DDP

[roderickelms]

We want to add our two penny-worth to this debate. Like a very large number of colleagues here in Britain, we routinely use Exabyte for our CD masters. It is reliable, provides for verification and most CD plants on this side of the pond like it.

CDR does not have the same degree of reliability, although it can save time in a CD plant. There are still too many incompatibility problems between media brand and player resulting in lost data and, like many others, we have no faith in using it for CD mastering.

We were dismayed when the DDP option disappeared from MLCD and are delighted to see that Digi are now taking this question seriously. We hope that they will listen and will see fit to reinstate it.

The inclusion of Exabyte drivers would also be welcome. Firstly, it would remove the need for Mezzo Master and, secondly, eliminate yet another of those awful install keys. This arcane system (really only prevalent in the audio world) really should go. Whilst understanding the reason, they are a real timewaster when lost through a disc crash and they also have to be removed before every disc optimization. That can mean many keys to remove and re-install - routinely. Surely something like the Coda system of requesting the master CD from time to time when launching the program would be effective, safer and less hastle for us - the customers.

Whilst thinking about our wish list, we would go a stage further and suggest that they also include the option to play back an Exabyte!

How about the option to select multiple regions in the add region dialogue? To import a number of regions can become tedious. Also, for that same dialogue, the ability to remember whether you’re adding files, regions or playlists rather than the radio button defaulting to file everytime you enter the dialogue.

Thanks for listening.

Roderick Elms
Redbridge Recordings - London, UK
[email protected]

[David Wright]

I wish to add my vigorous support for DDP as a CD master format. The belt-and-braces two-pass verification gives peace of mind, confirmed by the fact that I've produced many hundreds of Exabyte masters which have gone to various European plants and there has never been a hint of trouble. By contrast I've had very variable results with CD-R, with a porportion of CD players unable to read them, and with no verification other than listening I absolutely refuse to use them for masters, despite the fact that at least one UK plant is now offering a discount because it allows them to laser-master at 4xspeed.
I use MLCD1.41 with OS 7.6.1 for DDP writing, and MLCD2.01 for CD-R. These seem to be very stable configurations.
I consider the inability to play Exabytes to be a positive advantage - do you really like the idea of your CD-R masters being played by all and sundry ...
OK maybe it could be useful once in a while to have a playback facility within a workstation, but to be honest I've never actually felt the need.
I would also add my support to those advocating getting rid of the dreaded authorisation keys. Why not something like the codeword key used by TC Electronics?
-David

[Jonny Atack]

As I wrote elsewhere on the forum, I currently use Jam 2.5 but would buy MLCD tomorrow if it had DDP.

- Jonny (Paris, France)

[Bob Olhsson]

Let me add, the ability to cut a reference CD-R directly from a DDP master as a "proof" would create a whole new market for digidesign. A lot of Sonic users have jumped ship for Sadie on the PC in order to get that capability and Sadie is now considered by many the system of choice for anybody building a new facility.

What with new formats and surround, digi actually has a serious oppertunity to all but own the mastering market on the Mac. There are already major figures in the industry using Pro Tools as a huge timecode-driven automated signal processing bank for their Sonic systems.

[Mike Thornton]

Digi Engineering wrote:-
'Monty, I like the idea of ProTools/MLCD integration a lot. Perhaps if you guys have any other ideas on what you might like to see regarding this, you can post them in a new thread.
Thanks, Dan, for the tip -- something to look into."

I ran a petition a while back in the main conference for this very feature and recieved alot of signatures.


It would be great to be able to burn a CD straight from the session just like you can in Sadie.

Thanks,



------------------
Mike Thornton
One Stop Digital (OSD) Ltd.
http://www.osd-uk.com

[Digi Engineering]

Yep, the integration issue has come up before and for good reason because it's a great idea. Like I said, I'm a big fan and there is a lot of desire for it, in and outside Digi.

Rest assured your voice has been heard.

-- Marc

[Bob Olhsson]

There is a new twist to this issue which is that I understand at least one major label is now making a DDP disk image a requirement for mastering facilities.

MLCD already supports some kind of disk image. I suspect we are only talking about headers or at the most a file written like a WAVE file rather than an AIFF file. This would solve the delivery issue without requiring support or testing of any tape drives.

[Graham Hinton]

Ok, Digi, you asked the question and got told that DDP is still required. What have you done about it?

I have just bought old versions of Masterlist CD specifically to get Exabyte support only to find that Mezzo Master is required and that this is unobtainable. It looks from this thread that it never worked well anyway.

Why was it ever required? Why can't you issue SCSI commands to a SCSI drive directly?

DDP masters are still required for one simple reason: it is the only way of getting the correct data to the the CD plant. If the artist claims that the pressing does not sound right the plant will always blame the CD-R master and get away with it.

[Graham Hinton]

Given that I have a Mac 9600/350 fitted with an Exabyte 8595 drive and that MLCD cannot be made to work with it and Digidesign have failed their professional customers again, can anybody suggest or help me obtain any software that will make DDP masters?

[Wolfgang Eller]

Hello Graham

I´m searching a programm for mac since I have a mac (what means for years). The only mac solution I found was the MLCD/Mezzo programm which never worked properly.

What I´m doing right now is: Wavelab on a PC with a DDP plugin from Cube (a mastering DAW) which is using Wavelab as software.

I´m running the PC in my Mac network and it´s working fine but not really cheap (WL + DDP about 2500$).

Regards Wolfgang