Creating CD Masters

[bschopp]

Can anyone out there suggest a CD-R drive and brand of media suitable for creating CD masters?

Also, I typically use Roxio Easy CD and DVD Creator to burn my CD's. If I need different software to make CD masters, I'd appreciate a recommendation on that as well.

Thanks,
Butch

[MASSIVE Mastering]

If you're creating production masters for replication:

You need a RedBook compliant PQ editor with frame-accurate editing capabilities and frame accurate PQ logging.

No idea if Easy CD Creator does that (I'd assume not, but who knows).

You need a solid drive (I always suggest Plextor), quality media (Tayio Yuden is the defacto standard) and a way of checking the disc for compliancy (Block error rates, etc.).

If you're making simple reference discs to listen to:

What you have is probably fine.

[bschopp]

If you're creating production masters for replication:

...You need a solid drive (I always suggest Plextor), quality media (Tayio Yuden is the defacto standard) and a way of checking the disc for compliancy (Block error rates, etc.).

If you're making simple reference discs to listen to:

What you have is probably fine.

Thanks for your reply. I appreciate the advice. In your terms, I guess I'm really wanting to make a "reference" disc. It's unlikely that anything I'm doing will be used for large scale duplication. For something like that, I'd go to an expert like yourself. What I am trying to do is make as high a quality of CD-R disc as possible so I can make good sounding CD-R duplicates. And as an additional requirement, I want a "master" that 10 years from now will still be in "perfect" condition, an "archive" disk.

In reference material I found, I did see mention of the Tayio Yuden disks, but the suppliers I searched didn't have them. Apparently some Verbatim disks are made by Tayio Yuden, but it was unclear to me as to how to make sure those were the ones I got. For now, I'm going to try Delkin Archival Gold CD-R's and burn them in the best of my 4 burners at 1X speed.

Thanks,
Butch

[MASSIVE Mastering]

MAM-A (Mitsui) Gold Archive discs are great also. Higher BLER than most TY's, but you can't beat the shelf life.

On the speed - My studies (along with others I've heard of) find a "burning efficiency window" at around 20% of a drive's top speed.

So, 1x on a 4x drive is great -

Otherwise, somewhere around 8-12x on a 48x-ish speeed drive in most cases will give you the lowest BLER, lowest jitter, best focus, etc.

[getreel]

Software wise, I have been using the Sony CD Architect since it was a Sonic Foundry plug-in. It writes red book CDs perfectly every time for me. It's also easy to use and gives you a lot of features. Massive Mastering suggestions for drive type and media are right on the money.

[John Jeffers]

I'll second CD Architect. It takes a little learning compared to something like Easy CD Creator, but worth the effort.

[bschopp]

Software wise, I have been using the Sony CD Architect since it was a Sonic Foundry plug-in. It writes red book CDs perfectly every time for me. It's also easy to use and gives you a lot of features. Massive Mastering suggestions for drive type and media are right on the money.

I found Sound Forge 8 with CD Architect 5.2 at Musicians Friend for $249.95. I found CD Architect 5.2 t Sweetwater for $99.95. Is it worth getting Sound Forge, or should I just get the CD Architect?

[Catfish]

I use SoundForge as an editor and rather like it (been using it for years)
I think at $249.00 with CD Arch. it is a great value.


Catfish................

[getreel]

I do really lke Sound Forge a lot, but you wouldn't HAVE to have it if you already have an editor you like using. The older versions of CD Architect had to have Sound Forge but it's a stand alone program now. I use Sound Forge 7 all the time and it's great.

[Roman Sokal]

If you're creating production masters for replication:

...You need a solid drive (I always suggest Plextor), quality media (Tayio Yuden is the defacto standard) and a way of checking the disc for compliancy (Block error rates, etc.).

If you're making simple reference discs to listen to:

What you have is probably fine.

Thanks for your reply. I appreciate the advice. In your terms, I guess I'm really wanting to make a "reference" disc. It's unlikely that anything I'm doing will be used for large scale duplication. For something like that, I'd go to an expert like yourself. What I am trying to do is make as high a quality of CD-R disc as possible so I can make good sounding CD-R duplicates. And as an additional requirement, I want a "master" that 10 years from now will still be in "perfect" condition, an "archive" disk.

In reference material I found, I did see mention of the Tayio Yuden disks, but the suppliers I searched didn't have them. Apparently some Verbatim disks are made by Tayio Yuden, but it was unclear to me as to how to make sure those were the ones I got. For now, I'm going to try Delkin Archival Gold CD-R's and burn them in the best of my 4 burners at 1X speed.

Thanks,
Butch

has anyone tried the mobile fidelity gold cd-r's?
http://mofi.com/