930 Forums
=> GENERAL DISCUSSION => Topic started by: Richard D Taylor on April 13, 2004, 11:31:00 am
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I had Easy CD Creator 5 and while it was okay, I did encounter some annoying problems. Been thinking about getting a new one---does anybody have any suggestions?
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just use itunes.....
Roxio is good if you have two drives and want to do disc copy though.
You have a PC, not mac?
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itunes
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itunes question -- do you burn a DVD the same way you'd burn a CD-rom (ie, through a playlist)? And what's the difference between data and MP3s, in terms of what someone would want to get from you....
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uuuuhhhhhhh, markie?
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Well you burn a dvd the same way. Make a list of songs and then click burn. You get prompts to open itunes when you insert any blank media. Aim for around 950 songs to fill a DVD.
The DVD is a data disc of MP3s when I do it (I guess I could do AACs). For CDRs you can do audio, MP3 or data MP3. I dont understand the difference between the later two. Both open in itunes identically.
Some CD players wont play CDRs, a lot wont play MP3s. I guess data MP3s either CD or DVD play on even fewer players.
But if you are sharing with itunes users data is fine. If you are sharing with anyone else or want mass appeal audio CDRs are the safest bet.
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I like Nero a lot, too. Much better than Roxio. But lately I've just been using Itunes. For anything other than music I use Nero.
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Originally posted by mark e smith:
For CDRs you can do audio, MP3 or data MP3. I dont understand the difference between the later two. Both open in itunes identically.
I was just wondering for a friend who doesn't have itunes. I'll stick with MP3s as I know that works....Thanks m.e.s.
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I've got a question...which may be lame... but when you rip a song off a cD to itunes...how do you get it to mp3 format? as opposed to aac (m4a)?
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That is lame.
Go to itunes then in the top left it will say itunes. Click...... drop down somewhere says prefernces. In preferences click importing. It is obvious from there.
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Originally posted by mark e smith:
That is lame.
Go to itunes then in the top left it will say itunes. Click...... drop down somewhere says prefernces. In preferences click importing. It is obvious from there.
Look, when you spend as much time as I do on trying to make the music world a better place, sometimes it is the smallest things that never seem to work. I'm trying to get bands to play gigs, get CDs to review, artists to be interviewd, writers to actually write reviews, HFS kids to piss off... somehow the settings on itunes have escaped me.
Oh, and thanks. :p
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before you commit to the encoding in mp3, my suggest is do a little comparasion in sound between an aac file and itunes encoded mp3. i.e. encode a song you really know well in both 128kps aac and 192kps mp3 and compare them.
early reports indicate that aac encoding at lower bit rates which results in a smaller file, sound as good as a mp3 file encoded at a higher rate taking up more space on the ipod. personally i haven't done the pepsi verses coke challendge, but kosmette ripped a good portion of her collection in aac and has no complaints.
personally, i perfer mp3 coding with lame, but itunes doesn't use lame natively and you need to use a script program to perform that encoding. it also takes a lot long to encode a file.
aac is based on the mp4 standard
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But the advantage to sticking to vanilla MP3s is everyone can access them, all systems and portables support them. Therefore it future proofs your library and can making sharing with others easier.
160Kbps MP3s sound fine to me
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Originally posted by mark e smith:
just use itunes.....
Roxio is good if you have two drives and want to do disc copy though.
You have a PC, not mac?
Yeah, I have a PC. But with itunes, can you make a cd compilation from different sources and balance the recording level so the volume doesn't jump up and down when you hear the final mix? That was one of the features I liked about my Roxio program...
Also, Roxio let me decide how much of a gap I wanted between tracks. For example, I could have some songs with 2 seconds between each track while I could put a 4 second gap on other tracks and still put no gap at all on other songs (all on the same mix cd!). My problem with a lot of cd burning programs is they usually only offer what I call an "all or nothing" proposition----meaning you can have all the tracks with no gap, or they can all have the same gap time (2 seconds being the most common)--- I don't really see too many programs that allow you to change the gap times track by track for a single mix disc...
Roxio also allows you to fade out of a track if you want to---this is a great way of including one track on a comp that came from a cd where all the songs run together.
So basically, I like the freedom that comes with Roxio. My main beef with them though is you can't use the "normalizer" (the function that enables all the songs to have a relatively similar recording level) if you want to mess around with the gap times. Now, if I could find a program that allowed me to do both, I would be in heaven...
Itunes is cool, but if it doesn't have these features than fugedaboutit...I'll settle for the Roxio that I'm still not quite satisfied with.
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Yep, Itunes, if you play around with it for about 2 minutes, will do all of that. Besides, it is free. What have you got to lose?
You just have to import the tracks into compressed format and select volume normalisation in the preferences somewhere.
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Originally posted by mark e smith:
Yep, Itunes, if you play around with it for about 2 minutes, will do all of that. Besides, it is free. What have you got to lose?
You just have to import the tracks into compressed format and select volume normalisation in the preferences somewhere.
I don't think it will let you change the time between tracks per song, only the time between all songs.
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Originally posted by pollard:
I don't think it will let you change the time between tracks per song, only the time between all songs.
Yeah, your right. I only skimmed FOGC grumblings. I am tired of defending itunes.
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Plus Macs get trojan horses now too.
http://www.intego.com/news/pr40.html (http://www.intego.com/news/pr40.html)
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itunes runs on bland beige boxes too, plus:
http://www.wired.com/news/mac/0,2125,63000,00.html (http://www.wired.com/news/mac/0,2125,63000,00.html)
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i would recommend you check out the cd burning audio mixing products at Acoustica (http://www.acoustica.com/) i briefly used the mp3 mixing software and found it very powerful and easy to use verses most of the bpm matching mixing programs out there. if you are looking for a bpm mixing program there are probably better options.
personally, i don't beat mix any of my cds and found the acoustica product allowed me to quickly create a mixed with custom cross fades etc. it's a bit like using a word processor where you cut and paste the songs you are mixing into a document , edit them and same them out as a mixed file. it's also leaves the source files intact, non destructive editing.
if i had a more powerful pc i'd exclusively use this sw, but unfortunately the budget dosen't allow for a new pc, so i'm using the Roxio Toast/Jam combo and kosmettes G4 Mac. It produces great sounding mix cds, but not quite as easy to use as the Acoustica product.
vansmack has made use of the acoustica product based on my recommendation...
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Originally posted by mark e smith:
http://www.wired.com/news/mac/0,2125,63000,00.html
Wow -- Mac users jumping up to the defense of Macs
Who woulda thunk it?
[/sarc]
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plus it's free to try and with the burner sw you get the ability to set the gap, can't remember about the normalization feature
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Golden Hawk's CDRWIN (http://www.goldenhawk.com/) . It let's you do almost anything.
And it has drag-n-drop if you need that type of thing....
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Thanks for all the suggestions & help. Kosmo, I think I'll be looking into the Acoustica program. I checked out the website and it sounds amazing...
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hope it works out for you... it's a shame it hasn't be ported to osx. i'm however excited by the fact that the new version of jam is included in the bias peak sw.
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Originally posted by kosmo vinyl:
vansmack has made use of the acoustica product based on my recommendation...
I'm taking Markie's approach - as much as he's tired of defending it, I'm tired of slamming it. To each her own, there is no perfect program to do everything you want....
I will, however, jump at the chance to defend Acoustica. A fantastic program for mixing your own tracks, fading songs, and adjusting/customizing volumes. Probably the best $25 I spent last year.
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I defend Anacostia program too!