Re: stand alone cd burner?

"Iain Churches" <IainNG@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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"Arny Krueger" <arnyk@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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"Iain Churches" <IainNG@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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People who use PCs and CEP (now Audition) speak
about the necessity to defragment the hard disc before
the >> initial transcriptionfrom vinyl.

People say lots of crazy things. Lots of it traces back
to the days of 540 meg, 5400 rpm hard drives.

Could be. But you are familiar with this?

I've been using CoolEditPro/Audition for more than a decade. 12 years ago
defragging hard drives was important for recording and burning CDs. This
year its importance is a tiny fraction of that. In between hard drives
became in a practical sense, at least 10 times faster. Recording hardware
became far less critical of its operational environment.

Another big change over the years is that in 1998 most windows DAW setups
ran under Win98 on FAT-32 formatted hard drives. Starting in the early
2000s, most people switched to Windows XP and NTFS drives. NTFS does not
fragment its drives as destructively as FAT32 did. Of course, every once in
a while I find an XP system running on FAT32, because not everybody is on
the ball.

IIRC you use Audition.

It really doesn't matter what software you use. Basically, you're working
with .wav files, optical disc burners and audio interfaces, no matter what.

Otherwise, it seems the
sequencer may stop playing during a 60 min cloning to
CD if it cannot find the data fast enough.

Then there are the people who still haven't bought a
modern CD burner that knows what to do if somehow there
is a data underrun.
This doesn't seem to happen on Mac based systems
which seem a lot less prone to fragmentation.

If you believe that...

I have found that to be the case with ProTools.

I know lots of people who use Pro Tools. We all see the same basic world -
where brands of DAW software don't matter, and the physical properties of
hardware dominates.

One can
download a large project, add new elements, edit,
submix and mix intrernally, and then upload to archive,
and the disks show a very low level of fragmentation.

....just like XP/NTFS. Besides there is no cross-system standard for
reporting fragmentation. You can't compare anything that either operating
system reports.

People say that similar systems running under Windows
fair much worse. I would be interested in your findings,
Arny.

My findings are that I recommend that people defrag their drives once a
month, because it is good hygiene.

Prof workstations "look ahead" all the time
but still most studios seem to defrag at least once
a week and between projects.

Good policies, but policies with declining relevance.

Maybe belt and braces, but one doesn't want the sequencer
to grind to a halt during a live transmission:-) IME
things like this are the mark of a pro system.

Know what needs to be done, and what doesn't need to be done and when is the
sign of a pro.

they even automatically identify and
mark the individual tracks in the process.

IME, that function is controlled by the level of the
audo. If the audio is less than a certain amount, it
must be a space between tracks. It's not the most
reliable system in the world.

Actually, it is totally reliable.

Inexperience speaks!

I doubt if you do more CD mastering that I and
certainly not at a professional level.

I mastered 3 > 1 hour CDs today. Can you top that?

I have never seen an HHB miss a beat. If yours does
then perhaps you are not setting it up properly.

Oh spare me, Iain. :-(

Iain, in the sequence below I'm trying to make the point that using
automatic track marking works fine with master tapes but often runs into
problems when making CDs from transcribed LPs. You seem to completely miss
the point. That tells me that you can't see why there is a difference. That
tells me that you are not talking from experience.

One can set both the time that
must be detected, and also the depth of signal
attenuation. 3 secs and 50dB is a common default. You
can even set the system to update the ID on applause for concert
recordings.

I have these features available on our HHB burner at
church. Long story short - we turn them off and do it
manually for a lot of reasons.

Care to list them?

The HHB is at church and I'm at home. I'm not going to drive to church to
satisfy your idle curiosity, Iain.

I would also be interested to know
why you church needs a CD burner.

To make CDs of services. We make an audio CD and a video DVD every Sunday
morning.

Surely you record to HD and make CDs on a PC?

No, I find the CD burner to be more reliable than a PC in the hands of
amateurs.

Have you been squandering the congregation's money again? :-)

How would you know, Iain?

Automatic scrolling on disc cutting lathes also works
in exactly this fashion.

When the masters are tapes, it can be a different story.

Then it is even simpler.

More than simpler, it can be feasible. The difference is that master tapes
have far more dynamic range than raw transcriptions of LPs. Apparently you
don't know this or see how it can be relevant, Iain.

Analogue tapes have leader which
the tape machine senses. The servo head has a light
sensitive cell which sees through the leader, and gives
the scroll command.

And do raw transcriptions of LPs have anything like that?

Alternatively, scrolls are marked
on tape with three strips of leader 20mm in length.
The timed location of these strips is written on the
box (Scroll at....) The cutting engineer then enters
these on the scroll command keypad, or can insert
the scroll manually when he sees the three 20mm
strips pass the playback head.

And do raw transcriptions of LPs have anything like that?


DAT and DASH have imbedded markers.

And do raw transcriptions of LPs have anything like that?

Manual marking, or entering markers from a keypad
is of course another option.

It is 100% reliable, even when all the automated stuff
fails.

Cutting automation is well-established technology
and remarkably reliable. The cutting engineer has
1001 things he needs to do constantly so to be able
to leave the scrolling to automation is of great benefit.

Now that I annotated the differences Iain, do you see the difference between
generating track markers automatically from LPs and master tapes?


.

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