Should I give disk factory another chance?

[quadrajet]

I did a search on this site for some of your experiences with Disk Factory and it all seems positive. Thing is, I tried them once and had some problems...

I had my last CD duplicated by them originally, and although they looked great, some songs had major skips and digital gremlins on them. They're own engineer told me that there were no audio problems on the master I sent them either (of course, I checked it before mailing it in). What was really disturbing is that this didn't happen on the entire run. The first one I pulled at random out of the box to listen to was just fine. The third, twelfth, etc. were not. I made sure it wasn't a cd player issue either and tried them on several different stereos. The final answer from Disk factory was that the CD burner I used (an Onkyo home based unit, kind of an oddball I suppose) was writing in a format that must've been "confusing" their duplicators.

To disk factory's credit, they handled the problem admirably. Their customer service and engineering people were prompt and curteous and called me at home to resolve the situation. They gave me full refund and told me to keep the shipment they sent me. It is because of this professionalism that I am considering giving them another try....

So I guess my question is should I give them another shot? If I send a master produced from a different source, such as my VF160ex CD burner, think I'd have better luck? What have your experiences been? I don't want to worry about selling someone a CD with skips, and I don't want to do my own quality control by listening to hundreds of CDs on my stereo, so what's your advice/experience?

[glynb]

You used the term 'duplication', I assume you really meant that and not 'replication' ?

duplication is burning CDRs from your master copy, like burning a CDR at home you can have the odd problem and instances where it doesn't burn right.

Replication - this is where they make a glass master and press your CDs from it to make a perfect copy. It is much more reliable and you get less failures.

So it could be that Diskfactory are using the 'duplication' method. This is usualy used for small runs of say 100 CDs. usualy for people to do something for family and firneds on a small scale.

If you want to sell your stuff you need to go for Replication, which costs more, but you won't get as many errors and coasters.

Disclaimer...
I am only repeating what I have been advised by others who know about this stuff. When I produce my album in march (500 copies) I'll be using the 'Replication' technique as i want to have as professional a product as possible within my budget.

As for Diskfactory, hey, you got your money back and some 'free' CDs, you should have confidence in using them again, they seem reasonable. Just clrify what i said about replication with them next time.

Good luck.

[noisefan]

I've never know any musician who hasn't some kind of problem when making discs.

If Disk Factory dealt with the problem in a professional way I say give them another shot. It always helps to express your past problems before signing off on a new project. If they're a reputable company they should go the extra-mile to take care of you.

[MadAudio]

Ideally you should burn a master at 1x - less chance for errors and badly-formed pits. 2x is the fastest my boss will burn a master (and he's a Grammy-nominated engineer, so he should know!).

[David Hooper]

I've had good luck with them and the price is definitely right.

Problem is probably more in the general process than with them specifically.

[dgatwood]

The problem with insisting on a 1x master is that many recent burners won't burn audio CDs at anything less than 4x. Just make it a point to burn at the slowest speed your hardware allows, and use a decent CD-R blank....

[quadrajet]

Originally Posted by dgatwood

The problem with insisting on a 1x master is that many recent burners won't burn audio CDs at anything less than 4x. Just make it a point to burn at the slowest speed your hardware allows, and use a decent CD-R blank....

Anyone know what speed a Fostex's VF160ex drive burns at? Seems like its faster than 4x to me and I haven't read about anyway to change it.....

[glynb]

Originally Posted by quadrajet

Anyone know what speed a Fostex's VF160ex drive burns at? Seems like its faster than 4x to me and I haven't read about anyway to change it.....

I'm a Vf160 user too, I also don't know of a way to change it. But from my experience it's unlikely you'll get any problems with the way the VF burns CD masters, the problems are more likely to come when tracks are transferred to PC and burned to CD from there.

You could try posting the question over at the VF160 forum, you may get the answer. The link's here...http://pub15.ezboard.com/fvf16frm1

[quadrajet]

Right now I am leaning toward rolling the dice and giving them another shot. Maybe their story about my CD burner is true, because I bought it when they first became popular and my particular one only writes on consumer audio CDR's, not data compatible ones. Hopefully the VF160 drive jives with what they are using, becuase I'm sure as heck not going to upload my songs to them as MP3's (too compressed) and I cant do WAV's without taking some vacation time from work since I'm on dial up.

I'm still a ways off from having my latest project complete, so if anyone can recommend another place with comparable pricing for duplication I'd like to check it out. So far I havent found anybody that fits that bill because the full color on disc imprinting that DF uses is very impressive looking....