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Has Creator Classic (music Disc Creator) Taken A Step Backwrd With Emc 8?


michaeltee

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Once the core competency of EMC, Music Disc Creator, formerly a component of "Creator Classic", seems (in my opinion) to have taken a few steps backward with Version 8. Creator Classic was arguably the cream-of-the-crop CD burner in previous EMC versions and in many ways, the single component that has truly set it apart from the competition. Change is often good and even though I'm always looking forward to the latest and greatest, the superior functionality of Creator Classic is the one thing that's kept me coming back for more since Easy CD Creator 4.

 

These are a few issues I have with the new Music Disc Creator. If I'm mistaken about any of this please let me know.

 

1) CD audio can no longer be ripped automatically. The user must now choose a format (wav, ogg, mp3, etc.) and initiate the conversion process manually. I realize that users might want to rip to a format other than CDA but that feature was available in previous versions without compromising EMC's unique ability to transcode and burn on-the-fly. I do realize that "Disc Copier" has retained this ability but Creator Classic's on-the-fly capability often made it a more desirable copier when minor adjustments to CD Text, etc., needed to be made.

 

2) When adding an entire CD to a project "Select All" is no longer available. With EMC 8 the user must manually select each track.

 

3) The crossfade feature now assumes the user wants to fade-out the previous track and fade-in the next track rather than simply overlapping the end and beginning of two adjacent tracks. Worse, if the user disables fade-in / fade-out by selecting "no fade" (or anything other than "normal fade") EMC re-enables it by default each and every time a new "interval" (overlap timing) is entered. This unnecessary resetting is really annoying especially when you consider that when crossfading, the overlap interval typically needs to be re-adjusted several times before the desired mix is attained. Once a fade-in / fade-out option has been selected it should certainly remain "as is" throughout the session unless changed by the user.

 

4) Crossfade "preview" doesn't play a long enough sample to properly evaluate the transition. Previous EMC versions gave you at least a few seconds of "previous" and "next" which was very helpful in avoiding coasters due to a poor mix. With EMC 8 you get plenty of "next" but only a snippit of "previous" making it nearly impossible to judge if the mix will live up to one's expectations prior to burning it.

 

If nothing else I'm grateful that EMC 7.5 and 8.0 can peacefully co-exist on the same PC because at this point it's difficult to consider Music Disc Creator 8 a true replacement for Creator Classic 7.5. That said, I'm anxious to see if you agree or disagree. I'm also interested in learning what (if anything) has actually improved and/or if any the shortcomings I've mentioned are misconceptions on my part since I've only been using EMC 8 for a few days.

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I don't do much CD creation anymore, but I can address several points.

 

First, Creator Classic can still 'rip' a CD to the hard drive. It just doesn't have the capability to burn an audio CD.

1: I'm not sure I understand your first point since the only format I've ever used is MP3 and MDC seems to remember what I used last. I still use Creator Classic because it has more file naming structure options.

 

2: The 'Media Selector' works just like Windows Explorer. Cntrl-A will select all. You can even use Cntrl-click and Shft-Click. Both work exactly like in Explorer.

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