what cd burner?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Clive Hugh
  • Start date Start date
C

Clive Hugh

New member
I'm new to pc based recording having recently got Cubasis +VST. I got it to replace my synth sequencers so I can use cd's in a stacker for my solo gigs. I have been told that the "only" burner to use is a Tascam RW4U which is quite expensive @$1080 Australian.
Still in shock from the price, any recommendations would be appreciated. Thanks
 
Plextor. Get a Plextor and don't look back. Did I mention Plextor?
You might also look into Plextor. No, I don't work for them.
-kent
 
My top three choices would be Plextor, Plextor, and Plextor. You will come to love the burn proof software.
 
Well

Ive been using Plextor products since they were Texel..they were my first CD-ROM drive..but my last burer, the Plexwriter 8/20 died about a year in, and then again a year after sending it in to them and getting it back..so I was annoyed, but oh well..they build good stuff...So I just ordered a new Plexwriter 16/10/40x from www.mwave.com, for $125..Plus, there's a $30 rebate if you order by 1/31/02, so buy one now :) That's like $95 for a CDRW..granted they have a new 40x writer available but the media probably costs a fortune AND if you're burning audio CDs, you probably won't be burning faster than 1-2x anyhow..

I found it cheaper, but Mwave had the better shipping options..the cheapest place wanted too much for 2nd day air, and it was their only choice..I also wanted a 1300mhz Athlon Tbird 200mhz FSB chip, which I got for $99 also..since my 800 is just fine, but for $100, I might as well get a new chip now..and my bf is needing a new PC, so I could build one with the 800 at some point, so..either way, ..they tell you which ones have the rebates there too, which you can get from www.plextor.com, in PDF format, and the box may have one too..be careful if you buy from somewhere else, as the rebate is only good on the retail version, not OEM/bare drive version..

http://direct.mwave.com/mwave/doSearch.hmx?bop=and&scriteria=plextor&UID=&CID=&Back=&n=1

I'd say go Plextor if you want the best stuff..I've been dealing with them since like 1992, and they're great..even tho I am still bothered that my very under-used 8x writer died twice in 2 years..for $120, I just figured I'd replace it.

---Sal
 
Thanks guys, thats a hell of a lot better price than I was looking at.
All I originally wanted was a simpler system of recording than synth and sequencer. I can see light ahead but it hasn't got simpler.
Clive
 
what is this thred doing in the Microphone-forum?

Just wondering...

fim
 
This is a weird topic for the mic forum.

BTAIM, did anyone mention Plextor?
;)
 
Plextor is great, make sure its SCSI though- as IDE is not as jitter free as SCSI as I understand. Do a search here on CD burners or SCSI. There was a whole thread about it a while ago.
 
Hmmmm.... I would say that might have been true a few years ago, but the IDE burners today are pretty stable.

By the way I forgot to mention, I use a Plextor burner at work, and at home have a TDK, a Liteon, and a (very old) Acer. All IDE. The Plextor and TDK have both been very reliable, and I have been able to cut audio CDRs at up to 12x speed with no problems.
 
SCSI

The only advantage SCSI has is probably most people had an IDE hard drive and CD reader..and dedicated SCSI for their burner..which isolates the drive on its own bus, which makes things nicer essentially..but nowadays with IDE improving so much, you can run your HDD as a master on say port 1, and run your CDR as master on port 2, and things will be almost as smooth running..or if you like me have 2 HDD's, and a DVD drive..then you're in a situation of having to prioritize..I have my 2 HDDs as masters, and the DVD as a slave..when my new <and first, ive always been SCSI for burners> Plextor comes, it's gonna try out being a slave on port 2..now assuming I am not doing anything else, life should be a breeze..but if I try to play like Return to Wolfenstein, then things might get hairy..

The only problem I could see would be a buffer underrun, not a quality issue where an audio CD burned while reading email is not as 'good' as one burned while you were biting your nails watching the screen and not touching a thing.

-Sal
 
Another beautiful thing is that the new Plextor & TDK CDR drives have Burn Proof - which means if you are in danger of a buffer underrun it can actually slow down the burn and let the system catch up. No more coasters!

It is always a good thing to try to limit a single IDE bus to either reading or writing, not both. This is one area where SCSI is clearly superior to IDE. I usually recomend that with a DAW setup to go with the following arrangement:

Primary Master - System hard drive with OS
Primary Slave - CDR drive
Secondary Master - big, fast data hard drive
Seconday slave - DVD or CD-ROM drive, or third hard drive

With this arrangement you can back up data to CDR or dupe CDs with each bus only reading or writing. And you can write backups of your system drive to the data drive (using something like Ghost or Drive Image) and then write the backups to CDR.
 
Plextor is one of the best...but most of the newer drives have burn proof on them...I am going to be getting a Yamaha 3200 soon...

But plextor is the best followed by TDK, Yamaha and Liteon IMO...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top