Glitches in Audio CD

JeffR wrote on 2/6/2001, 8:54 AM
Hi:

I have used CD Architect several times and sometimes get
good results and sometimes not. The CDs always play but
sometimes they're full of glitches (actually missing
data). A song sounds like a record skipping forward where
parts are missing. The display always says, "CD completed
without errors".

I've tried all the suggested "fixes" but the results still
seem to be hit and miss. Unless I listen to an entire CD
track by track I don't know if it's any good.

I do a lot of professional audio work and this "tool" seems
to be unreliable. Any suggestions would be greatly
appreciated. Thank you.

Comments

artto wrote on 2/10/2001, 7:32 PM
I have encountered the same problem. I have been using
Sound Forge & CD Architect for about 2 years.

CDs that are "burned" instead of "pressed" seem to be more
vulnerable to glitching on playback.

The speed at which they are burned seems to affect the
amount of glitching, and even the sound quality, at least
on certain CD players.

The computer, more specifically, the hard disk drives, also
have an impact on the ultimate quality of the CD burn.

The total audio length and number of tracks burned on the
CD also seem to affect the glitching.

WORKAROUNDS:


1 Make sure the laser on your CD-RW & CD player are CLEAN.
This seems to affect "burned" CDs more than "pressed" ones.

2 Hard drives, need to be FAST. The older (common for the
most part) 33MHz front-side bus machines with 33MHz IDE
controllers will have a difficult time, for instance,
burning a 72.5 minute CD with 28 tracks on it at maximum
speed. If you slow down the burn to 2x from 4x, you'll
probably be able to burn 3-10 CDs in a row without a burn
failing. I can burn about 25 4 track 20 minute CDs at 4x.
But max out at 10 CDs with 74 minute 28 tracks at 2x (see
computer setup at end). Another thing to consider is using
your computer memory (if you have enough & it is fast
enough), as a "RAMdisk" where you allocate a portion of
your computer's memory as if it where a hard disk drive.
But again, this is machine dependent. It could make things
better or worse depending on the speed & amount of RAM vs,
the speed and THROUGHPUT of your hard drives. You'll have
to check with Sonic Foundry to see if they support this.
The newer 66MHz Ultra IDE controllers will do a better job
than the 33MHZ IDE. SCSI drives have much faster throughput
than IDE or Ultra IDE. You can also get SCSI CD-RW drives.

3 Your computer. Celeron type processors (no onboard cache
memory) are not any good for this as far as I'm concerned.
Possibly consider a "workstation" vs. a typical consumer
type PC. The throughput is much faster for most everything.

4 Consider your CD player. I have been using a Revox B225
player for about 15 years as my reference. As of the latest
SoundForge & CD Architect software revisions, that CD
player will no longer play any of my burned CDs
consistantly. I recently purchased a new Denon pro audio
player in a panic because of the Revox problem, & it played
everything fine. It also had enough error correction &
definition to allow you to distingush the difference
between CDs burned at 4x vs. 1x. One guess as to which one
sounded better. I suspect it has something to do with how
much the error correction is working.

[current setup (soon to be replaced) HP Pavillion 266MHZ
PII, 192MB RAM, dual 20GB IBM deskstar 7200rpm IDE hard
drives (operating system,win98SE, & programs & swap files
on C:, data files & virtual extension memory on D:), HP
8100 CD writer]
JeffR wrote on 2/12/2001, 6:57 PM
Thanks for the great info but now I''m even more afraid
that
what works in my CD player won''t work in someone elses.
I''ve burned numerous audio CDs that would play in a boom
box but not in the car; in a "Walkman" but not a home
stereo, etc. It bothers me that I may be sending demos out
to big record companies that don''t play! I would never
know because they will throw them in the trash unheard.

One thing I have found that seems to make a BIG
difference; Audio CD-R versus "Data" CD-R. For some
reason (dye type perhaps) the dedicated "for Digital Audio"
CD-Rs almost ALWAYS give me good results. Don''t know what
the secret is (maybe it''s that built-in royalty payment)!
inspector wrote on 2/26/2001, 6:54 PM
The problem probably lies with the media you are using.
I've found that if a disk will play in my cd player in my
truck, that they will play on anything. It took a while to
find the media that worked best for me. The media is made
by Mitsui, I have used the non-logo, the silver inkjet
printable and the white inkjet printable with no problems.

If you are interested in trying some, the company that I
order from sent me samples of the silver inkjet ones. I now
order 100 at a time.

If you are interested you can e-mail me at
sbergner@mindspring.com. I am not affiliated with the
company in any way.