CD Burning Software

[Autocrat]

I've been using Toast 5.2.3 to burn my aiff files created in Digital Performer 4.6 to review in other systems.
If I burn at anything over 4x, it changes the sound significantly.

Should I upgrade to Toast 7 or use another program?

This is off a G5 dual 2Ghz using Taiyo Yuden media.

[Lagerfeldt]

That isn't necessarily a problem with Toast.

TY is HQ media so it's much more likely to be a problem with your burner.

I use WaveBurner, and burn audio 8x speed with TY in the G5 Dual 2.3 drive. No problems or C2s.

However, it might as well be a problem with your playback device, or incompatibility problem.

[Autocrat]

Well, I notice that when I play back the CD in the G5 drive, it sounds different from the original aiff file on the HD.

D/A conversion is through a BlackLion modded 896HD going to Adam P33a.

I wasn't sure if it was due to an older version of Toast.

[darkwater]

I never burn audio cds faster than 4X. Always seems to thin out the sound. Just take a deep breath and burn it slower. I mean, just think back on the day when we could only burn 1x and think how much faster it's getting done!

[theblue1]

I'm curious... do any of you guys have any problems burning data CD-ROM's at high rates? Data CD-ROM burns are designed to fail if there's a single bit wrong... how often are you getting data disk burn failures?

Because, you know, there's no more voodoo -- or there shouldn't be -- to turning an AIFF or WAV file into an audio CD than there is to burning a data disk.

[theblue1]

I'm curious... do any of you guys have any problems burning data CD-ROM's at high rates? Data CD-ROM burns are designed to fail if there's a single bit wrong... so problems should show there, first.

Because, you know, there's no more voodoo -- or there shouldn't be -- to turning an AIFF or WAV file into an audio CD than there is to burning a data disk.

[Lagerfeldt]

Actually slower isn't *always* better per se. In some cases it's a viable option to match the speed of the drive with the type of media, meaning that 8x speed could be just as good for audio if the disc is made for it. Don't think anything above 8x speed will ever do though. I agree the consensus is to burn audio at 4x or slower.

As for the thinning of the sound, that's is so funny, because you can have a cd sounding thin and digital on a cd player, and then rip the cd to the computer and do a null test - and everything is identical to the original. Which is why a null test of an audio cd won't necessarily prove anything about the actual sound of the cd since it could be one 1 or 0 away from breaking apart (which it probably will do on some or most consumer CD players).

As for data, I find that apart from certain media types, speed isn't an issue. But with some media types going 32x or beyond will increase the changes of a failed disk. I usually burn data at 24x.

theblue1, there is a big difference between burning audio and data. There is a big amount of "voodoo" when it comes to audio since it works in an entirely different way to the way data works. CD-ROM has an effective error corretion scheme, while CD audio is dependant on many other factors such as speed of writing, stability of writing, and also how the CD player reads the cd, how much error correction it will do, etc.

Higher burn speeds don't induce more errors in the disc as such. Even though the data is digital the physical process of burning a CD is analog, meaning it's directly related. Burning a CD creates small bumps, and the spacing between each bump is important to how the CD player detects and decodes the signal. Also the start and end (rise and fall, or angle you could say) of the bumps is important too. If the edges are not sharp and clear, chances are you'll get a bad signal with bad timing reference, and therefore errors or audible error corrections.