Burning CD's

[tee boy]

Just wondering. How damaging to your audio is burning a CD? I keep loads of old recordings on audio CD's and CDROM's, but i never really considered it was having much effect! But now that i think of it, its highly likely that these will be burnt again in a mix. Is two spells through the CDR writer bad news?

Also, I presume certain CD's / writers / speeds are better than others. Anyone got any experience in buring CD's and if so whats the best way to minimise degradation?

[kilroy]

Also, I presume certain CD's / writers / speeds are better than others. Anyone got any experience in buring CD's and if so whats the best way to minimise degradation?

Good optical media, high quality writer and don't burn too fast. I would not burn faster than 4X for an audio CD master I cared about, and I normally burn a production master at 2X. I am personally partial to the Yamaha SCSI writers, and I like to use so called 'medical grade' or 'archival grade' media. These are *supposed* to have higher manufacturing tolerances, more consistant dye layer and such, which is claimed to lower jitter and prolong data integrity. I was told I could expect good data retention for up to seven years using high end media. My advice is don't believe everything you hear. Back up with good regularity, I say.

Also, all audio CD burns will sound a little bit different when you listen closely, even from the same batch and lot, and burned using the same writer. The writers themselves 'sound' different. Some are just terrible, though in general most are much better than they used to be.

Wouldn't it be nice if everything was simple?

[crazed one]

I always wondered how hard it would be to get my hands on an industrial burner and discs so that I wouldn't have to worry about the wax and dye degrading like a regular CD-R.

But yeah, to answer the question, things can go wrong or mess up or variate with making another copy of some work off a CD-R

[P.T.]

If you are going to be importing waves back into a song for mixing, why not burn them as data rather than as audio. I think you would get better copy integrity.

[TechnoWeeniePas]

...I would not burn faster than 4X for an audio CD master I cared about, and I normally burn a production master at 2X...

It actually depends now days. Some CDR disks will actually perform worse at low speeds than at high burn speeds. The trick is that the dyes used in the disk really work well within a window...that window is usualy printed on the disks or the packaging now (say 4x-10x or whatever). The dies that are used nowdays for faster disks...say the ones that can handle 40x are much different dyes than that used in the older 2x or whatever disks. The newer dyes react differently to the laser and slow burning can actually damage them in some cases. My burner limits me to only allow burning at certain speeds that must somehow be reported by the disk (because they change from disk to disk and its not because my drive cant burn the non listed speeds)...but not all of them do. Best bet I have read is to use the middle of the line if possable...so if a disk is reported to work 2x-16x use 8x. Im not sure if that is really the best method or not but that is what I have heard.

[nool]

If you are going to be importing waves back into a song for mixing, why not burn them as data rather than as audio. I think you would get better copy integrity.

bling ! well stated

[tee boy]

Wish I could, but many of these recordings were made TIME ago and were originally burnt to audio CD. The reason for the question was actually two fold:

- To access who degraded my exsisting recording might be

- TO develop a better method!

I back up stuff now and transport it on a firewire drive, so this kinda solves the problem. But Im still interested to know what everyone thinks on the subject, since there seems to be some much 'shite' spoken on this one.

For example, I know this guy who reckons he'll only burn to green CD's cuz 'they sound better'. If they do, I know for a fact he doesnt understand why!

[kilroy]

...I know this guy who reckons he'll only burn to green CD's cuz 'they sound better'. If they do, I know for a fact he doesnt understand why!

There is an ongoing debate on the relative merits of different reflective layers, with gold seeming to be the most popular.

Physical appearance is meaningless as far as I am concerned. You have to burn a bunch and audition them. It's the only way.

[Stupid American Pig]

I think that as long as you use good media, for all intents and purposes it is indistinguishable from the original if no processing is involved and it stays digital. However I once bought some bargain media that the laser in my cd changer was able to "burn" the media slightly and became fuzzy over the period of about 3 months...

[kilroy]

I think that as long as you use good media, for all intents and purposes it is indistinguishable from the original if no processing is involved and it stays digital.

For the record...this is the optical media I currently favour:

Mitsui MAM-A #40214

These are medical grade, with a gold dye layer. If you have not tried these then you should. They are expensive, but when you compare a burn on one of these with what you currently use you will probably will not care.

Better imaging and stereo soundstage integrity, better depth and clarity, less transient smearing, better representation of original frequency balance, much, much, *much* better disc to disc consistancy.

However I once bought some bargain media that the laser in my cd changer was able to "burn" the media slightly and became fuzzy over the period of about 3 months...

What you are hearing is really bad jitter smear.