CD Burning Glitches (all-of-a-sudden)

Chip Fossa · Post by **Chip Fossa** » 11 Sep 2009 11:21 am

The past couple of CDs I burned came through with a few songs with hiccuping and stuttering.

All these songs were run through Goldwave, first, basically to even out the volume levels. None of the songs glitched-out in Goldwave. All sounded great.

I'm burning with Nero7.

So the problem is in one of three places: 1.Nero; 2.The DVD/CD drive itself; 3. Or a bum CD disk.

Which do you think is the more likely culprit? I could burn another CD using WMP.

But I'd rather see what ya'll got to say.

Thanks everybody...

$:\$

Andy Sandoval · Post by **Andy Sandoval** » 11 Sep 2009 1:23 pm

How about a laser lens cleaner disk? I'd start there.

Jack Stoner · Post by **Jack Stoner** » 11 Sep 2009 1:27 pm

Rarely does a PC laser ever need cleaning (I've never saw one that needed cleaning)
Since it's apparently not all songs, just random I would look at the CD-R's you are using. If you are using Memorex discs they are known to be flakey. Are the discs a new batch or brand? - try a different batch or brand of discs.

Also, do not have anything else running when you burn CD's as that can glitch burns. Most modern drives have "burn proof technology" (buffer underrun protection) and make sure that is enabled in Nero. Also use the "disk at a time" rather than "track at a time" when you burn. Finally, keep the burn speed to 12X or less (my CD audio burn standard is 8X).

Chip Fossa · Post by **Chip Fossa** » 11 Sep 2009 1:56 pm

Jack,

They are TDKs and came in 100ct. batches.

I used to always burn at 8x; but decided to save some time and moved it up to 16x. Maybe that's it.

Could Trend Micro running in the background be a problem? It is always running.

Thanks

Jack Stoner · Post by **Jack Stoner** » 12 Sep 2009 2:32 am

Normally, the antivirus program won't interfere. If you have some different brand CD's try one of those and see what happens. I don't think 16X would cause this type of problem.

Chip Fossa · Post by **Chip Fossa** » 12 Sep 2009 4:46 am

In my initial post, I failed to include a crucial point in this dilemma.

After evening out volume levels with Goldwave, all 30 songs were put into Nero in a specific order.

Then, with each song, I would go into Properties/Filters and add about 15% Echo; then listen to the 'test song'.

It's in this stage where I noticed the glitches.

But all during the Goldwave stage no files glitched-out; all was perfect.

Here's something real strange. To be specific, the first song I came upon that caught my ear was #9 - "Wonderful Wonderful", by Johnny Mathis.
OK - I immediately went back out to YouTube, recorded it again via TotalRecorder, saved it, tweaked it up in Goldwave, deleted the previous version from the Oldies#5 folder, and the Nero window, inserted the new pristine file into Nero, in slot #9, and it glitched-out; and at just about the same playback time as the previous file.

I think this may now point to Nero, no? It's been working just fine ever since I bought it, but she's been going through some paces, for sure; lately.

Jack Stoner · Post by **Jack Stoner** » 12 Sep 2009 5:01 am

I seriously doubt that it's Nero. Adding effects could be one possible cause.

Are these songs MP3 or wav (initially)? Are you making an MP3 CD or a regular Audio CD?

If these are MP3's how are you converting them, with Goldwave?

Chip Fossa · Post by **Chip Fossa** » 12 Sep 2009 6:17 am

I forgot to mention, now that you brought it up, that the glitching occurred also when in Nero I would simply hit PLAY, before going to PROPERTIES.
So the glitches are there before any filters are added.

The songs are saved to the desktop from TR as mp3. No conversion takes place in Goldwave. I reset TR's default setting 'save' from WAVE to mp3. TR wants to save everything in wave form.

I only use GW to even out the volume. Oldies are peculiar. Two songs can have about the same wavelength, but different sonic qualities that make one sound louder than the other. I mainly use my ear. But that's the beauty of 'Oldies'. The differences in recordings is part of the beauty of that particular song. IMHO

Jack Stoner · Post by **Jack Stoner** » 12 Sep 2009 2:49 pm

Since they glitch just playing them with Nero, before you burn the CD's, it's in the song either from TotalRecorder or even from where you are downloading it. Based on what you reported it's not Nero or any CD burning.

Mitch Drumm · Post by **Mitch Drumm** » 12 Sep 2009 3:53 pm

Chip:

I record some stuff from Youtube as well. Your issue might be that it hiccups during the Youtube playback due to bandwidth or buffering issues and has nothing to do with your recording or burning process.

It might help to wait until the song plays through once in Youtube before you start the recording process. Just hit replay in Youtube to play it again. The second playthrough may not have the hiccups.

I use Audacity and have not had any issues at all.

The procedure:

Open Audacity, hit the red button to start recording

Go back to Youtube and start the song playing

Let it play through, then hit the yellow button in Audacity to stop recording a couple of seconds after the song finishes.

Cut off the blank few seconds at the beginning of the recording and possibly at the end.

Alter the sound as desired using Audacity tools. I usually don't do this.

Export as mp3.

I then use the free "mp3 gain" program to normalize the volume level. It works ONLY on mp3 files.

If I later want to burn the song to CD, I convert back to WAV using Audacity and burn using a simple program called Imgburn--which can also burn any type of CD, not just music. The conversion back to WAV supposedly affects sound quality, but I have never been able to detect that by ear.

The consensus I have read regarding blank CDs is that "Taiyo Yuden" makes the best stuff. You can only rarely find them (rebranded) in retail stores, but they are very easy to buy on the Internet.

http://tinyurl.com/re3ar6

Above is a good source for Taiyo Yudens.

Chip Fossa · Post by **Chip Fossa** » 12 Sep 2009 6:48 pm

Mitch,

When I get anything off YouTube, I listen from beginning to end with what I'm recording. I hear no glitches on the songs I keep. I might have to try a few different YouTube sites, but I never record anything that has flaws.

There are NO glitches in Goldwave.

The way I record off YouTube is to find a song version that sounds OK. Then I go back to the previous page and hit it again; TR is already recording.

The reason I go back and re-start the file from the 1st page is when you stop the song on the actual YouTube page and then replay it, there is a very audible click/pop before the song starts. And that click/pop can be TRIMMED in Goldwave, ok, but sometimes it's so close to the beginning of the song, that the beginning gets axed (clipped).
So if you go back and start all over from the initial page, you don't get that click/pop. Am I making any sense?

I've tried Audacity in the past, but there was something about it I didn't care for, and did get using TotalRecorder.

I'll go back to Audacity and give it another try. I don't think it's in the download, though.

I'm gonna take the same folder, Oldies#5, and burn another CD using WMP. Then I'll sit here and play the whole CD on the system and see if it's glitched ot not.

That should tell us a bit more, here.

John Cipriano · Post by **John Cipriano** » 12 Sep 2009 8:33 pm

I also hear that the TY discs are good, I think Verbatims are known to be decent too. And you can get Verbatims in a store.

Anyway Chip just try it at 8x if they always burned OK at that speed. If you want to rule it out completely, burn the same set, one at 8x and one at 16x and compare.

Now...are all of you guys getting music off of YouTube by playing the songs and recording your sound card's output?

On the Mac I use ffmpegx.
http://www.ffmpegx.com/

I will look into how to do it with a Windows build of ffmpeg and maybe post a tutorial. ffmpeg isn't the only program that will do it but it's standard and it's free.
http://ffmpeg.arrozcru.org/builds/

The thing is that ffmpeg is a console app and if you want a graphical interface for it you need what's called a "frontend", like this one:
http://corz.org/windows/software/ffe/

There are also sites like http://vixy.net/ but doing it yourself is more reliable.

Chip Fossa · Post by **Chip Fossa** » 14 Sep 2009 1:58 am

Preliminary WMP CD burn.

Yesterday I burned Oldies#5 using WMP, instead of Nero.

I haven't listened to the entire 30 songs, as yet, but I did listen to "Wonderful Wonderful" and it came out perfect. The song before it, #8, "Sugartime" (Mcguire Sisters) had problems, too, but came out OK, as well.
Of course these files did not have any added 'ECHO' as they did in Nero.

I've got a lotta driving to do today, so I'll be able to listen to the entire 30-song CD, as I putt along.

John: "Now...are all you guys getting music off YouTube by playing the songs and recording your soundcard's output?

"

YES. That's exactly what I do. TotalRecorder is a "what-U-hear" recording software. What I hear coming through my PC speakers is what gets recorded.
It works great. Except lately, there's been some glitches. But accurately, I think there may only be 1 other song, along with the aforementioned ones, that had problems.
I don't know of any other way to do this.

I have both Nero & WMP versions, so I'll make a more definitive testing.

Chip Fossa · Post by **Chip Fossa** » 15 Sep 2009 2:56 am

Yesterday, while driving around, I listened to the entire Oldies#5 CD, burned with WMP, and no glitches were heard.

Just now, I played "Wonderful Wonderful" in Goldwave, Winamp, WMP, and Nero.

The song played fine in all, but Nero, again.

Maybe I should re-install Nero?
Something's not firing right.

Jack Stoner · Post by **Jack Stoner** » 15 Sep 2009 4:35 am

What Nero media player or audio player do you have?

I know you have Nero 7 but I don't recall it having a "media" player.

Mitch Drumm · Post by **Mitch Drumm** » 15 Sep 2009 10:28 am

Chip

Why keep Nero around at all when there are excellent replacements available at no charge that do everything you would need to do?

Jack Stoner · Post by **Jack Stoner** » 15 Sep 2009 10:32 am

Nero is great for CD burning (better than Roxio) but I agree whatever it is, it's not a good media player.

I have Nero Ultra V8 for my CD burning.

Chip Fossa · Post by **Chip Fossa** » 15 Sep 2009 2:16 pm

Guys,

To play an audio file in Nero (for this little A-B-C-D test) I simply opened Nero like I was going to burn, and clicked on 'make audio CD'. When the burn screen opens, you can drag & drop files you want to burn. You can also PLAY the file before you burn it; or go into PROPERTIES and mess around with FILTERS; which is what I've been doing.

My soundcard is AudigySE. I only use the soundcard, but not Audigy, itself. It's all screwed up and half of the features do not respond. This SB card was bought at Walmart for about $30 and it said on the box that is was, indeed, Vista compatible. I don't think so. I'm here to testify.

So early this AM I dragged only 'Wonderful Wonderful' into Nero and clicked PLAY. That's where the glitch is heard.

I dumped WW into all the other aforementioned medias and they all played it flawlessly.

This is the truth. I swear.

I like(d) Nero because the FILTER options are very sensitive; which allows for fine 'tuning/tweaking'. $:\$

BTW - I'm not opposed to other burn programs, but I payed for Nero. That's the rub, see? (like I paid $50 years ago for WinZip, only to have my B-I-L tell me there's a free zip program, PKWare, about 2 weeks after I bought WinZip.) Thanks, Dan.

Chip Fossa · Post by **Chip Fossa** » 16 Sep 2009 1:16 pm

I updated Nero 7 today, and I just put the update to the test.

The update did not resolve the glitches.

There's gotta be an explanation for this.

Jack Stoner · Post by **Jack Stoner** » 16 Sep 2009 3:02 pm

Did you uninstall the old version, restart the PC and then install the new V7? If not, do that and see if it makes a difference.

Chip Fossa · Post by **Chip Fossa** » 16 Sep 2009 4:09 pm

Jack,

No. I simply downloaded and installed.

During the install, Nero said that it is now going to remove the previous Nero version, and "Do I want to continue"?

So, I did not manually remove my existing version of Nero.

But, the install went off like a 4th of July firecracker. No problemo.

Until I put Nero to the test. $:\$

Jack Stoner · Post by **Jack Stoner** » 17 Sep 2009 2:10 am

Many times if you uninstall something because of a problem and do not restart before reinstalling the original problem can still be there. Since upgrading with Nero could still leave some fragments around that could still be an issue.

I have Nero and tried playing some songs the way you are doing it and do not have any glitches. But, I don't have near the amount of audio/media player stuff installed that you do.

Chip Fossa · Post by **Chip Fossa** » 17 Sep 2009 4:10 am

Since I got Nero originally off the web, and not a CD, I fear if I were to uninstall completely that I wouldn't be able to get it back.
Nero has a v.7 upgrade, but I don't know if you can re-download the original Nero 7.

I think they want you to buy the latest version.

Is the amount of installed media players possibly affecting Nero?

And why only 2 or 3 songs?

Jack Stoner · Post by **Jack Stoner** » 17 Sep 2009 4:16 am

Chip, knowing some of what you have installed on that PC, it's only a guess. My system is pretty much basic and not a lot installed on it (except for the high end Sonar 8 recording software).

Rip some songs form a commercial CD to the PC and then play them with Nero. If they play OK I would say Nero is not the problem and it's something to do with the specific audio files.

Chip Fossa · Post by **Chip Fossa** » 17 Sep 2009 2:05 pm

That's a great idea, Jack.

I'll do that.

All I can add, is that I've downloaded over 150 "oldies" over the past several months, and only on this last batch (#5) did the glitches start. So all in all, it's been pretty good.