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If you record a CD on to your hard drive, and then burn a copy of that CD to a blank CD, do you lose any quality? Is the copy the same quality as the original, assuming you burn at CD quality, not mp3?
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As long as it was a CD-Audio file, it should copy okay. In other words, the file that gets copied to the 'puter should be a CDA file, and the file that is on the 'puter is a CDA file, and when you copy it to a CD, you tell the 'puter to copy it as a CDA file, you should be okay. Like Shakespeare said, a rose is a rose is a rose.
Joe
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It depends...
Can you go into more detail how you're planning to do it, what software you use, all that stuff?
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When I get demos done, I have them mailed to me on a CD to keep the CD quality, I then transfer them to my computer by using Music Match, when I want to send a copy by CD to a publisher, I compile the songs on Music Match and burn them to a CD via my computer burner. Am I losing any quality by doing this? It sounds the same to me, but I was told that you lose some quality when you do this, I don't think you do but I'm no expert.
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I don't know about Musicmatch. You just have to make sure the software is not compressing the file in any way (mp3, etc.). A WAV file is CD quality. I am not sure if you can copy a CDA file to your computer.
A surefire way to make identical CDs is to use Roxio and just use the copy function to go from the original CD to the copy CD. Once it loads the original to the hard drive, you can make as many copies as you want without having to reload it (in one session anyway).
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I notice that the .wav file sounds a little less tinny then the mp3 file. My computer crashed with my recordngs and I lost the original .wav files in my first year doing recordings on the net, and all I had were the ones on my burned cd's. Fortunately it was not that bad because the recordings are not superb quality to begin with at all, but there is a difference.
I wonder if Audacity could do what you are looking for with the quality? I have not burned Audacity's files, I import the tracks I record on it to .wav
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Okay, if you have Musicmatch make WAV files from the CDs and make your compilations from those, that's pretty much the best you can do in terms of quality. They sound good to you, so don't worry about it.
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Thanks Patrick. One more question about Audacity, when I download a file by wav, it shows 705kbps as opposed 1411kbps which is CD quality, so is Audacity wav lower than Music Match wav. I'm a little confused on this.
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Hmm... If it's a mono file instead of a stereo file, it would be 705k. If it uses a sample rate of 22.05k instead of 44.1k, it would be 705k.
Check to make sure you are making files that are stereo, 16bit, 44.1k. That's all I can suggest, not knowing Audacity.
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In Audacity, go to the Edit drop down menu and click on preferences at the bottom.
Then choose quality, and you can set the parameters as Patrick suggests.
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Hi Everett you can rip CDs using Windows media player and choose which format you want to rip to. Open the media player. Go to tools at top panel then click options then select the rip tab then pull down the format tab to select which format you want to save as "wav lossless" is the bottom option. I use other software for this job but it works on Windows media player. You may not want this setting for every CD you rip from as it will use a lot of memory. Mp3 will probably suit most applications so remember to change it back when you have finished ripping your important Cds.
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Thanks Jim. I use Music Match to rip songs from CD to my hard drive and also convert from wav to mp3s. I also use it to compile CDs for sending to prospects. If I compile from wav files and burn to a CD, I should not lose any quality, even though one of my buddies said I would, I believe he is wrong.
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As long as the resulting copy sounds good I wouldn't worry about it. I use a stand alone Sony RCD-W500C to make copies of CD's I send out.
Ray E. Strode
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Hi Everett Providing you are copying like for like there is no loss of sound quality as it is just exactly the same file being duplicated. The problems arise when you change output formats IE compress files during the ripping, copying or burning process. This is an old can of worms. My own opinion is that most people cannot tell the difference between wav and Mp3 quality so it is a moot point. If you are happy with the sound output that is all that counts.
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Speaking of being happy with it, I have been happy with Audacity.
I use SoundBlaster Wavestudio to import to and it is only a 16 bit 44,000 kHz. It has a feature for a 24 bit, 96,000 kHz if I wanted to pay the extra money, but the software is 7 years old and it is an obsolete link now. Yet I have not been able to find features that beat this certain .wav software, at least with what I am looking for. Sometimes updated versions do not mean better.
Does having a higher bit and sample rate make a whole lot of difference? I don't have an elaborate recording setup to start out with.
I'm satisfied enough with the sound for right now. But if someone was looking for a professional standard I was wondering if the bit and sample rate must be higher.
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If you are transferring/ripping the songs to your computer in WAV format and then compiling audio CDs you are going to be fine.
If you look at the files on a normal audio CD you'll see there are WAV files along with the CDA files that point to the WAV files. You may also, depending on the CD, see mp3 files and some are now set up with "whole" CD playability via mp3, OGG, FLAC & etc.
I haven't used Music Match for a number of years but it was a pretty good ripping/burning application and as long as you have your settings in order you'll be fine, probably better than Nero or Roxio.
Get My Gear Here!"That ol' dog's so mean, he ain't done nothin' but eat nails and [naughty word removed] nickels ever since he was born"
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Thanks Dak, that's what I thought.
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Actually, when you rip an audio CD back to WAV you are always going to loose some quality. That's because there will always be errors on the CD (bits that are set to 1 but should have been 0, or vice versa). These errors occur because the process of burning or pressing a CD is not perfect. Likewise, the ripping itself may introduce a few errors of its own.
When you rip a studio master and then burn it back to CD, you are probably not going to hear any noticeable artifacts, but if you repeat the rip and burn process a couple of times you will most certainly degrade the audio.
If your recording started as a WAV/AIF on a computer, it is actually best to keep it in that format for as long as possible. If you do not plan to release the studio master as is, you should request that the studio sends you a data CD with the WAV on it. Data CDs contain (more) error correction information to cancel out the problems caused by those burning errors. That's because a single wrong bit in a computer program can prevent the whole thing from working.
With the data CD as a source, you're using the most pristine copy of the original recording available as the source for the CDs you burn with MusicMatch. You can't do much better than that, without buying additional equipment.
(Big studios tend to have very expensive AD converters and CD burners that produce audio CDs which are better sounding and have fewer errors than what you and I can burn at home... but you may not really care about the extra 2% those give you)
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