CD-R vs Commercial CD

[lrossmusic]

I just found out today that a CD-R is not technically the same as a regular commercial CD although they both work in your player. I stumbled on this information when I recently purchased a CD duplicator from Diskmakers called the Reflex 1. It has two trays (reader & writer) and the ad said it would duplicate CD's up to 17 per hour. In other words it can copy an 80 minute CD in less than 5 minutes.

 

What the ad didn't mention was that the duplicator would not work that fast when the master disc was a CD-R made on some stand-alone CD recorders like my Marantz 631. So far with the Marantz when I try to copy at at burn speeds above 4X drop-out errors occur. OTOH when the master disc is a pre-recorded commercial CD the unit will perfrom without error at 40X.

 

One of the tech support guys at Discmakers said the reason for this is because of the difference in how a CD-R is made on the Marantz and how a manufactered commercial CD has been made.

 

My questions are...

 

Do most stand-alone recorders write CD-R's in the same way technically and what's the difference in how commercial CD's are written?

 

Thanks

[F7sound -]

"Commercial" CDs have pits in a thin layer of metal. The laser is reflected (or not) and that determines the data (being either "on" or "off").

 

CD-Rs fool a CD player into thinking it's got a "commercial" CD by using a layer of dye that is burned and changes color. That causes the laser to reflect (or not).

 

Michael Oster

F7 Sound and Vision

ReGurgiTron - I released a new CD! Err, I mean CD-R!

[lrossmusic]

Wow! Very interesting. Thanks Michael.

 

Any suggestiona as to what brand CD-R I might have more success with in my Marantz 631. Their tech department said they could better share with me what brands they have had the most complaints about (Maxell,Memorex,Verbotin)?

Also the manual recommends 74 minutes blanks instead of 80 minute ones which seem to be getting harder to find especially on spindels of 30 or 50. Am I looking in the wrong place (Staples, Circuit City, Radio Shack)?

 

Thanks again for the info because, as you can tell, I am barely out of kindergarden when it comes to the technical side of the music business.

[Tedster]

Just hadda say howdy, Mr. Ross! Hope that fine family of yours is swell!

[lrossmusic]

Tedster,

 

Greetings back to you sir. How's Preston, Andrew, and the rest of your crew? Man it's almost a year since our Alexandria get together with Rim, Neil, 'Lurker' and the rest. What a great memory. Alysa is walking now and her dad is working at Washington Music Center as well as recording his band at home.

 

As you can see I myself bought a CD duplicator recently and am trying to figure out what's up with that. One thing is for sure...nothing is as simple as it seems from reading the promo ads. When I actually get the stuff home and start working, it can get really tricky trying to get everything to work right together . But it's 'all good' as the young folks say.

 

Lost a couple of close mentors lately but other than that everything else is doing OK. You can sure tell that father time is catching up to you when your 'funeral frequency rate' edges upward. Can't you tell I have been reading to many operating manuals lately.

[F7sound -]

Originally posted by lrossmusic:

Wow! Very interesting. Thanks Michael.

 

Any suggestiona as to what brand CD-R I might have more success with in my Marantz 631. Their tech department said they could better share with me what brands they have had the most complaints about (Maxell,Memorex,Verbotin)?

Also the manual recommends 74 minutes blanks instead of 80 minute ones which seem to be getting harder to find especially on spindels of 30 or 50. Am I looking in the wrong place (Staples, Circuit City, Radio Shack)?

 

Thanks again for the info because, as you can tell, I am barely out of kindergarden when it comes to the technical side of the music business.

When it comes to CD-Rs to use when it really counts, I use the Apogee Golds. I think they are really Mitsui's or Yudens, but Apogee sells them. They are expensive and I usually only use them for mastering.

 

As far as others, I've had good luck with the Sony and Maxells, but they are 80 min CD-Rs. 74's are harder to find these days.

 

Michael Oster

F7 Sound and Vision

ReGurgiTron - abusing CD-R since 1999!

[Mats Olsson.]

For duplication I use the SK brand almost exclusively. I used to buy Tayo Yuden but they cost too much.

 

For backup & masters I use Mitsui (sometimes I use Plextor or Verbatim).

[ani]

Here is a good site to pick up information on the mechanics of a CD

 

http://www.howstuffworks.com/cd.htm

[ani]

...and another

 

http://www.pctechguide.com/09cdr-rw.htm

[Mats Olsson.]

Thanks Ani, great link!

 

Click here for a graphic demonstration of CD v CDR technology.

[ani]

Thanks Mats...

 

These are both links that I have on my site under GLOBAL Media Storage Software & System Device Manufacturers, but my page seriously needs to be updated; I noticed a few dead links. I've been playing around too much on the forums lately

[lrossmusic]

Thanks Ani. Mats, and F7sound for the schooling.

Like the old standard by Duke Ellington, Harry James, and Johnny Hodges says ...'I'm beginning to see the light'.

[KenElevenShadows]

I seem to have okay luck with the Taiyo Yudens so far.

 

But yeah, I'll burn stuff perfectly, it plays perfectly fine, but I'll get it kicked back to me from the lab saying that it's defective even though it plays in every CD player I have. There's obviously more to it than that!

[JimmieWannaB]

For small groups like my daughter's, the biggest bite has been recording a pile of CDs, confirming that they work in a variety of players and then getting complaints from people they sell them to as merch at shows. The problem players typically tend to be in cars. They don't sell nearly enough CDs to justify non CD-R duplication and the selling price ($5) is too low to justify the high end CDs.

[lrossmusic]

For small groups like my daughter's, the biggest bite has been recording a pile of CDs, confirming that they work in a variety of players and then getting complaints from people they sell them to as merch at shows. The problem players typically tend to be in cars. They don't sell nearly enough CDs to justify non CD-R duplication and the selling price ($5) is too low to justify the high end CDs.

Yeah I was all excited when I first got my duplicator and was burning CD's at 40X thinking how great this was compared to what I had been doing. I'm gleefully passing out new demos to my inner circle and expounding on the miracles of modern technology yada yada. Then I finally got around one day to sitting down and listening to the whole program all the way through (79:39 long).

 

To my surprise I discovered that my master (made from an error free DAT) had these very short drop-out (maybe one second) randomly scattered throughout. Also I noticed a few rhythm skips here and there and again very short. I spent the next couple days troubleshooting and eventually decreased the error rate dramatically but not before having to reduce the burn speed to 4X, and matching the record modes of the Marantz and Reflex 1.

 

Also in the process I began to learn about the (1)variance in blank CD-R's, (2)which disc's wouldn't work well in my CD-R recorder, (3)read speed, (4)burn speed, (5)track at once record mode, (6)disc at once record mode etc.etc.

 

Still I am not 100% confident that my dubs are all error free. I've had some that were but obviously I can't check each copy in real time. If I had to do that I might as we go back to my original dubbing method (DAT to Marantz 631).

 

Post script:

 

After so much listening/checking for errors this past week I am actually so tired of some of my own songs I probably won't want to hear them again for years.

[Mats Olsson.]

When you burn your masters, do it at low/medium speed (16x tops), select disc-at-once and select jitter correction if your software have that option (Nero does, I'm not sure about others). Do not run any other programs while burning masters. Use premium grade discs for masters, you may have to try a couple of different brands with your burner. If you don't use a good burner for your masters, get one (they don't cost much these days) - I suggest the Plextor Premium model.

 

Duplicate at lower speeds, it doesn't take that much more time, really. The higher speeds aren't used on the entire disc anyway. 24x v 40x does not make much difference but your discs will probably play better, if you can afford the extra time, try 12x or 16x. I use 8x speed for at least 90% of all duplication I do (I have an autoloader).

[Phait]

I was just gonna burn 728 MB of the free America's Army game (latest version) but WinXP said I didn't have enough space (about 700)... I thought CD's were a little bigger.

 

My only choice is to extract all the files and half them in 2 groups and burn each to a CD.

[lrossmusic]

Mats wrote:

 

When you burn your masters, do it at low/medium speed (16x tops),

The Marantz stand-alone unit I have burns (they call finalize) at 2X.

 

select disc-at-once and select jitter correction if your software have that option),

Again the Marantz CD-R 631 which I use to make masters from DAT is a stand-alone recorder and yes it does offer the DAO option. At first when I wasn't aware that it should be set to DAO there were in fact many more errors. The unit does not offer jitter correction. What's that?

 

Do not run any other programs while burning masters.)

N/A

 

Use premium grade discs for masters, you may have to try a couple of different brands with your burner..)

The Marantz CD-R 631 is indeed finicky about which disc's it will function well with. It's a strange phenomenon because in some case it works better with lesser grade disc's. I believe part of my problem may stem from the fact that this unit was designed before 80 minutes disc's became the norm. For instance the troubleshooting section of the manual suggests trying 74 minute CD-R's if problems persist.

 

If you don't use a good burner for your masters, get one (they don't cost much these days) - I suggest the Plextor Premium model.

The Marantz is supposedly a professional unit designed for use in project studios at least. Although this particular model has been discontinued, parts and service are still available. We paid about $500 for it new maybe three years ago. I haven't had any trouble yet except for the occasional hassle of finding compatable blank CR-R's.

 

Duplicate at lower speeds, it doesn't take that much more time, really. The higher speeds aren't used on the entire disc anyway. 24x v 40x does not make much difference but your discs will probably play better, if you can afford the extra time, try 12x or 16x. I use 8x speed for at least 90% of all duplication I do (I have an autoloader).

 

I am now duplicating at 4X on the Reflex 1 duplicator from Disc Makers. The tech guys at Disc Makers don't all agree that I need to stay at that speed but one fellow who has a Reflex 4 (burns four disc's at a time) at his home studio convinced me that to minimize my error rate it was the best not to go higher than 4x.

 

Another thing that so far seems to be the case is that commercial CD's that are 'stamped' and not burned will duplicate on the Reflex 1 at the 40x speed with no errors. I need to run some more tests to confirm this theory though. The two dics's that I did so far at this speed were prefect. Of course these tests are very time consuming since I have to listen to a each whole CD in real time.

 

Even with the possibility of an occasional short drop out or skip error and the relatively slow burn speed I am leaning towards keeping the Reflex 1 (Disc Makers has a 30 day return policy with a 15% re-stocking fee). It's very easy to operate and makes dubbing my demos much more convenient than from DAT to Marantz in real time. Last but not least it only cost me $316 shipped to my door so I doubt that I could beat that unless I already had a computer for music which I don't. I am using my wife's PC to access the internet, letter writing and all but I am still using hardware sound modules/seqencer/Roland VS 1800 etc. to make my demos.

 

Thanks again Mats and all for helping me think though all the variables involved here.