I started a thread about CD recorders which I found very helpful so this is
a follow up. Can anyone guide me as to the optimum settings for using Nero
for copying commercial music CD's. I am plodding through my Nero Express
manual after getting some high frequency distortion on the odd track so I
want to make sure everything is tweaked OK. I am using just the default
settings but in default my output file format is set to MP3 Pro. This
doesn't seem right to me, should I be using wave file as a more appropriate
setting? How many bits should I be using? Anything else I need to think
about.

Once again I thank all the experts out there.

"Informer" wrote in message
...
I started a thread about CD recorders which I found very helpful so this
is
a follow up. Can anyone guide me as to the optimum settings for using
Nero
for copying commercial music CD's. I am plodding through my Nero Express
manual after getting some high frequency distortion on the odd track so I
want to make sure everything is tweaked OK. I am using just the default
settings but in default my output file format is set to MP3 Pro. This
doesn't seem right to me, should I be using wave file as a more
appropriate
setting? How many bits should I be using? Anything else I need to think
about.

Once again I thank all the experts out there.

Do you want to copy entire disks or individual tracks?

If disk, choose 'copy entire disk' from the right hand menu. You *should* be
OK if your writer and reader are on separate channels (that is, connected by
separate cables to separate controllers on your motherboard - unlikely but
possible). If they're not I suggest you use the next method ...

If tracks (to make a compilation for example) the best method is a bit more
complicated - you need to extract the wav data from the original using EAC.
Then start Nero Express, click Music, Audio CD, then add the tracks you
exported from EAC.

This is just one of many methods, and works best IMO.

Rob

If you only want to copy complete discs to bak them up you should get hold
of Exact Audio Copy and use the "copy to image and create cue sheet" option.
This creates a WAV file for the complete disc and the cue sheet tells
whatever app you use to burn the image where to put the track markers. This
method allows you to copy albums where tracks run into each other (such as
live albums) withou breaking them up.
You can burn from cue sheets in nero and the latest version of EAC has a
button for this too (haven't tried it yet).
You can get EAC from www.exactaudiocopy.de/



Cheers
Colin

"RJH" wrote in message
...

"Informer" wrote in message
...
I started a thread about CD recorders which I found very helpful so this
is
a follow up. Can anyone guide me as to the optimum settings for using
Nero
for copying commercial music CD's. I am plodding through my Nero
Express
manual after getting some high frequency distortion on the odd track so
I
want to make sure everything is tweaked OK. I am using just the
default
settings but in default my output file format is set to MP3 Pro. This
doesn't seem right to me, should I be using wave file as a more
appropriate
setting? How many bits should I be using? Anything else I need to think
about.

Once again I thank all the experts out there.

Do you want to copy entire disks or individual tracks?

If disk, choose 'copy entire disk' from the right hand menu. You *should*
be
OK if your writer and reader are on separate channels (that is, connected
by
separate cables to separate controllers on your motherboard - unlikely but
possible). If they're not I suggest you use the next method ...

If tracks (to make a compilation for example) the best method is a bit
more
complicated - you need to extract the wav data from the original using
EAC.
Then start Nero Express, click Music, Audio CD, then add the tracks you
exported from EAC.

This is just one of many methods, and works best IMO.

Rob

"Colin Anderson" wrote in message
...
If you only want to copy complete discs to bak them up you should get hold
of Exact Audio Copy and use the "copy to image and create cue sheet"
option.
This creates a WAV file for the complete disc and the cue sheet tells
whatever app you use to burn the image where to put the track markers.
This
method allows you to copy albums where tracks run into each other (such as
live albums) withou breaking them up.
You can burn from cue sheets in nero and the latest version of EAC has a
button for this too (haven't tried it yet).
You can get EAC from www.exactaudiocopy.de/


I've since found that Nero's 'copy disk', 'disk at once' manages live albums
as well.

Rob

On Sun, 01 Feb 2004 10:31:27 GMT, "Colin Anderson"
wrote:

If you only want to copy complete discs to bak them up you should get hold
of Exact Audio Copy and use the "copy to image and create cue sheet" option.
This creates a WAV file for the complete disc and the cue sheet tells
whatever app you use to burn the image where to put the track markers. This
method allows you to copy albums where tracks run into each other (such as
live albums) withou breaking them up.

Indeed; however, its not the only to do this: most burning s/w can
take multiple WAV files and perform a disc-at-once burn w/o gaps
between tracks. Unfortunately, some of the more popular burning apps
default to track-at-once (TAO), and either need to this to be reset as
a user configuration or (even worse) reset every time a disc is
created :-(

You can burn from cue sheets in nero and the latest version of EAC has a
button for this too (haven't tried it yet).
You can get EAC from www.exactaudiocopy.de/

EAC's burning capability, for multiple WAV sources, works DAO by
defaullt, as does CDRWIN (www.goldenhawk.com).

Julian

--
Julian Fowler
julian (at) bellevue-barn (dot) org (dot) uk

On Sun, 01 Feb 2004 10:31:27 GMT, "Colin Anderson"
wrote:

If you only want to copy complete discs to bak them up you should get hold
of Exact Audio Copy and use the "copy to image and create cue sheet" option.
This creates a WAV file for the complete disc and the cue sheet tells
whatever app you use to burn the image where to put the track markers. This
method allows you to copy albums where tracks run into each other (such as
live albums) withou breaking them up.
You can burn from cue sheets in nero and the latest version of EAC has a
button for this too (haven't tried it yet).
You can get EAC from www.exactaudiocopy.de/

No need. Nero's "Copy disk" function does exactly what it says.
You don't need to consider tracks, cue sheets, markers etc. at all.

On Sun, 01 Feb 2004 15:19:15 +0000, Laurence Payne
wrote:

On Sun, 01 Feb 2004 10:31:27 GMT, "Colin Anderson"
wrote:

If you only want to copy complete discs to bak them up you should get hold
of Exact Audio Copy and use the "copy to image and create cue sheet" option.
This creates a WAV file for the complete disc and the cue sheet tells
whatever app you use to burn the image where to put the track markers. This
method allows you to copy albums where tracks run into each other (such as
live albums) withou breaking them up.
You can burn from cue sheets in nero and the latest version of EAC has a
button for this too (haven't tried it yet).
You can get EAC from www.exactaudiocopy.de/

No need. Nero's "Copy disk" function does exactly what it says.
You don't need to consider tracks, cue sheets, markers etc. at all.

Does Nero do accurate DAE (to the same extent that EAC does)? The
last time I checked (maybe 18 months ago) it did not, and with
anything other than pristine source material the "Copy disk" function
produced results that were definitely not bit-accurate with respect to
the original.

Julian

--
Julian Fowler
julian (at) bellevue-barn (dot) org (dot) uk

On Sun, 01 Feb 2004 16:11:37 +0000, Julian Fowler
wrote:

No need. Nero's "Copy disk" function does exactly what it says.
You don't need to consider tracks, cue sheets, markers etc. at all.

Does Nero do accurate DAE (to the same extent that EAC does)? The
last time I checked (maybe 18 months ago) it did not, and with
anything other than pristine source material the "Copy disk" function
produced results that were definitely not bit-accurate with respect to
the original.

He's trying to copy an audio cd in order to play it on his hi-fi.
Who cares?

On Sun, 1 Feb 2004 08:10:52 -0000, Informer wrote:
I started a thread about CD recorders which I found very helpful so this is
a follow up. Can anyone guide me as to the optimum settings for using Nero
for copying commercial music CD's. I am plodding through my Nero Express
manual after getting some high frequency distortion on the odd track so I
want to make sure everything is tweaked OK. I am using just the default

Nero is digital. It doesn't have any record settings.

settings but in default my output file format is set to MP3 Pro. This
doesn't seem right to me, should I be using wave file as a more appropriate
setting? How many bits should I be using? Anything else I need to think
about.

There's your problem. You're not recording an audio CD. You're making
a data CD containing mp3 files. Most CD players won't play those disks,
BTW.

Start your project by having it create an "AUDIO CD PROJECT" instead of a "DATA
CD PROJECT".

Otherwise, increase the bitrate of the mp3s you're creating. I dunno where the
mp3 compression was occuring; either your original music is MP3 in which case
you're ****ed, or in nero itself or some other default piece of software like
window's media player. Look for a bitrate setting and set it no lower than
128kbps; 192 is much better and 256kbps will be superb. I use 320kbps
for classical.

What do you mean by MP3 Pro? Anyhow, Nero's main function is to burn CDs
from files, whether they are files on your hard drive or a CD. While it
can do other stuff, like convert wavs to Mp3, it's interface is not the
best, and some edits you might be doing in Nero could be causing the
distortion. Ideally, you should have 2 Programs/Applications on your PC,
one to work with the audio files, be it wav, aiff, mp3 etc, and the
other to burn your files to CD. You already have Nero for the burn part.
For working on files, I use CoolEdit (now re-named Audition after being
bought by Adobe) to actually work on the files like make cue points,
adjust EQ, nosie reduction, convert to mp3 etc. There are others like
GOldwave, Protools,and Cakewalk. Once I have done everything I need to
do with the files, I then save and quit CoolEdit and then launch Nero to
put those files on CDR. Inside Nero, I hardly ever edit the files, I
just use Nero to arrange how the files will go onto the CD, like how
many seconds between each track, track order, what type of CD I'm
making, Audio or ISO, and that's it. Then I permanently burn them to CD-R.

With these 2 programs and a CD burner on your PC, you have pretty much
made yourself a digital audio workstation, or DAW. You can even use it
to record analog sources like vinyl and cassettes and make them into CDs.

hth

CD


Informer wrote:
I started a thread about CD recorders which I found very helpful so this is
a follow up. Can anyone guide me as to the optimum settings for using Nero
for copying commercial music CD's. I am plodding through my Nero Express
manual after getting some high frequency distortion on the odd track so I
want to make sure everything is tweaked OK. I am using just the default
settings but in default my output file format is set to MP3 Pro. This
doesn't seem right to me, should I be using wave file as a more appropriate
setting? How many bits should I be using? Anything else I need to think
about.

Once again I thank all the experts out there.