Computer CD burner versus Hardware

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virtual.ray

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I have an ACER 6206 CD burner in my computer,no sound card with S/PDIF and no software except Adaptec CD Creator.I was thinking about buying a Midiman DIO2448 card and mixing down from my 880EX to the computer but aguy at Mars told me that my burner is incapable of generating a Red Book CD master,and that as such if I were to give it to a duplication facility they wouldn't want to do it 'cause of too high an error rate.Since I have no real reason to doubt the guy,this got me thinking that a stand alone like Tascam's CDRW700 might be a better idea.Anyone care to comment?
 
Glen Meadows offers an excellent chart detailing the "Block Error Rate" with several
different models of c/d burners.
See www.digido.com under "Glen Meadows CDR TESTS"

[This message has been edited by MISTERQCUE (edited 06-13-2000).]
 
just buy another CD burner. Have you even tried burning disks with it yet? Music store dudes are not always the best source of information. Especially when they are trying to sell you something.... :)

Hell, I had one tell me that I could fly tracks into a sound card from my ADAT's through a D/A/D conversion and wouldn't be able to hear the difference. What a crock. He didn't have a soundcard with ADAT I/O at the time, so he was trying to sell me SOMETHING.

Try it out first, then make a decision.

Ed
 
Yeah,
I agree with Ed on Salesman not always knowing what they're talking about. I have a Sony USB burner and as far as I know it produces Red Book disc. Can you burn in DAO (Disk At Once) mode? This means that the laser doesn't turn off between songs, and doesn't leave a 2-second gap between tracks. The other mode is TAO (Track-At-Once) This may be important because last time I checked alot of Duplication Houses require your CD-Rs to be burned at DAO mode.
I'd say go w/ the Midiman Card. I would much prefer to mixdown first to my PC, then I can check the mix again before committing it to CD-R. Plus most of the WAV-recording programs have some decent "pseudo-mastering" features.
Plus, you can easily create some MP3s or Real Audio files to share your tunes w/ folks like us!
All in All, I'd think you'd get better mileage sticking w/ the PC.
Good luck!

-Evan
 
Read about the drive right at the link below. It's supports DAO and just about everything else you would ever need in a CD-RW drive. I don't know what that salesman was thinking, other than trying to calculate his commission in his head. I haven't heard of a CD-RW drive made in the last few years that doesn't support Red Book Audio, that's a fairly standard thing. Like Ed said, just try it and see what happens.

You got the right idea about moving the 880 tracks to the PC too. It's a great way to edit stuff.
http://www.acerperipherals.com/storage/storage_622.html
 
I think that the salesman was suggesting that the burner would produce too many errors while burning. Cheaper burners will do this for sure. I don't know about the Acer burner, but I do know that many newer drives will burn just fine at 2X speed. At 4X speed, you vibrations of the disk spinning MIGHT cause errors. Also, at 1X speed, you have twice as long for external vibrations to cause errors then with 2X speed. Most mastering house burn at 2X speed. Avoid burning any higher then this for a CD that will be submitted to a duplication house. If you are just burning one for listening, 4X speed works just fine.

I think it is time to ask Slackmaster how it is one could get the error rate of the burned CD after it is done.

Slack?

Ed
 
Thanks to all for the helpful input! I'm going to look at the sites you 've indicated and find out all I can. It would be great if my little ACER does the trick 'cause it only cost me $100 after the $50 mail in rebate as opposed to $549 minimum for the Tascam CDRW700,so even with the Midiman card for $109 I'm still ahead. Cheers!
 
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