HELP!!!Need Help Burning my First CD

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Bob Scott

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Hello Ya'll

I'm new to this Forum and sought it out because of the problem
I'm having burning my first CD. I've been into home recording
since 1992 and started with with a four track Tascam and in about 1997 bought my first computer software "Digital Orchestrator Plus" and in 1999 upgraded to "Digital Orchristrator Pro". I also upgraded my soundcard to a EMU 8715 Creation Studio soundcard. I know this is low tech by todays standards
but I've become very familiar with the program and know it like
the back of my hand. I've been using it on an old Gateway 2000,
80 mb of ram, 2 GB harddrive. I just upgraded my computer to
a 2001 Dell with 128 mb ram and 40 GB hard drive with a CD
burner. I loaded my DOP program on the new computer and trying to find a way to do a mixdown in a wav file and convert it
to Mp3 so I can burn a CD. I downloaded a digital recorder/converter off the net called "Goldwave". So I have proceeded to try mixdowns from DOP to Goldwave. Goldwave is
recording the mixdown but the audio is terrible!!! I've got both
set on 44.1 K. I've tried adjusting the levels down to nothing and
still have digital distorition and other watery sounds. I even tried
doing a mixdown on the 59 second MicroSoft digital recorder with
the same results, so it's not the Goldwave. What am I missing???
Any help with this would be greatly appreciated!!! I'm lost on what to try next. I've tried all the tricks I know and nothing has
worked. I haven't installed my emu card off the other old computer on the new computer yet, so could the old standard Dell sound card be the problem??? Bob
 
You don't need to make an MP3 to burn your songs to CD.... the MP3 creator is probably making a low-bitrate (poor sound quality) copy.

MP3 is a LOSSY way to compress sound (it throws out tons of information to make the file size smaller.)

Whatever CD burning software you use should be able to burn an audio CD from 16-bit/44.1kHz .wav files. Your Orchestrator program should be able to do a final mixdown directly to a single 16bit/44.1kHz file and you DON"T need to change it to anything else.
 
agreed, mp3 at 192kbps is pretty much poorer than 16-44 (wav) and most "built in" mainboard sound card do sound crappy, many older cards are less than quality for recording, they play back fair but recording is a different story...

make sure the VU's are within spec also... -3 to -6...
 
Thanks Tim and Fusion2

I have been Mixing down to wav, for some reason I thought
it had to be converted from wav to mp3 to make a CD. Right now I'm hung up in the mix down stage to wav and can't get a clean mixdown. I'm new to this CD burning so it's a learning experiance. I worked on it several hours last night trying everything I could think of. This is mixing the midi/digital tracks down to Goldwave wav file. I lowered the recording levels down to where the visual digital audio signal was barley visable on the base line and still had "pops" or digital distortion. So it's not the recording level. I'm beginning to suspect the sound card?? This is the sound card that came in the Dell. It must be full duplex because its recording and playing back my midi and digital tracks from DOP fine. I tried to find the documentation on the specs for the sound card last night but couldn't find any. I'm not sure Dell sent any specs. Maybe I can find them on the net. The general specs call it a "Integrated Audio with Soundblaster Pro 16 Compatability". Looking at the back of the computer the line in, stereo out and mic input are not in the location where cards are located, so it don't look like a normal sound card set up. It appears also not to have any digital output jack of any kind?? I will keep plugging along until I get to the bottom of this. Thanks for your help and I'm open to suggestions!!!! Bob
 
ok, if your trying to play back and record on 1 hard drive at the same time, you may be getting the clicks from that, the system has to read and write at the same time off the same drive making it almost impossile for the drive to handle it, many here use a second drive, one to play back while the other records, try recording something from a non system sorce, web radio, CD, etc and see if the clicks are still present...

this is where a multi track software recorder comes into play, try n-tracks, it's free version does a pretty good job they say, if nothing else it's cheap and comes with a few plug-ins...

this will alow you to play and record at the same time hopefully, donno, so don't hold me on that one, i run 4 drives and have no prob on this issue...

i'm kinda new to multi recording myself, heh, all i want to do is play guitar but i'm down in the corn fields in hick town and there's damn litte if any techs here :)

keep punch'n, it's all here, do a search, top right icons...
 
Making Progress!!!!

Ye Haw!!!! had good success last night. Voyetra sent me instructions on how to mix all the midi tracks down to a dual
stereo audio tracks and also do a mixdown of my digital audio
tracks to stereo tracks all within Digital Orchristrator Pro plus export it as a wav file to another folder. So you do one mix down
for midi with all your digital track muted and then do a digital
mixdown of all my digital tracks with all the midi tracks muted.
You then have two digital audio tracks with all you midi mixed down and two stereo digital audio tracks with all the digital audio tracks mixed down for a total of four new tracks for everything. With all the other previous tracks muted you do a "export Wav" to the folder of your choice. Bingo!! Ready for a CD burn.

Only problem is I couldn't do it on the new 4300 Dell. All the mixdowns were distorted pops no matter how low I set the record level. I fired up my old Gateway 2000 with the Creative Sound Blaster AWE 64 Gold card and had no problem with distortion whatsoever. The mix sounded great even though it
was only 22000 Khz. This is a step in the right direction and I don't think the Dell is going to fly until it gets a new sound card.
I keep wondering if maybe I could hook them together???

Hey fusion2, I'm in the piney woods of North Louisiana. The only few people I know thats into recording have dedicated multitrack
digital recorders. I'm the only one I know around my area using
a computer. I still have a Tascam 424 four track that I use to throw an idea down real fast before I forget it. All and all I like being in the sticks away from all the big city madness. Nice place
to visit but I wouldn't want to live their. Har!!!!Bob
 
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