Best DVD burner for making a cd for mastering?

psongman

New member
HI, I am getting a Plextor Premium this week but want to get a DVD drive that will burn my wavs also. What is everyone using to burn a cd in the recording world? They must be using some kind of DVD drive as they don't make any decent cdr drives for this purpose anymore, do they.

Anyway, I guess what I am hinting at, is for your feedback on best burner preferably DVD but if there is another one besides the Plextor I would entertain having 2 in my new used studio array. Thanks for listening, hope you can assist me in my search and research, psongman
 
Having the Plextor Premium (assuming it's a PlexWriter II) will be the big help as it will run PlexTools Professional.

Plextors are great writers, no doubt - But most burners out there will burn a good disc.** Being able to verify the fact that it's a good disc is where PlexTools Professional comes in handy. Plextor makes great DVD drives also (although none of the current models run PTP - which sucks a lot).



** Although I've gone through a dozen or so that argue with specs... Which worries me.
 
Liteon makes good drives with good error checking capabilities, for a "consumer grade" product. IMO of course!

Make sure you get good discs too. I ran around town for days looking for decent CD-R's with the "good" dye in them. Most places just stock the cheapest of the cheap which are not good if you want any kind of longevity.
 
Yes, thanks for some of the info. I can't believe that there isn't some musical recording company that makes a cdr drive esp. for musicians. I mean somebody somewhere is going to have to do it. They must have some kind of units at those mastering houses.

I hope someone will chime in and tell me how they do it. How else are these studios getting their cd's mastered and ready to send to replicating and duplicating houses without cdr drives like the Plextor Premium? With the advent of all these home studios, you know there is a big market for such a specialty item, that for all practical purposes is more than necessary.

I asked my computer tech guy about it, who follows a local music group around who are making it big and he remarked that this cdr drive situation confounds him also...hmmm, well, get back to this thread if you have any more info on a cdr or dvd drive that you can buy that is made speciifically for this purpose, thanks, psongman
 
A solidly built, consistent drive is going to be fine. There aren't "special audio mastering" drives because there is no need for them. It's just writing a stream of data to a disc, just like writing any other stream.

The specs of the burn is another story - But that's handled in the authoring application.

The error checking is yet another - A lot of drives have "error checking" which is usually a comparison of data. PTProfessional is actually checking the block error rate of the disc itself. The 'quality of the burn' - Not the integrity of the data (which again, is usually handled by the authoring program).
 
I can't believe that there isn't some musical recording company that makes a cdr drive esp. for musicians. I mean somebody somewhere is going to have to do it. They must have some kind of units at those mastering houses.

The key is matching the CDR/DVD burner to the media, and the burning speed.
I go with Taiyo Yuden or Mitsui for my critical CDR burning.
I use Sony DVD-R media for my larger file archives, and for every day stuff I go with TDK and Maxell CDs...but I've used a few other brands and not had any noticable issues.
For critical CDR burning, I use Plextor drives. I have several older ones that don't burn any faster than 8X. For my DVDs I have a Sony burner.

But unless you are buying some no-name crap media at Rite Aid ;) chances are that you will not have any "noticable" problems. CD/DVD media and players are designed to "absorb" a certain amount of errors.

If you talk to some of the replication houses (Discmakers, Oasis, etc)...they may be able to suggest which brands of burner/media combinations tend to generate the least errors...or which they have the least issues with, because THAT is where your errors will come into the greatest play...at the replication house.
 
Yes, I am enjoying the chiming on on the cd/dvd burning for a master comments. I still don't understand why someone who is big on the recording chain, like Massive who must have some influence, doesn't sit down with one of these hardware companies and explain to them what studios need to prepare a master for duplication or replication.

I know if I had some clout I would surely use it, esp. in this instance, as I know there are a lot of artists in my area who are doing their own recording in home studios. Well, maybe someone in the cd/dvd burner providing industry is listening and taking our needs to heart, psongman
 
I think you overestimate my influence... I'm lucky if I can get a rapper to understand that a dynamic mic might be better for recording vocals and that tracking 'as hot as possible without clipping' is a really bad idea...

The specs for audio CD authoring are very clear and very available. The quality of the burners are somewhat of another story - There are high-quality burners, there are sh!te burners, just like anything else. A Yugo and a Rolls Royce with both get you from point "A" to point "B" -- A $15 CD burner will very likely burn a decent disc. It might not burn many of them before it needs to be replaced, it might not burn them consistently.

The bigger issue is (I know, it's a sensitive word...) ignorance. A lot of people think they can throw a bunch of .wav files at iTunes (or whatever) and because the disc might play in their CD player, it's a compliant disc.

The information is out there. But like anything else, people need to want to look for it.
 
I think psongman is imagining something like the Alesis Masterlink, which is probably the one device some people think of when they think of a burner "designed for mastering".

But the thing is, when it comes to simply "burning waves", the Masterlink isn't fundamentally any different from any other high quality CD-R burner. Yeah, it includes some extra hardware and software for performing some mastering procedures like song order selection, track fades, etc., but for most engineers, they don't need that extra functionality when they already handle all that stuff fine in Pro Tools, Wavelab or CD Architect.

John and others are right, when it comes to just needing a burner, Plextor has pretty much been the unit of choice with semi-pros and pros who are looking just for a burner and not an expensive replacement for the mastering computer they already have, and there's nothing more that the manufacturers really need to know other than they need to build a machine (and discs) that work to spec regularly and reliably.

G.
 
I know this is all about internal burners for use with a PC, but for those that might be interested in a dedicated outboard unit I highly recommend the HHB CDR850. I’ve used one for years and its hands down the most reliable, best performing burner I’ve ever used. They were made by Pioneer for HHB and Fostex starting in 2000. The Fostex variant is Model CR300. They are exactly the same internally, and externally except for the color. The HHB is purple, while the Fostex is sort of off-white.

I use the HHB to transfer analog masters to CD, and use a PC-based Sony burner to make copies. The converters in the HHB are excellent and the best way I’ve found to take my analog tracks into the digital domain.

SOUND-HHB-CDR850-395x86.jpg


Good review in Sound on Sound online...

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/may99/articles/hhb.htm?print=yes
 
Yes, a friend used to use that unit Beck mentioned. However, that is what I am trying to convey, a company needs to realize that there are thousands, maybe more, of studio persons who will need to eventually burn their tracks or projects, and there should be at least a few units that will make a really sound pit in the layer that can be worked with by ME's, dupe and rep places etc.

On another note, I got my Plextor Premium the other day, and put it right in. I can't wait to use it, and have a strong feeling I will be amazed by its usage. I also got Plextools, and have been reading up on it, but again unless you use these softwares, you can't expect to be up and running, and checking and burning effectively right away. If anyone has any basic tip on using Plextools with Plextor Premium, direct or redirect me, OK, thanks again, for the burning replies, psongman
 
I know this is all about internal burners for use with a PC, but for those that might be interested in a dedicated outboard unit I highly recommend the HHB CDR850. I’ve used one for years and its hands down the most reliable, best performing burner I’ve ever used. They were made by Pioneer for HHB and Fostex starting in 2000. The Fostex variant is Model CR300. They are exactly the same internally, and externally except for the color. The HHB is purple, while the Fostex is sort of off-white.

I use the HHB to transfer analog masters to CD, and use a PC-based Sony burner to make copies. The converters in the HHB are excellent and the best way I’ve found to take my analog tracks into the digital domain.

SOUND-HHB-CDR850-395x86.jpg


Good review in Sound on Sound online...

More Past SOS Articles coming... |
Excuse me sir, it seems that you know more about burning dvdg than me, i have a recent problem when i am trying burrning DVD. I burned a DVD movie bought from Amazon store to a blank disk from a local market. I am totally sure the disk format is VOB MPG-2 which is the commonest DVD dics format(because i find it should be like that format and codec in this article:How to Burn DVD that Will Play in DVD Player and the Best Method to Rip DVDs). But after i inserted my burned DVD the screen immediately got blue while the disk still kept running. Sometimes it even made it hard for me to take the disc out. What's wrong with this? Is that because of CSS or copyright protection? ( i am not pretty sure what they are ) I bought in Amazon which is definitely legal, so i do not thing that is the reason.
I also found a vert similar thread Dvd-r wont play in dvd player [Solved] as you can see some one mentioned that might be that my player too old. But my sony DVD player was bought just in 2014, 3 years from now, and i frequently clean it and i am pretty sure there is no scratch behind my dvd disk.
 
Labsolling, it is definitely illegal to copy commercial DVDs. (that SEEMS to be what you are asking?)

No matter what the hardware or software or who sold you it or what claims they made for it being ok.

There are several types of 'hack' programs around that claim to be able to do this but I suspect many don't work reliably, some might also carry malware and ALL are inviting you to engage in illegal activity!

I personally have no moral qualms about duping parts of my vinyl to .wav FOR MY PERSONAL USE. I don't intend to ever sell the discs, if I did dispose of them I would donate them to charity. (but I understand even that is actually putting the charity shop in a quandary? Bit silly since we have been selling second hand books forever!)

Dave.
 
Labsolling, it is definitely illegal to copy commercial DVDs. (that SEEMS to be what you are asking?)

No matter what the hardware or software or who sold you it or what claims they made for it being ok.

There are several types of 'hack' programs around that claim to be able to do this but I suspect many don't work reliably, some might also carry malware and ALL are inviting you to engage in illegal activity!

I personally have no moral qualms about duping parts of my vinyl to .wav FOR MY PERSONAL USE. I don't intend to ever sell the discs, if I did dispose of them I would donate them to charity. (but I understand even that is actually putting the charity shop in a quandary? Bit silly since we have been selling second hand books forever!)

Dave.
But Dave,
We dont make a page for page, word for word copy of the book before it is sold.
:D
 
But Dave,
We dont make a page for page, word for word copy of the book before it is sold.
:D

No, but you could buy (or find a rip!) of a .pdf and THEN sell the paper copy! Heh! The copying 'laws' have being daft and in a state of buggery ever since the invention of the tape recorder. I am old enough to remember heated debates about a tape 'levy' .

I am also quite in favour of people 'ripping' valuable old recordings that the big record companies want to delete from their inventories but that is a world apart from stealing the modern content of a million£ DVD production.

Dave.
 
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