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i've just finished the tracking and mixing of an album that i'm now ready to take somewhere for professional mastering. i've tried to inform myself as much as possible about the best way to prep and deliver the final mixes. after reading a few interesting things on the web about preserving the sonic integrity of the music, i noticed that there seems to be some conjecture as to whether 24-bit data CD-r's should be burned at 1x, 2x, or 4x. (i've always thought that with data there was no difference in the integrity if your burn verified successfully.) for what it's worth, i've already burned CD-r's of the mixes at 4x, and 2x... is it even necessary to do another run at 1x to achieve maximum clarity? i might also note that i'm exporting the mixes as interleaved SDII files (24-bit). (also, i've been using toast with Yamaha pro-grade CD-r's to do the transfers.) i'd also like to know if during a slow burn, if your computer goes to sleep or screensaver, will that in turn cause errors? naturally, i'm looking for optimum results, so i'd sincerely appreciate feedback from anyone who knows anything conclusive from their own experience. thanks in advance.

Comments

joe lambert Mon, 07/22/2002 - 06:24

Your CD's should be fine at 2 or4x speed. In my experience older CD burners and older CDR's sounded better and had a lower error rate at single speed. Newer (the last 3 years or so) CD burners and CDR's are optimized for higher speeds. So for us at Classic Sound, If I want to do a real time CD I use the older Sony burners we have which sound great. If I want to do 2x off the Sonic I will use one of our newer Plextor burners.

As far as the computer screen saver coming on that is not your computer going to "sleep" it's your monitor. This is not a problem for your Cd burning at all.

I like when people send me interleaved SD II files because they play on a wide variety of systems and you don't have to worry about the left and right being offset by mistake.

anonymous Mon, 07/22/2002 - 18:53

thanks for your informative response to my post, joe. i appreciate your taking time to reply... as a footnote, i'd like to also ask you, and/or anyone else, who the most reputable manufacturing/replication houses are... i've heard stories about some of these places doing a subpar job for the sake of expedience. i've also heard some good things about discmakers, and at this point i'm giving them strong consideration based on their rep. any other ideas? thanks again.