[ale] Probs Burning CD comp from MP3 files

[aaron]

This is kind of timely since a CD burning thread just popped up...
...I recently had a CD burning project that gave me some fits and I 
thought it might be helpful for others if I share the problem description 
and the solution.

---
The short version is that:
  The popular <cdrecord> burning program can (apparently) have problems 
correctly writing SOME audio files that have been processed into MP3 
format. I found that <cdrdao> (used with the <arson> front end in this 
case) did not have any problems correctly burning the same files to CD 
(at least not with my particular burner).

---
The verbose and detailed version is:
   I added a cheap Mitsumi [48x5TE] CD burner to my RH 7.2 Linux system 
several months ago and have used it successfully in building several 
audio CD compilations from my collection. After exploring a number of GNU 
burn software options I decided on X-CD-Roast,  a front end for <mkisofs> 
and <cdrecord>, as my preferred GUI for burning. [A BTW that X-CD-Roast 
was recently updated to version 0.98alpha10 in April, 02.]

This latest project seemed only a little different from my previous ones 
as it involved burning a compilation CD for my daughter from some MP3 
sources instead of my usual ripped WAV files. I just added one step to my 
process by using <lame> to up-convert the MP3's to WAV files. Next, I 
"normalized" the audio levels for all the cuts using a handy utility 
called <normalize> (of course). Finally, I did some simple clean up 
editing on some of the files and added a hidden "cookie" song to the 
final cut using <audacity> and/or <wavesurfer>.
 
All seemed fine with my tested and well tuned WAV files (heh, heh) until 
I went to burn them onto CD. X-CD-Roast went through its usual motions 
and did not report any errors, but on playing back the finished product I 
found that several of the selections had been clipped off at the head, 
randomly loosing between 1/2 to 3 seconds at the front.

Parents will understand well when I reiterate that I was making this CD 
for my teenager... so I proceded to burn several more drink coasters 
trying to find and fix the problems. The attempts included editing all 
the WAV files for consistent front end silent space (force an update of 
the wav header?),  converting all the files to RAW and then back to WAV 
(totally re-create the wav header?) and burning the disks with different 
front end packages. To my frustration the up-cut problems remained in all 
cases, and it was consistently the SAME source file selections that got 
chopped off in the write process!  I finally decided to change the burner 
back-end software: <cdrecord> may be the most common and popular CD burn 
package for Linux, and it had indeed worked FINE for me burning ripped 
wav files to CD in the past, but in this case it was becoming the most 
likely culprit.

Soo...
I switched to <cdrdao> (cd record - disk at once) as the back end, chose 
<arson> as the front end (to build a required and compatible Table Of 
Contents TOC file from my source directory) and tried again. The up-cut 
problem went away... completely... <cdrdao> gave me a perfect CD from 
files originating as MP3. According to the docs, <arson> will even let me 
skip the up-covert process next time and have <cdrdao> burn an audio CD 
directly from a list of MP3 files.

Hope that was helpful and informative!

peace
aaron

--------------------------
Related Links:
--------------------------

-- CD Burning --
<cdrdao>
http://cdrdao.sourceforge.net/driveinfo.html
<arson>
http://arson.sourceforge.net/
<cdrecord>
http://www.fokus.gmd.de/research/cc/glone/employees/joerg.schilling/private/cdrecord.html
<xcdroast>
http://www.xcdroast.org/

-- Audio File Editing / Conversion --
<normalize>
http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~cvaill/normalize/
<audacity>
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
<wavesurfer>
http://www.speech.kth.se/wavesurfer/faq.html
<lame>
http://www.sulaco.org/mp3/

-- Reference mini-HOWTO [02.04.26] -- 
http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/docs/HOWTO/mini/other-formats/html_single/MP3-CD-Burning.html

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