The last step in the LP and Tape Assistant has failed - I spent many hours converting compilation cassette tapes to digital through the LP and Tape Assistant - correcting the track separators, plugging in the name and artist for each track.

In the last step I checked Volume Max and Add text to CD (to pick up the track names and artists). Somewhere along the line I also requested that the file be mirrored to a designated folder in my hard drive.

Hitting the burn button did create some activity - it seemed to be the volume max - but then nothing got burned to disk. Eventually, when no buring to disk occurred (and there was one CD-R in the drive), I moved out of LP and Tape Assistant to look for another way to burn the disk in another part of Roxio - the media creator.

I did end up with a massive Wav file in my designated directory/folder - but it seems to have lost all its tracks and is just one massive file (over 1 GB - 144 minutes worth of music)). Pulling that file into the Roxio Media Creator gets an error message that "at least one track is too big" - but there is no way to uncheck the extra tracks (and create 2 CD-R's) when the track information seems to have disappeared.

The music is still there as I can play the Wav file on the computer.

I am running Windows XP on a Toshiba Laptop with a combined Mashita DVD/CD burner (which has worked before to create a copy CD through Roxio). This is the first time I am trying to convert LP/Tapes into digital. Running through my stereo system amplifier and even put an Apple IMic USB device in between to help out (using the USB line input instead of the microphone input).

While running through the LP and Tape Assistant process a message did come up that the burning would require 2 CD's, and two bars for CD's showed up in the lower right - but I figured that the program would let me put 144 minutes worth of music on my hard disk and then do one CD at a time. That did not happen.

What did I do wrong? Is there any way to rescue the project by using that Wav file?

Help would be MUCH appreciated. Very frustrated and confused.

You could try putting the wav file into Sound Editor and cutting it into smaller clips.That way you would end up with seperate "tracks" that you could spread across 2 discs.

tbrewst: thanks for the reply - that is exactly what I did this morning (though I have not yet tried to burn the disks) - the problem is that I lost all the hours of work I did in LP & Tape Assistant putting the track separators in and naming track and artist for each of 39 songs - the WAV file had no separators and no info on artist of title and that had to be done all over again in Sound Editor (in fact, took longer since the automatic separators that LP & Tape Assistant provided were even gone and had to be done manually.

I would love to know what did I do wrong in LP and Tape Assistant so I don't make the same mistake again.

This time around I have saved the project to a particular name - and hopefully that will come in handy after I make the audio disks to play in car, etc and want to re-covert the file to MP3 to put into itunes (though I suppose itunes will let me import from the disk I burn and will do the conversion into MP3).

Of course all this safety - saving mirror WAV files etc is chewing up my hard drive space pretty quickly.

UPDATE: still will not burn to disc. Hit the burn button, deal with the dialog box, progress box shows a volume adjustment, that takes a few minutes, and then NOTHING. Progress box disappears and nothing happens - Do I need to fix settings? reload Roxio Creator 8?

My first suggestion is to do one or the other; do not try to make a file and a CD at the same time.

When you used Sound Editor, did you export the clips (separate files) or did you export the tracks (everything shown on the mix editor). That would be the only way that you would get one large file.

Also if you want to burn a compilation to a disc, do so using Music Disc Creator.

LP and Tape Assistant is used primarily to capture but it does do other things. I don;'t have V8 on my computer but I've always used it just for capture. If LP and Tape is the same in V8 and V9, in step 3, you have the options to do the final editing in Sound Editor or Music Disc Creator; that's the way I would go.

Unfortunately I think that LP etc calls tracks individual pieces of music while Sound Editor call them clips.

Did you happen to save your project while you were in LP & Tape Assistant? If so, that's what you should be trying to open, again, in LP & Tape Assistant. I'm not sure how you did that actual capture of your audio... I haven't fiddled much with LP & Tape Assistant, but yes, it sounds like it captures as a single .WAV file, then when you tell it where the start/stop point of each song is, it saves those markers, like a .BIN/.CUE file pair, only in the .WAV and Project file. If you didn't save the project before the original error, then you may be out of luck in recovering the title/artist information.

OK Have made some progress - took the individual wav files, but only enough to fill one disc, back into Roxio - Create Music Disc - and it burned a CD, though it lost the title and artist information, and when viewing the disc through Windows Explorer it says has 0 kb - go to files and each *.cda track shows as 1 kb - BUT IT DOES PLAY.

I would like to figure out how to get Roxio to work- AND to capture the track title and artist information so I do not have to keep typing in that information (e.g., in iTunes). With a few months of work to do capturing LP, Cassette and Reel-to-Reel, I would like to get the procedure to work as well as possible.

I am going to keep experimenting - even if I have to re-recapture the cassette tape. May be a bug in Roxio where it offers to burn to 2 discs but gets overwhelmed when more than 70 minutes or so of music? Maybe I did not save the right thing (project save? mirror image save? ) - or created tracks instead of clips..... if I sound confused, there is a reason for that - I am.... probably just making some stupid mistake along the way - but it would not be the first time I've found a bug in software..... I am even reading the Roxio "for Dummies" book, but not finding it very helpful - have already been through Roxio support site and discussion board.

Thanks again to all who have taken the time to respond.

When you're working with .WAV files, they don't have the same "Tag" data area in their files that .MP3 files have. I actually use CDWAVE to do my capturing, and then split out all the individual tracks to their own .WAV file after doing my de-clicking and other noise reduction. Usually the primary directory is the artist name, the directory (folder) under that would be the name of the album, and then inside that would be the individual tracks, named with the name of the song, and prefixed with a two digit number to keep the order, ie: 01. songname1.wav. (You need to use two digit names with leading zeros if there are more than 9 tracks.)

When you put the tracks into Music Disc Creator, you have a place to add the artist and album name, there is no provision for adding an artist for each track. If you want that as part of "various artists CD", you'll need to make it part of the track name, and that information gets written as the CD-Text information. Again, .WAV files have no provision to store the artist/album name inside the file.

An Audio CD does not have files on it, it has tracks. It has a different structure than a Data CD. Thus when you look at it in Windows Explorer, you see 1K .CDA "files" listed as "Track01", "Track02" etc.. That's just Windows way of showing you the contents of an Audio CD, there's no such thing as a .CDA "file" on an Audio CD. Windows Explorer, and Windows Media Player do not read nor display CD-Text information. (Actually, I don't know if the latest version of WMP displays CD-Text or not, earlier version don't.) So, you need to use an application like HACP to see the CD-Text information written to your Data CD. Also, not all CD drives read CD-Text either. I thought I was having a problem writing CD-Text until I tried reading the disc in a different drive, and it was indeed there.

I hope that clears up some of the issues you're seeing.

Dave D W: That was EXTREMELY helpful and cleared up much of the mystery. MANY MANY THANKS

I have now successfully used a combination of LP and Tape Assistant and the Sounds Editor and Music Disc Creator to burn two audio discs - that actually function in computer, car and stereo system, AND through I had to do this through trial and error, and ended entering the track title and individual artist for each track (it is a compilation) about 5 or 6 times.... I now intend to follow the following procedure:

(1) capture cassettes and LP's and reel-to-reel in LP and Tape Assistant, and put in the track separators, but NOT put in title and artist (as I will just lose it later)-

(2) then tidy up the sound for individual tracks (enhance, sound max, equaliser,etc) in the Sounds Editor -

(3) somewhere along the line save it all as a project so as not to lose it (but not before it is divided into separate WAV files for each track).

(4) Then import the project OR the individual WAV files into Music Disc Creator and put in title and artist

(5) MAKE SURE NOT OVERLENGTH (despite Roxio apparently being able to handle more than 1 disc's worth of tracks at a time, it has bombed out everytime I try to do that)

(6) burn to audio disc. (I am hoping that conversion tot he audio disc will somehow allow preservation of title and artist info - seemed to work before - if not type it all in again)

THEN, part two:

(7) import the individual wav files OR off the newly burned disk into iTunes (with the setting for automatic conversion to AAC (to create MPEG4 files). I suspect I will lose at least the artist information and have to put it in manually in iTunes- but apparently the track title is preserved in that conversion.

I have found that if I somehow preserve or fill in the title and artist in iTunes then when I play the burned disc on my computer - in iTunes - it shows the title and artist info (though obviously that does not show when played in a regular (read not new and expensive) CD player in stereo of car.

BTW: In iTunes I am able (ctrl-i) to put in the artist for each track and the track number (following the order I prefer for the compilation) and that seems to stick and work well - don't seem to have to put the track number before the title - at least that works and everything goes in the preferred order IF I make a playlist in iTunes out of the new compilation.

Have a ways to go, but moving in the right direction - thanks to the assistance of yourself , and much trial and error.

Please advise if anything I propose din my procedure seems questionable to you.

Thanks Again

That all sounds good, and I'm glad I was able to help clear things up.

Obviously, in iTunes, if you enter the artist info for the playlist, it's storing that information somewhere for retrieval when you play the disc using iTunes.

Yes, a new car stereo that supports CD-Text would display the artist/track info... but then, we're supposed to be watching the road, not the display on the car stereo, eh?

Good luck with your project!

FINAL WORD (until the next one): Have amended the procedure to avoid typing in artist and title information more than once. Now I burn the Audio CD in LP and Tape Assistant, after whatever editing needed for track separators and audio quality WITHOUT PUTTING IN ANY ARTIST AND TITLE TAGS (since it gets lost in the process later on anyway_ only move project over to music disc creator or sound editor if need to play around with individual tracks.

I burn an audio disc (which works as long as not more than one disc's worth of tracks) - then put that disc into computer and iTunes- and then fill in artist and title info in iTunes - THEN tell iTunes to capture the disc - and it locks in all the artist and title information. iTunes set to automatically convert the wav files through AAC to Mpeg4. This results in all the tracks in the right order and full artist, title, genre etc tags when playing through ipod or iTunes... and the other uses - in car and in home steroe, don't need artist and title info as equipment not sophisticated enough to display the info.

Possible negative: by putting into iTunes from disc instead of going back to wav files on computer possibly getting a bit less sound quality - but haven't in fact noticed that in practice.

Thanks again for all who made comments.