Help! Strange Problem

Venesectrix

Venesectrix

New member
Okay, here's the deal. I have some recordings on my computer that sound great. But when I burn them on a CD-R and play them through a CD player it sounds almost as bad as streaming audio. It kind of sounds like the bit-rate is lower or something.

I've put songs I've done on a CD before and it was fine, so this baffles me.

Thanks
 
How are they encoded? I'm assuming you mean what the file is saved as.
It's saved as a stereo 16bit 44,100khz PCM WAV file.

I am using adaptech easy CD creator. And I didn't have any problem before.

The only thing different I can think of, is that the first time I burned a song, it was only a single track recorded in Goldwave. This time I recorded several tracks in a Kristal Audio Engine Demo, and mixed them down to a single wave file. It seemed to work just fine. I listened to the mixed down file and there was nothing wrong with it.

Also, I recorded at 8x instead of 2x I think. But I don't think that's the problem.
 
Oh, I didn't know it could mess it up if you recorded at 8x.
I thought recording at a slower rate would lessen the likelihood of have pops or skips in the recording.

Thanks bulls, I'll give that a try.
 
It's really unlikely the burning speed is causing the issue... sounds more like you've not set something up properly and the files are being transcaded to a format of lower resolution.

I'm guessing it's user-error on your part..........
 
In the Preferences/Audio setup(in Kristal) there are these options.


Block Size[Frames]: 2040

Playback Buffers: 6

Record Buffers: 10

Sample Rate: 44.10kHz

Pre-Load Amount: two seconds

Could there be any problem here?
 
Word size setting? do you mean bit depth?
It's one of the options when you save it. (mix down)
I had it at 16bit.
 
Venesectrix said:
Word size setting? do you mean bit depth?
It's one of the options when you save it. (mix down)
I had it at 16bit.
Click to expand...
Hmmm - something strange there -- it's not a SAVE option - it's a RECORD option.... you have to select word size (bit depth - same thing) when you record.

Saving an 8-bit recording into a 16-bit file does not make the file 16-bit (functionally yes - but the low-order bits are zero'd and meaningless...)
 
Hmm.. I can't seem to find a way to change the word size when I record.
Though the individual tracks themselves are put in a folder called "media" and when I record something and go in that folder, all the files are already 16bit.

"the low-order bits are zero'd and meaningless..."? not really sure what you mean.
 
When you record, you have to select a wordsize that will be used to encode/digitize the analog signal. The greater the number of bits and the larger the samnpling rate, the greater the potential sound quality.

This has to be established/set BEFORE recording so that the A/D converters know how to digitize the signal.

If you've accidently set it to record at 8-bit, you'll be compromising a significant amount of sound quality. But let's say you do set it at 8-bit and don't realize it. And afterwards, you save the file as 16-bit.... well you don't magically gain 8-bits that were never there to begin with - the system can't create sound quality for you, but you're telling it to store an 8-bit audio signal into a 16-bit file. The DAW will do it, but the "new" 8-bits will all contain zero (ie, no signal)... the original 8-bit will be there (the high-order byte of the 16-bit word), but you certainl;y won't really have a 16-bit audio file -- simply an 8-bit digitization that's calling itself 16-bit.

I'm not saying this is definitely what happened, but I'm speculating based on the symptoms you describe. (And your question following your post seem to indicate a lack of understanding of digtial encoding.... making this scenario a definite possiblity as to the nature of your problem!)
 
Thanks Blue Bear for your suggestion, but I don't think that's the problem. The reason, is that all of the files sound just as they should on my computer. (Even after condensing it to a WAV file) It's only when I burned it on a disk and played it in a CD player I could tell a loss in quality. It's almost like the file is normal but is quiet and when "s"s are sung they seem to be scratchy and distort.

I looked in Adaptec to see if it might convert it to an 8-bit track, but I didn't see anything about that.

Here's another random thing that I have no idea if it could mess something up.

In the "sounds and multi media" in control panel (Windows ME)
There’s a tab on Audio and Voice. Then there's are advanced tabs on playback, recording, and MIDI. In that there are some options under the performance tab. (sorry this is long) One is "Hardware acceleration" and the other is "Sample rate conversion quality" and it (sample rate) is set at the lowest it will at "good". It doesn't show any numbers or anything specific. So I have no idea what exactly this does.

Thank you guys for dealing with my ignorance.
 
Did you ever re-burn it? To see if it was just a fluke???
You said you're using a demo version... Any way that could be an issue?
 
I've had this problem before Disposable so I don't think it was just a fluke.
But I think I figured it out. I just recorded it at 2x and it's fine.
So I guess that was my problem.

Thanks guys
 
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