Burning to CD question

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TheStickman

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Burned a CD last night using Nero 5.5 from the mastered wav files. I know for a fact that ALL of these wav files are EXACTLY at 0db. There is ZERO clipping in any portion of ANY song. However, when I burned the Cd and listened to it back on my kid's cheapo portible CD player SOME of the songs DID clip. I immeadiately noted ALL the places I heard clipping and the times and went back to the wav files to check...naturally the wav files are FINE.

ARRRG!!!!

I stick the CD in my puter and listen to it thru headphones and there are slight, small, little clicks here and there, reminded me of how LP's used to sound way back when. Stunned, I double check the wav files again...NO pops or clicks at all there. No I am listening thru the speakers (Cambridge 5.1 setup) and hear nothing but music like it's supposed to be.

Soooooooooo, is it the software I am using? Is it the 10x burner? Is it the cheap blank CD's? Or have I finally burned out and need to just fade away?????
 
Well... I'm not an expert on this so you would be better to ask Gidge or Emeric but I can hazard a guess. You talked about checking all the individual wave files but what about the final master wave file?

When you mix down, whether it be in mp3 format or whatever, in most audio progs what happens first behind the scenes is that a single stereo wave file is created. The master wave file may clip when all you instruments are added together so you may want to mix down to a .wav format and then check that the wave file doesn't clip anywhere. Maybe add some compression to the master wav or even normalise it may help... as I said this is a guess and you may have done this already.

As for the CD thing is very possible that the burning at sucha high speed is what is causing the problem. One way to tell is very simple - if your audio program allows you to mixdown to mp3 format then do that, listen to it. and if that mp3 is ok then that means that your music is fine and it must be some aspect of a) the conversion process that Nero does to make the CD or b) the process of buring itself.

As I said more experienced members of this forum may be able to better shed light on this.
 
thanks for input

I'm thinking it's the quality of the blank CD-R. Burned 3 more CD's with the same mastered wav files (mastered wav file=finished, mixed&mastered song) and none of them had any cracks, clicks or pops or portions where the signal clipped. Of course, if I am in error, I would love for someone to point where I am going wrong.
 
Well, one thing you guys to do to test it is to try burning it at a lower speed (I'd try 1X). I don't use Nero, but I'm sure it allows you to select your record speed. If that doesn't solve the problem, check Nero's settings. Some audio burner apps have compression or "normalize" features that you'd want to disable, especially if you're sure the input .WAV's are good to go.

Just make sure that you're talking about the already-mixed-down-and-exported .WAV's, and not the way you hear it in your recording app. It's easy to export a .WAV too high and clip it on the way out.

Hope this helps :)
 
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