External CD-RW?

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bigpants

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I found some external CD-RWs for $140.00 and some for $400.00. Why pay for the expensive ones? Is record quality any better or is it just speed? Oh yeah, I want to mix down from my 4 trak to my PC onto CD. Also, Cakewalk vs Soundforge. Do I need both if I want to us my PC for the whole recording/mixing thing? Why is Soundforge so much more expensive?
 
a cd is a cd is a cd

The only real difference between CD-RW drives themselves is the speed. Once you burn your audio files to the CD, it's always the same quality regardless of the drive...(hence, "CD quality") So the only quality issue is the sound going into the CD. Other than speeds, the only thing you might pay the extra for is features/software packages. Some drives may come with better burning software, none at all, come preprovided with cables, or not, etc...etc...
In terms of mixing down from four track, you'll need to record the output of your four track as a wav file (through the line-in) which you can then burn to CD. One question --why external? is there a particular reason why you would prefer an external to an internal drive?
You probably need both Cakewalk and Sound Forge (or software like unto that) because they perform distinctly different functions. Cakewalk is for recording, arranging, mixing, etc...while sound forge is more geared for sound editing and processing. You need both sets of abilities to do any serious recording or mixing on your PC. Cakewalk has a built in audio editor, but IMHO it sucks. You could get by using a freeware/shareware audio editor if SF is too expensive. Why it costs so much, I don't know. As far as editors go, I prefer Cool Edit Pro anyway. Also, check into n-track. I don't personally use it, but it seems to be quite the rage around here.

Hope this helps (and I messed any of this up, somebody please correct me)

Spoon
 
I have to disagree with you, spoon, that the only difference between drives is speed. I've used a cheaper drive and have data/audio on cd's burned by others with such drives. They may write at respectable speeds, but it's been my experience that they also write more errors. Since getting a $300 drive, I haven't had an error. Could just be conincidence, I suppose, but I doubt it.
 
I understand where you're coming from Vurt, but I think the problems stem from things other than the drive price.
1) First of all, the simplest issue is that burn rates aside, and error incidents aside, once the CD is burned, it's burned and it's at CD quality. The Red/Orange book standard for CD formats and write formats don't ever change drive to drive. The only thing you may experience with a cheaper drive is either slower write times, and/or more errors. The original question dealt with "quality" of the finished sound, which doesn't change, regardless of drive price.
2) While it's true that some lower priced drives have higher error rates, this usually is easily remedied. The primary reason for bad CD burns (ie errors) is a buffer underrun, where the buffer for the burn can't be filled a fast as the CD is being burnt, causing an error. The reason cheaper priced drives have this happen more often, is either because they have a smaller buffer (e.g. 2MB as opposed to 4MB) or because they are trying to write at too fast a speed (really the same problem...) This is always able to be worked around be simply decreasing the burn speed in the burning software, resulting in the buffer not being emptied as fast. This fixes probably 90% of all problems.
3)Regardless, most drives being sold now don't have this problem nearly as much as older drives, because most newer drives have larger buffers, even the cheap ones.
4)IMHO, the best way to avoid error-ridden CD's, or CD's which go bad quickly, etc...is simply to buy quality media. There seems to be a misguided belief by many people that all CD-R discs are created equal...which is completely untrue. Better media means less errors, and actually better sound quality (exceptionally miniscule, but none the less).

Bottom line I guess, is that I agree that cheaper drives are more prone to error -- but if you're willing to live with the inconvenience of setting it to burn at a slower speed, and you always use quality media, than you shouldn't have many problems. Otherwise, it's definitely worth it to shell out the cash for a better drive with faster burn speeds and a bigger buffer.

Spoon
 
Good points, spoon (I was considering proneness to error as a quality of recording aspect). I have no reason to disagree with any them.

As an aside, here's one for you that's had me scratching my head head for a couple days...

I'm burning ripped cd audio compilations (onto memorex medium, and burning at half capable speed, as always). The burns sound like shit in my cd drive for play through my pc speakers, sprinkled with annoying pops and cracks. But the thing is, if I put these new discs in a regular cd player, they sound fine! Now, I can put a normal audio cd into my cd drive and it sounds fine, so I dunno what the problem is.
That make any sense?
 
uh....

Vurt -- That's one of the stranger CD-R problems I've ever encountered...The only suggestions I can come up with off the top of my head is to reboot, try again. Are you playing the CD-R's in your burner, or in a seperate Read Only drive? I would try to reinstall the drivers for whatever drive it is, and see if it fixes the problem. If not, you may have me stumped. Can you play the source .wav files okay on your computer before burning them to CD?
Spoon
 
I know, it's strange. I'm playing the things from a read-only drive, and yeah, the source files sound just fine when played from my hd. Yesterday I played the cd's in three different stereos, and they were all perfect.
 
I know you're talking about a PC-external, but

That's not the only kind of external CDRW burner that's out there. And for that kind (stand-alone) the quality of the deck makes a big difference. My CDRW accepts digital input from a PC or elsewhere but it also has pro level (+4) and consumer level (-10) analog inputs and its own converters that are pretty damn good for 16 bit. One thing it won't do is data backups from my PC HD. For that I use the internal CDR burner.

One question- somewhat rhetorical:
Why would you want to use CDRW as a medium for data backup?
An erasable backup is, in my mind at least, an oxymoron.
 
drstawl -- Using CDRW as a backup medium makes sense in a few situations...you can set up a CDRW as a direct-cd session, and drag and drop files to and from it just like a floppy...meaning you essentially have a 650 MB disk to move stuff between computers with, copy updates of documents to, etc...Also, if you were working on one particular project, for example, and it was going through several incarnations over several weeks, then having a CDRW is the drive that you backed up the whole directory onto at the end of every day as a safety precaution makes sense -- it would be more cost effective than having 50 CD-R's laying around with different versions of the same thing on, and it's obviously easier to keep track of...
You're right on -- if you are using a standalone external CDRW drive, the quality of the deck is a huge concern.

Vurt -- I still dunno what's going on with your drive. One thing to try and replace just as a cheap test is the internal audio connector cable between the drive and your soundcard...just a whim, but I doubt it will do any good. Other than that, there's probably several things that could have gone wrong, but don't ask me what they are or how to fix them. Hope it fixes itself or isn't too much of a pain, because I'm stumped.

Spoon
 
spoon_22: Thanks for clearing that up. As a temporary backup it makes some sense. But here again the CDR is superior because sometimes in the course of recording or mixdown efforts that span many days involving the same material the product doesn't necessarily get better and you might want some of the earlier "takes" or "mixes" even if only for comparison purposes. Plus the data CDR can be read in more places than the CDRW.

Also- how do you keep track of how many write/erase cycles a particular CDRW disc has been through?
 
Vurt -- That sucks. Glad you figured it out.

drstawl -- I think CDRW has it's greatest strength in temporary backup when you want a simple source of pseudo mirroring of certain things on your harddrive, or when you frequently need to transport large amounts of data from two different places. You are right that CD-R is superior in situations where previous incarnations may want to be saved...it all depends on the specific application. In a situation where you are going through incarnations of say, a 1M document, you could save 650 different versions over time on the same disk...whereas CDR would have to have one per, or 650 seperate sessions on the CD...which is a serious pain. Also, CDRW has the obvious convenience of being erasable so that old disks can be reused. In speaking of backing up a large amount of material over the course of a long period of time, CDRW is obviously advisable only if you are positive you don't want or need older versions. So generally, I use CDR almost exclusively, especially for backups of large projects, or archiving old versions of programs, etc...etc...but have some CDRW for certain times when it fits the need.
As for keeping track of write/erase cycles, I think there is probably software which does this, but I'm not very familiar with it myself. I've never really had the need for it.

Spoon
 
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