Questions about audio CDs

Question (Audio file formats):

Which audio file formats are supported by MakeCD?

Answer:

MakeCD only supports audio data at a frequency of 44.1 khz in 16 bit stereo. With MakeCD 2.4 this data must exist in pure form without additional information (sometimes termed CDDA format) or as AIFF. If the additional information is missing, the settings for byte order (i.e. Motorola or Intel) and the file length (multiple of the block length or any) are used. This does not apply to the AIFF format, since it does contain additional information.

Question (AIFF length incorrect):

I have converted sound data into AIFF, but when I select the file, MakeCD reports the AIFF file length as incorrect. Why doesn't adjusting the audio length help? Answer: The exact error message is presumably as follows:

Source file »filename« has wrong type »wrong AIFF« or wrong size 0. Track 1 requires »Audio (normal)« with block size 2352.

This error occurs not because of the size, but because of the file format. It is admittedly an AIFF file, but does not contain audio data that can be burnt directly to the CD (see the question on supported audio formats). The audio length settings are only used for data without additional information, and are therefore not used with AIFF.

Question (Audio data variation):

I have read an audio track several times, written to various files, and then compared the files. Unfortunately I notice that the files are completely different, although the audio data sounds fine. Surely this is not normal - I thought that the data is stored digitally -- the files ought to be identical!

Answer:

It is true that the data is stored in digital form. Even so, it is difficult for your CD player, your CD-ROM drive and your CD-burner to control an audio track with exact precision. Even the better CD-ROM drives do not always begin reading an audio track at exactly the same byte. The result is that the bytes in the two image files are slightly out of synch (for example, the TEAC CD516S V1.0D tends to vary between 20 to 100 bytes). A byte comparison of such image files will leave the impression that the files differ greatly from one another - in reality, there are merely slightly out of synch by a small number of bytes. One second of music corresponds to 176400 bytes. So, if the drive starts reading 100 bytes to late, you are actually loosing a mere 0.0006 seconds of music. Since there are on error reports and correction for audio data, it is certainly possible that differing data is transferred from time to time, especially if the medium is not of the highest quality. Whether these disturbances are extreme or not very much depends on your CD-ROM drive. Some CD-ROM drives are very good at reading scratched CDs, while others will transfer corrupted data.

Question (Start of song missing):

When reading audio data I notice that some songs are missing the start of a track -- perhaps half a second. This is not noticeable with some songs, but is very annoying with others.

Answer:

The problem lies with your CD-ROM drive or CD-burner. Some CD-burners (e.g. Yamaha CDR 100/102 and Philips CDD 2600) start reading audio data in the wrong place if the pregap of the first track has an unusually high value. You can recognize this if the first track does not begin at block 0, but, for example, block 33. Drives which exhibit this problem start reading the first block too late (and will continue reading a little beyond the last block). You can get round this problem by modifying the start block for audio data in the MakeCD settings. Enter the number of the first block of the first track on the audio CD and you should get the full song. So, if the first track starts at block 32, enter 32. Please bear in mind that this change will only affect those tracks that you select after changing the settings. If you have already selected the tracks, you need to select them all over again, since the block numbers are automatically corrected when choosing the tracks and not when the tracks are first read.

Question (Cyclic cracking in audio data):

I have burnt an audio CD but can hear a cyclic cracking in the music. I have checked the image files, and the cracking is present there too. What is causing this?

Answer:

Some CD-ROM file systems regularly check to see if a CD is in the drive. The method used by AsimCDFS can corrupt audio data. MakeCD tries to deny such accesses by file systems, but technical limitations mean that the problem can still arise. Turning off the CD-ROM file system normally resolves the problem.

Question (Errors in audio data):

I have read audio data from a music CD and there are detectable errors at random positions. What's going wrong?

Answer:

Somebody has reported such a problem, which arose as soon as a Zip drive was attached to the same SCSI bus. As soon as he removed the Zip drive, the phenomenon disappeared. Another person reported that more noise was generated with reselection turned on than with reselection turned off. You best bet is to save the data to RAM or to use a huge buffer. We have also been told that you should check the termination of the SCSI bus in this case.

Question (CD-ROM drive too slow with audio CDs):

If I copy an audio CD, the data stream breaks off after a while. My 8x CD-ROM drive is evidently not fast enough, even though my burner writes at double speed only. What is going on here?

Answer:

Many CD-ROM drives reads CDDA data at single speed only. When copying an audio track, you should set your CD-burner back to single speed --- or use temporary files. Some SCSI host adapters (e.g. Oktagon2008 v6.8) cannot transfer certain block sizes at full speed ((e. g. block sizes that are not to the power of 2 or are not a multiple of 256 bytes). Oktagon informed us that it would only transfer at about 230 KB/s. A CD-ROM drive that reads at double speed needs the audio data to arrive at about 345 KB/s. The future ROM update for the host adapter may remedy the problem -- or, of course, another SCSI host adapter.

Question (Audio tracks missing when using CD player):

I tested MakeCD by writing a single audio track. I then fixed the session and inserted the CD in my CD player. Worked perfectly! Then I wrote another track, but this was only recognized by my CD-ROM drive, and not by my CD player. Why?

Answer:

CD players recognize only those tracks contained in the first session. You should not have fixed after the first track, but only then, when all tracks had been written. But the CD is not totally unusable. Simply write a data image to the remaining space! Then all you need is a file system that supports multisession CDs in order to access your freshly burnt data CD.

Question (Philips -- Audio problems):

I would like to read some audio tracks with my Philips CDD 2600 CD-burner. The inner tracks can be read without problem, but I get errors with the outer tracks. What can I do about this?

Answer:

This is a typical problem with the Philips CDD 2600 and HP SureStore 6020 (and similar drives). Reduce the read speed for audio data using the settings window to single or double speed. This usually helps.

Question (toshiba -- audio problems):

I am using a Toshiba CD-ROM drive, CD-ROM XM-3701TA. It will not read audio data correctly. My firmware version is 3055 (12/25/95). Please can you support this drive too?

Answer:

You are using a defective and outdated firmware version. Obtain the latest firmware version from the Toshiba BBS: +49 2131/158123. The file that you require is tosh-up.zip. One user has told us that he could not read CDDA data at all. After he obtained the update, everything was fine. Perhaps this will help with similar problems involving Toshiba drives.

Question (Ricoh -- audio problems):

My Ricoh 1420 CD-burner, firmware 1.6x, reads audio data, but the quality is very poor. What can I do about this?

Answer:

We have heard that the Ricoh 1.6x firmware reads with multiple speed but with a loss in quality. Try adjusting the speed in the MakeCD program settings to single or double speed, or try using firmware 1.4x. You require another digit in place of the "x" depending on whether you are using the 512 KB, 1 MB or 2 MB Ricoh.

Question (pause between audio tracks):

How can I change the pause length between the tracks?

Answer:

MakeCDcurrently uses Track-At-Once-Mode only, i. e. it always transfers the raw data for a single track and leaves it to the burner to create checksums and write the pauses and contents. This has the advantage that the writing between the tracks can be interrupted for any length of time and multisession is possible. Only the Disc-At-Once-Mode would permit you to determine the pause lengths. MakeCD will support this mode as soon as possible.

Question (Noise instead of music):

I have burnt an audio CD, but the CD does not contain the audio tracks selected, merely noise. What have I done wrong?

Answer:

Presumably the audio data byte sequence is incorrect. MakeCD can create and use data in either the Motorola format (MSF) or the Intel format (LSF). You can select this in the settings. There is no method for MakeCD to find out which format audio data has been saved under, so you must enter the correct value. The audio format that you select will then be used both for reading and writing audio data.

Go to the first, previous, next, last section, table of contents.