Sound quality & CD Burning Software difficulties

kc1101

New member
I have not seen this posted on the board but maybe I didn't use the correct search words. I am a newbie so be gentle.
Using Windows98, 30 day trial version of Cool Edit 2000, CDWave, a cassette deck connected to 128 voice onboard sound card using the standard RCA-to-mini plug cable and the Adaptec Easy CD Creator v. 3.5c.
Following the very helpful suggestions posted in this forum the following problems occurred:
1. While the music was being recorded to the hard drive by Cool Edit 2000 it sounded perfect but once the recording was played back off the saved recording it sounded very distorted. I left all the default setting as they were. It sounded as if the recording level or treble was set way to high. The same distortion occurred after it was recorded to a cd. The same results occurred when I tried recording with CDWave. I searched all over for an equalizer, recording level setting or treble adjustment but could find none in either program. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
2. The next problem occurred in Cool Edit 2000. I know it should be saved in wav format but there are several to choose from such as: Windows PCM(*.wav), Microsoft ADPCM(*.wav)or ACM Waveform(*.wav)- I used the default Windows PCM - since there was no simple wav. Suggestions?
3. My Adaptec Easy CD Creator V. 3.5c kept locking up my system. I set it up to record a full cd but it would only get a few songs then stop. I was forced to reboot my machine. The few songs that were burned on the cd-r would play on my computers cd player but not on my home stereo. Being persitant I tried 3 times with the same results. I know I told the program that it was to be used on any cd player & I chose close session. I do not think it can be a memory problem because I have 255 mb of ram with a 20 gig hard drive that isn't a quarter full. I am checking Adaptec's home page for updates but any ideas would be appreciated. Thanks.
 
I wouldn't bother calling Adaptec. I tried that and got nothing but a wasted hour and a large long-distance phone bill.
Problem 1: How were you monitoring the "perfect sound" in Cool Edit 2000? I'd advise you to not even try burning a .wav file to an audio CD until you monitor the .wav and find that it's up to snuff. Don't mess with EQ (soft or hardware based) to solve <this> problem; you'd only be opening an ugly can of worms.
Problem 2: No problem. Windows PCM .wav is the one you want.
Problem 3: Sounds like your writer is taking a shit or your HD controller isn't fast enough to keep up. Even a fast writer and HD on a decent IDE controller can crap out if the drive is on a secondary that doesn't support the speeds of the primary port (not likely nowadays; BTW what CPU are you using?)
That's interesting that the few songs burned to the CDs would play at all if it crashed before the TOC was written. How's THAT work?
My standalone CDRW can do this but not my internal CDRW.
Another thing to consider is the quality of the connect at the miniplug output from your onboard soundcard. Since you never got a chance to monitor the CDR or wav files through anything but that output port- maybe that's the culprit on the sound; but the Adaptec crash is another problem.

[This message has been edited by drstawl (edited 07-11-2000).]
 
Hey drstawl, Thanks for the response.

Problem 1: I monitored the sound in 2 ways. By listening through the computer speakers on my computer (It sounded good here) and by watching the waveform view of Cool Edit 2000 which showed the recording levels. The recording levels showed that as the cassettes were being recorded, for the most part it was recording at the maximum of the provided scales. Since it sounded fine while listening to it, I am assuming that the recording level is set too high which is creating the distortion. By the way the distortion is similar to raising the volume to high on a cheap pair of speakers. They rattle and begin sounding slightly tinny. This is why I think that if I can lower the recording level it will work fine. I may be off on this since I have only recorded from cd to cassette or cassette to cassette on my stereo. Any further suggestions would be appreciated.

Problem 3: My computer is a Micron 733mhz and the cdrom is an internal Sony 24x. It has worked fine on everything until this, including filling several cds with photos.

Thanks for the help.
 
Back
Top