OK, I just (using Toast 3.5.6) burned another Demo disk (from masters created in PTLE) just as I always do but, this time something strange happened. I usually take a listen to the new CD by playing it on the internal CD Rom drive of my G4/400 using the Apple CD Audio Player app. I always turn the system volume up as well as the volume slider of the application all the way and never get ANY distortion ever. But this time, I’m getting some really god awful digital distortion. But if I turn the volume slider of the app. down to half, it disappears.
I played my demo disk in my car system and it was clean as can be...
I also tried playing a Mozart CD and a few other store boughts' in my CD rom drive with the volume settings on max and that was also perfectly fine. (also played the bounced files back in PTLE from a 16bit session and that was also fine)
My sessions were done in 24/44.1-- dither and other plugs on only master fader as the last step to the bounce to AIFF and no clipping anywhere although I try to get the master fader as close as humanly possible to 0db. BTW- I’ve done this countless times before and never had any distortion problems before playing them in the Apple CD rom drive.
Does anyone know if the output of the Mac system sound out is 0db, line level or what.
Any thoughts anyone?
OS9.1/LE5.1.1
Dan-
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Thanks for the quick response! I really appreciate it. To answe
Thanks for the quick response! I really appreciate it.
To answer a couple of your questions;
Yes I did indeed play the CD through QT, Sound Jam, my car system and home deck and it played clean on all.
When I said I played the CD on the CD rom drive of the G4, it was just playing through the system sound to my mixer and the 001 hardware was not involved. To check the wave forms though, I opened a 16 bit session and imported all the AIFF files that were used to burn the CD. No clipping or strange looking forms were noted and all the tracks sounded clean as could be...
And no, this never happened before. I’ve been going about my business the same way for almost a year now with the 001, CD writer, software and hard ware combination.
Also tried to burn another CD with the same material and had the same problem.
I did upgrade to PTLE version 5.1.1 within the last couple of weeks though. I still don’t understand how the five commercial CD’s I tested in that drive sound perfect but mine is distorted. Also can’t see how that upgrade could possibly be the culprit since I use a whole different boot drive (with no Digi software installed) when auditioning my CD’s on the G4.
Very strange...
BTW- I even tested some of my older demo CD’s in that drive and they all played fine as well.
Anyway, I guess if it sounds good in my car CD player and in my home deck then I guess it’s OK. It’s just that this particular demo is much more important than others and I’m nervous about it... :eek:
Thanks,
Dan-
Originally posted by butterhead: It’s just that this particular
Originally posted by butterhead:
It’s just that this particular demo is much more important than others and I’m nervous about it...
Aha! There's the problem... one of the adjuncts of Murphy's law dictates that anything you consider "more important" will be more susceptible to something going wrong than the usual stuff.
If it's not some extension voodoo happening, you might also try comparing that cd with other commercial cd's using a spectrum analyzer. Pay particular attention to the low end. Also make sure there isn't any DC offset.
Hope that helps.
Hmm...Do you have the Toast CD reader extension on? If so disabl
Hmm...Do you have the Toast CD reader extension on? If so disable it. Are you playing thru the Digi001 to listen to the CD's or are you taking the line out of the system to a mixer? Have you tried playing it thru Quicktime to see if that does it also? Is this the first time this has happend? Try Zapping Pram and rebuilding the desktop as precaution. I'm not sure what the level out is...never really measured it!! One thing I do is rip a commercially made CD and view it's waveform and try to make my master tracks as close to that as possible.
Opus