mp3 versus wav file format to burn cd's???

B

bloozguy

New member
I've had a number of people tell me that burns of my songs play for them in perhaps their car or truck's cd player, while they won't play in their home stereo system. Any idea why that happens?

Secondly, someone suggested if I encode high quality mp3's of my songs, and burn the cd's with the mp3's instead of wave file format...that chances are their home system's will play them. Any experience or knowledge on that?

I did an experiment...which may say more about my rock'n roll ears starting to go in older age. I encoded one of my songs into mp3 at 208,000 bits...which ended up as about a 6K byte file versus the 52K byte file of my wav file. I burned them both to the CD...and can't really tell much difference between the two other than it took a long time to initially mixdown my song into the mp3 format.

I'm using Cakewalk Pro Audio 9.0....btw.

Interested in any thoughts, warnings, experience....thanks!


bloozguy
 
You can't burn MP3s to CDs and expect them to play in most home cd players because that is a computer data format and not an audio format.

Some of the newer home players will accept data CDs (as burned by computer), but it is not common yet.

You need to burn WAVs and MP3s to Redbook Audio CD standard for the CD to play in the majority of cd players.

Bruce
 
cd burning

are u using Audio cd-r's? Those tend to give me less problems than just plain data cd-r's. They seem to work in more players. As for the file type, I use mp3 and really dont have any problems, even on older cd players
 
Interesting to get two different reports/takes on this...

I did try it on my home stereo cd player, and the mp3's worked fine. As I said, I couldn't tell the difference in audio sound, but I sure can understand that as a computer format some cd players would struggle.

Still...don't know why some home stereo systems are struggling with my wav files up to this point.

Could be as you suggest jbodner, and maybe I'm using a lousy cd. I purchased the bulk cd's called, "Prime Peripherals" at an Office Max...tried Best Buy before that.

I haven't really found a retail outlet that has put out what I recognize to be cd blanks specifically for burning quality music. Have any brand names in mind, or is there an outlet online that they can be ordered from? Thanks

bloozguy
 
cd's

staples has em. alot of stores do u just gotta look close. it should say digital audio on em. i know sony makes em. i Know b/c the burner i have only works with these cd's. it wont write to "data" cd-r's. ( its a stand alone unit by phillips ) where the cd says compact disc ( the cd logo ) it should say digital audio recordable under it. look close!
 
I don't understand.... there are two types of formats that you're mixing up here....... Redbook Audio (which are NOT WAV files nor MP3s - they are audio data) and there are Data such as those burned as storage on CD-writers for computers.

Home stereo CD Players do NOT read nor understand computer data CDs....

If you want to put MP3s or WAVs onto a Redbook audio CD, then you have to use software that burns Redbook audio FROM your WAV/MP3 files........
 
cd's

i am not talking about the file type. I am talking about the cd's themselves. regular cd-r's can be used in cd players. but there is an audio cd-r that seems to work better. Obviously u have to burn the cd in a format that will work on your stereo, but the actual CD you use can be either a regular cd-r, or an audio cd-r
 
Audio CDRs are EXACTLY the same as normal CDRs except that they have the copy-protection bit "preburned" to "1" so that digital copies of the material are impossible at the consumer level.

(professional gear normally includes settings to ignore copybit protection)

They push audio CD-Rs as "better" when in fact there is no sonic difference, and the real reason is "hidden" copy protection.

Bruce
 
While we're on the topic of playing burned CD's in home stereos...I bought a few 185MB/21min CD-Rs. I've used them just for fun in backing up some work...but I've never tried to make an audio CD out of one. If I burn the wav tracks onto it the same way I would to a full size CD, will it play in a regular CD player?

Thanks,
bnoji
 
bnoji,

I've actually seen "smaller" cd's used for demos and handouts (clubs, promos, etc) which look similar (if not the same as) the CDRs that are touted for "e-business cards" ...I'm assuming these are the smaller discs of which you speak, but I'm not all that familiar with them myself...
 
Am I missing something here? Why would you take a perfectly good .wav file and compress it to a smaller "not as good sounding" .mp3 file. Then, change it to a .cda file to be read in a standard CD player. The end result will be the same size 16 bit 44.1khz .cda file anyway. Does somebody not get this here, or am I misunderstanding this thread?
 
Blue Bear Sound said:
I don't understand.... there are two types of formats that you're mixing up here....... Redbook Audio (which are NOT WAV files nor MP3s - they are audio data) and there are Data such as those burned as storage on CD-writers for computers.

Home stereo CD Players do NOT read nor understand computer data CDs....

If you want to put MP3s or WAVs onto a Redbook audio CD, then you have to use software that burns Redbook audio FROM your WAV/MP3 files........
Click to expand...

Hey Bruce, what kind of software would that be? I understand that these Cd's you're talking about differ from normal CD-R's?
 
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They only differ in that the SCMS code shit is pre burned onto the disc at the factory, other than that, they're the same as a CD-R.
 
I think it is just simply that some CD Players can play CD-R's and others can't, other than that, could be the brand of CD-R's that you are using.

Porter
 
..and I *heard*(read: don't know as fact) that the audio cdr's have a royalty built in to the price that goes back to ascap or bmi...or mebbe that was just a proposal, can't remember..

use cdr, not cdrw, close the session...burn at a lower speed. 2x max.
 
Just so everyone is on the same page here-

.wav - Computer ONLY format. Highest quality. Always use this when you want to share files for professional use.

.cda - Redbook audio standard CD file. This is the only format guaranteed to work on ALL cd players as long as the CD itself is not defective or out of spec.

.mp3 - Lowest sound quality but still better than casette. Smallest file size and good for internet distribution. This will play on any media player on computers, many newer DVD players and a few home, car and portable CD players. Use 256k for best quality/file size ratio. 128k is the next best choice and the most common.

Most CD burning software will convert any of the formats to any other format.

Putting MP3's on your CD's along with the .cda files is not a bad idea if people want to dump them to their computers. But it may cause confusion for some CD players.
 
Tex,

I know that if you burn an audio track onto a CD, to play in a CD player it can't be written to the CD as a mp3 (unless it's a CD/MP3 player) or a wav file. However some players can't read CD-R's.

I can recall seeing on either this BBS or another, post's about the brand of CD's and wether they work in different CD Players. One brand of stereo it did, another it didn't

And correct me if I'm wrong, however .cda files are only 'header' files that contain information about the location of audio tracks on the actual CD. They don't contain any information themselves.

Porter
 
CD players require finalized CD's

CD players WILL play data discs. They just won't record to them and it is because of royalty issues. The record bastards required that audio discs have coding on them so that they could get royalties on each disc which is why they cost a little more than data discs. It's not SCMS. That just keeps you from making digital copies of copies. You can make 1 copy digitally, but you can't make a copy from the copy. Pisses me off. But to play a cdr on an audio machine it HAS to be finalized. The only audio machines that will play non-finalized discs are audio recorders. But for regular players it has to be finalized. Also cd players will not play MP3's unless it specifically has that feature built in.
 
Mp3

Can I condense my current audio .wav CDs which we produce in our biz into MP3 to gain needed space and ultimately burn Redbook (Vegas Video) onto a DVD? My wife and I are trying to condense 10-CDs into one DVD is feasible? I'm quite the 56-year old novice... just beginning! Thanks for any directions or comments!
 
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