? By "weak sounding" do you mean the volume is weak or the general sound quality is bad? What software are you using? What burner do you have (and if copying from cdrom, what cdrom)? Questions, questions...

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[rounder]

My question originally pertained to copying CD's. By weak I mean mid-range and bass needs more punch. An equalizer would seem like the tool to do this. There was an obvious difference between my copy and my original.

I also like to make CD's of MP3 files. I am pretty picky about the quality of files I download. I just assumed if there was a free downloadable tool that it would work for both.

ABAB, 'cool edit',Millennium Mp3 Studio, Audacity 0.98, Mp3 2000 1.0. Are all of these ".coms that I can find on the net?

I am using Adaptec EZ CD Create. I have a SONY CRX140E CD RW and a SAMSUNG DVD/CDROM.

[griffinspc]

Goldwave is the best I've found so far. Full equalizer control, edit out tape his, pops and crackles if you're recording old LPS, tapes, etc.

You can try full version before you buy, here:
http://www.goldwave.com/

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"Don't know where I'm goin but there's no sense being late"

[Ridgerunr]

If you simply want to copy a Cd? CloneCD does a good job.

http://www.elby.org/english/corp/index.htm

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[DrMDJ]

For the direct cd-to-cd copies... There should be no tonal differences between the original and the copy. Afterall, you're doing a (digital) bit for bit copy from the source cd to the burned one. You're using Easy CD's CD Copy component to make these copies?

The Goldwave program Griffinspc mentioned is a good one (for the price). Should have all the capabilities for cleaning up and enhancing any wav of MP3 files.

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[moog]

This is some good info. http://www.audiotools.co.uk/cgibin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi
Also FYI sites to gain knowledge
http://www.homerecording.about.com/ http://www.cdrfaq.org/ http://www.studiocovers.com/articles.htm


Also if you have EZ CD Deluxe, the sound editor has a normalizer, poor, but a short term solution. But as stated, a direct copy should not be less then orginal unless your burner has problems.

[This message has been edited by moog (edited 03-19-2002).]

[ABAB]

Sorry rounder, I meant to post the links 1st time round.
Cool edit

Audacity

Millenium Mp3 studio

Mp3 2000 1.0

[ABAB]

Hmmmmmmmm, lets try again.
http://download.cnet.com/downloads/0...st-7-1.2408470
Cool Edit 2000 1.1
http://download.cnet.com/downloads/0...st-7-1.8606398
Audacity 0.98
http://download.cnet.com/downloads/0...st-7-2.1539162
Millennium Mp3 Studio 1.2

http://download.cnet.com/downloads/0...st-7-3.1484648
Mp3 2000 1.0

[JoJo Gunn]

I'm with the others. A direct copy, being digital, shouldn't have any differences. Supposedly you should be able to make a copy of a copy of a copy, etc, a million times beyond the original, and it should be the same, excluding, of course, any errors the recording equipment might introduce.

How about trying Cdex? It extracts directly, bypassing your sound card, which may be the problem. Extract the songs to WAV files, at the standard CD rate, 44,100-16bit, then burn your CD that way. Cdex is free, and you can find it here:

http://www.cdex.n3.net/

Their claim, from their web site:

"Why use CDex?
Well, CDex can extract the data directly from an Audio CD, which is generally called an Audio CD Ripper or a CDDA utility. Of course you can do that also by recording through your sound-card. However, recording by sampling the signal with your sound card implies that the signal is first has to be converted to an analog signal by the CD-ROM, which is fed into the sound-card and digitized by the sound-card. In practically all situations the quality of the recording will be deteriorated (unless you have a CD-ROM that has a digital output of course). CDex on the other hand, is reading the digital audio data directly from the disc, which can be stored in either a WAV file or a MPEG (MP2 or MP3) sound file."

[This message has been edited by JoJo Gunn (edited 03-19-2002).]

[Rob Schulte]

Thanks for the link for the extraction utiity, Does anyone know if Easy Cd Creator 4 uses the sound card when you "Extract to File" function and save as .wav CD Quality?

Thank You

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Do or Do Not. There is no Try.

[DrMDJ]

No, Easy CD does not use the soundcard by default to extract audio tracks. It, and most other similar software, will extract the data digitally (ie. not via the soundcard) as long as the source cd drive is capable of doing (what's called) Digital Audio Extraction (DAE). If a drive can't perform DAE (generally only a problem with older ones) then there is no choice but to extract the tracks through analog means.

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