Randall said:
Well I was just wondering if you even need a stand alone cd-r with todays technologie. Can you do it all from your computer with good software and a good cd-r in your computer?
Standalone burners are used more often for professional applications. For home use, they're not necessarily the best idea - they're more expensive, I believe they're slower, and you have to use "music" CDRs with most of them.
A music CDR is the same as a normal CDR, except that copyright fees are tacked on (because the RIAA assumes that you will be purchasing said "music" CDR to pirate copyrighted material).
I know you can bypass that copy protection scheme on some standalone units, though. The more expensive ones, I would guess - maybe they correctly assume that it you buy a top of the line standalone unit, you're probably a professional studio owner with no interest in piracy.
I've always figured that standalone burners are mainly used by studio owners who don't use computers for every part of the recording process. Maybe Buck62's studio is ADAT-based. Heck, or even analog tape-based! In that case, he might want to simply keep the computer out of the chain altogether.
Or maybe his mastering equipment is external.
Those are my best guesses. The end product, the burned CDR, doesn't change. It's all ones and zeros.
Buck, have I guessed correctly?
Same thing with CDRs - there's no difference in in the sound quality that you'll get from different brands, so it's mainly about other things. It's important to use a disc that's certified for the speed that you want to burn at, if you have a high speed burner. Also, unless you're going to put some sort of label on the top, I recommend against buying bulk CDRs with nothing on the top (silver) part of the disc. CDRs are very fragile, and it's easy to chip that silver part away, leaving nothing for a CD player's laser to reflect off of. It's extremely important to protect the top of any CD - that's why bulk CDs are so cheap. They save a little money if they leave it up to you to do that. That's also why the $3.99 classical CDs that you see in the store usually have nothing but printing at the top, while the big-label $14.99 CD has a nice vinyl (?) label.
It's all about the integrity of stored data over time. For long-term storage (long term as in the rest of your life), the Cadillac of CDRs is supposed to be the Mitsui Gold disc.
I personally like the PNY black CDRs. They look cool, and they feel like they have some sort of scratch protection on the bottom. Seems like they're hard to scuff up.
Cheap, too. I like to buy CDRs with jewel cases. At Best Buy, they're $8.99 for a back of ten 700MB discs. They were the last time I bought a box, anyway.
