Importing and Burning is over-modulated

[Max Power]

Howdy,

 

Anyone else noticing the distortion caused when importing tracks and burning them to disc? This also happens when copying discs. $80 down the drain considering I had no problems using Toast Titanium 7 with Snow Leopard. I upgraded assuming things would get even better, not worse.

 

Any advice?

[tsantee]

Thanks for your diligence. I did some things too, and resolved I think. As mentioned I went ahead and used Peak LE to extract and then used those versions to burn a disc and BAM, same problem, super fuzzy and some tracking issues to boot. While it was burning I was watching the burn speed bounce all over the place, from 9x to 52x and back down again. Shouldn't that be static, pick one and stay there? So then I tried disc copy again and noticed the same thing, one drive running at its steady 24x but the burning drive bouncing around from 9x to 52x again. So then I set the burning drive to 8x rather than "best", ran both tests again and the CD-Rs came out perfect.

 

So I think there is something in the software there that needs some tweaking, as tracks being imported are probably coming in at fluctuating speeds as well, and that combined with the same problem while burning has got to be the culprit. Does that make sense? I know my profile says newbie, but I am a couple of levels ahead of that

 

Thanks again for your help! I'll try your way as well.

I haven't seen an optical drive do that kind of swinging with recording speed. It does make sense about burning slower. It used to be that burning audio CDs was recommended at 1X speed and there may still be some specialty media available that allows 1X burning for this reason. What is now recommended is burning audio CDs at the slowest available speed, so your solution was excellent.

 

When extracting tracks from my disc I didn't notice any fluctuation in the drive's sound although I don't know what was going on with its speed. Certainly read errors could cause distorted audio. I don't know if this will make any difference but you might consider using a laser cleaning disc (or start shopping for a new external drive).

[Max Power]

I haven't seen an optical drive do that kind of swinging with recording speed. It does make sense about burning slower. It used to be that burning audio CDs was recommended at 1X speed and there may still be some specialty media available that allows 1X burning for this reason. What is now recommended is burning audio CDs at the slowest available speed, so your solution was excellent.

 

When extracting tracks from my disc I didn't notice any fluctuation in the drive's sound although I don't know what was going on with its speed. Certainly read errors could cause distorted audio. I don't know if this will make any difference but you might consider using a laser cleaning disc (or start shopping for a new external drive).

 

Funny you mention that, I do have a laser cleaning disc so I will do that for good measure. Also, I was switching between burning with the internal DVD/CD drive my external CD burner and ended up with the same results prior to choosing a speed and sticking with it. And yes, for anything I archive, I burn a 1X ... very good advice there for everyone.

 

Thanks again for the helpful interaction, by far the most positive experience I have had on a discussion board.

 

Happy T-Day!

[tsantee]

This surprises me and I don't know how Toast could modify the files at all when copying. Tell me more about the steps you're taking and how you determined that the tracks are distorted after copying.

[Max Power]

This surprises me and I don't know how Toast could modify the files at all when copying. Tell me more about the steps you're taking and how you determined that the tracks are distorted after copying.

 

I'm using OS 10.6.2, and have upgraded to Toast 10.0.4; whether I use Toast to import (extract) the tracks, or do a direct disc to disc copy, I end up with distorted importing (can hear it when playing back through Toast prior to burning) that also appears on the burned disc which made me think it was an importing problem. Then I made a copy of a CD and found it did the same thing. I cleared all preferences just in case there were remnants of Toast 7 out there and did the same tests ending up with the same problems. I am currently using TDK 52X Certified CD-Rs, and have always sworn to those with no issues ever but now I am throwing them away like cookies with peanuts in them. One thing I did notice when importing is that the V.U. meter in the Toast pane had every track red-lining in both channels. That has never happened before in previous versions. I also tried burning to the built in drive on my iMac and to the external burner as well, same problem. And I just burned a disc to another brand of CD-R, same problem.

 

Very frustrating as I have always preferred Toast burning to any other software I have used. My next step is to extract using Peak LE, then burn those tracks to see if that problem still exists but I am guessing it will as a direct copy of a disc resulted in the problem.

[tsantee]

I'm using OS 10.6.2, and have upgraded to Toast 10.0.4; whether I use Toast to import (extract) the tracks, or do a direct disc to disc copy, I end up with distorted importing (can hear it when playing back through Toast prior to burning) that also appears on the burned disc which made me think it was an importing problem. Then I made a copy of a CD and found it did the same thing. I cleared all preferences just in case there were remnants of Toast 7 out there and did the same tests ending up with the same problems. I am currently using TDK 52X Certified CD-Rs, and have always sworn to those with no issues ever but now I am throwing them away like cookies with peanuts in them. One thing I did notice when importing is that the V.U. meter in the Toast pane had every track red-lining in both channels. That has never happened before in previous versions. I also tried burning to the built in drive on my iMac and to the external burner as well, same problem. And I just burned a disc to another brand of CD-R, same problem.

 

Very frustrating as I have always preferred Toast burning to any other software I have used. My next step is to extract using Peak LE, then burn those tracks to see if that problem still exists but I am guessing it will as a direct copy of a disc resulted in the problem.

Thanks for the info. I'll check this as well. Do you have Toast 10.0.2? If so, give it a try to see if the result is different. At this point I should stop being surprised by all the things going wrong with Toast and Popcorn since the Snow Leopard-compatible updates.

 

Addendum: I've run some tests using 10.0.4 on my MBP running OS 10.6.2 and can't hear any difference in the imported audio tracks and the source. In addition, I copied a track from the CD by dragging it to the Finder and adding it to Toast so Toast wasn't doing the extraction. Both it and the Toast-extracted track sound identical to me. The VU meter in the Toast window doesn't come close to peaking near the top.

 

Try dragging your tracks to the Finder to extract them and add them to Toast that way. Does this make any difference to what you're hearing?

[Max Power]

Thanks for the info. I'll check this as well. Do you have Toast 10.0.2? If so, give it a try to see if the result is different. At this point I should stop being surprised by all the things going wrong with Toast and Popcorn since the Snow Leopard-compatible updates.

 

Addendum: I've run some tests using 10.0.4 on my MBP running OS 10.6.2 and can't hear any difference in the imported audio tracks and the source. In addition, I copied a track from the CD by dragging it to the Finder and adding it to Toast so Toast wasn't doing the extraction. Both it and the Toast-extracted track sound identical to me. The VU meter in the Toast window doesn't come close to peaking near the top.

 

Try dragging your tracks to the Finder to extract them and add them to Toast that way. Does this make any difference to what you're hearing?

 

Thanks for your diligence. I did some things too, and resolved I think. As mentioned I went ahead and used Peak LE to extract and then used those versions to burn a disc and BAM, same problem, super fuzzy and some tracking issues to boot. While it was burning I was watching the burn speed bounce all over the place, from 9x to 52x and back down again. Shouldn't that be static, pick one and stay there? So then I tried disc copy again and noticed the same thing, one drive running at its steady 24x but the burning drive bouncing around from 9x to 52x again. So then I set the burning drive to 8x rather than "best", ran both tests again and the CD-Rs came out perfect.

 

So I think there is something in the software there that needs some tweaking, as tracks being imported are probably coming in at fluctuating speeds as well, and that combined with the same problem while burning has got to be the culprit. Does that make sense? I know my profile says newbie, but I am a couple of levels ahead of that

 

Thanks again for your help! I'll try your way as well.

[tsantee]

Funny you mention that, I do have a laser cleaning disc so I will do that for good measure. Also, I was switching between burning with the internal DVD/CD drive my external CD burner and ended up with the same results prior to choosing a speed and sticking with it. And yes, for anything I archive, I burn a 1X ... very good advice there for everyone.

 

Thanks again for the helpful interaction, by far the most positive experience I have had on a discussion board.

 

Happy T-Day!

Thanks very much for the kind appreciation.