Merging Technologies

Hello, friends,

I was just doing a final listen to a final master CD before sending it off for duplication, and on my cheap kitchen stereo the sound drops out completely for an instant between two tracks.

On a nicer stereo upstairs there isn't any problem.

Does anybody know why this is happening on the cheap stereo, and if there is a solution?

Many thanks,

Lucas Harris

If you want to avoid this* then remove the STOP markers from the end of your CD tracks (except for the last one.)

Really though; it's either a flaw in your cheap CD-player or a 'feature' that needs to be turned off. Try your master on a few other systems...

Which CD burner do you use with Pyramix?

* In the past, there were also expensive players that did this and there was usually a way to turn that "Mute between tracks" feature off.

I have a question about checking.. or questions?...

So, let's say Mr. Harris goes and checks in 3 other systems and it is fine. Does that mean the CD is alright, or maybe.... it was a problem that only the cheap CD player could detect?

I ran into this dilemma the other day. I burned 2 CDs for a musician and I listened through all/both of them to make sure they were fine, but then I got a call from her saying that this CD wouldn't play on her computer, but it would play in her stereo. I could only tell her that it played fine on my computer, and offer another copy in replacement.

I asked around to see how could I find out where the problem was, but hmnn, couldn't get a concrete answer. I was told that it could be her system, or that maybe my burning speed was too fast (I burn at 24x), or that it was the CD. I don't think importing it back to pmx and making a reverse phase test would sort this out (bc of redundancy I think)... but I guess my question is how do you know for sure that maybe ... my computer is better at handling scratches and weirdness than your computer and therefore pose a potential issue in the CD (and more scary if it's a master). I always wondered why my [once upon a time] car could play very scratched stuff, and my [previous] computer would choke.

Looking forward to your comments

If a disk is muting the sound, and this is not because of the presence of a Stop ID, then it means that the error correction of the player has tried to reconstruct a gap in the data stream, and failed, then tried to interpolate the missing bits, and failed, and finally gave up and muted the output rather than outputting a blast of digital noise. It could be a scratch, dirt on the reading laser, inability to track the data stream - any number of issues. Some recordable disks are simply better than others, and some will most certainly perform better with your burner than others, and many of the same issues exist when it comes to playback as well.

The only way I can see around this is to test every possible CD blank on every possible CD player - not too practical, however. Speaking generally, recordable CDs present more of a playback problem to more players than do manufactured disks, and some brands will perform better with some burners and some players than others. This was much more of an issue ten years ago that it is today. Nevertheless, you can't count on every client having a recent player of decent quality, unless you're willing to supply them the equipment yourself.

For these reasons alone, I feel that supplying a replication master as an audio CD is a bad idea, given the other options available. Putting a DDP onto a data CD or DVD, or transmitting it via FTP (as a .zip file, just to add another layer of security) means that the much more robust error correction processes incorporated in data storage and transmission come into play, to insure a much higher probability that your data will get to where it's going, intact.

It's embarrassing when you supply a client a disk that doesn't play well, but about all you can do is to search out the brand and model of disk that performs the best with your burner, and hope that your client has a reasonably competent player. Owners of Plextor drives in the past have made use of Plex Tools to determine read and write error rates for specific disks, and there must surely be software available now that does the same thing for any drive.

I've toyed with the idea of getting an iPod or other portable player to loan to clients while they review an edit or mastering job stored as WAVs or Apple Lossless - convenient yes, but perhaps not the greatest quality for playback, especially with ear buds. There is the option of supplying the CD PMI image file and a copy of the the MTCD Image Player, although that still hasn't been released officially. Another route would be to supply a DDP to your client on a data DVD, as well as a player that will deal with them such as that produced by Sonoris. If and when internet uploading speeds get faster, we might finally be able to avoid the whole issue of committing a pre-master to any kind of disk. Of course by that time, audio CDs may just have gone the way of the cassette tape, or the Edison cylinder.

In my experience, burning speed is still the number one issue with respect to discs 'playing here but not there.' 2nd in line would be crap 'office depot' (and their ilk) media.

I stick to 16x and discs play fine on both junk and platinum players. At 24x , things aren't so reliable.

Should I type another 600 words?

Graemme