CD-cloning?

[Nicolaj Roos]

Maybe this isn't the right place for me to ask this question, but, here it goes:

I have been in this situation a few times, where a client brings me an audio-cd, to be duplicated further. So therefore I have to make an EXCACT image of the discs content. This means audio, pauses, codes etc. etc.
I have tried doing this with both Astarte CD-copy and Toast Audio-extractor, but they dont seem to fully extract the exact audio-pauses start&stop-times etc.
Is there some software out there, which will enable me to make an exact clone of a CD???

[Marcus]

Nicolaj

You could use a dedicated duplicator, which tend to consist of 2 to 8 drives. I have one and it works fine for me providing that the original master is red-book. If it isn't red-book the copies sometimes hang just before the end on playback.

I find that more and more people these days are turning up with non red-book CDR masters (probably burnt on a hi-fi type stand-alone drive - TAO etc.) so my solution is to remaster using SDII. Capture one region for all the audio and then drop markers for the indexes. OK, you may not get the placings exactly right but you can see areas of silence in the waveform and common sense tells you where the indexes should be.

The only time you really have to use your ears for judgement is with segues where one track runs straight into another.

Hope this helps
Marcus



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Marcus Batley
www.dbmasters.co.uk
[email protected]

[jamerkel]

Hey. I was just scanning through. I need to make those exact copies as well, sometimes. Sonic Foundry's CD Architect does a beautiful job. It extracts the audio first from your SCSI CD-ROM as a single audio file (or however you set it up), then the PQ subcode with very, very high accuracy. You can extract IRSC code as well. I love the program, and swear by its ease and functinality. The interface is really nice. Hope this helps.

-=Jeff Merkel=-

[Ulrich Lorscheider]

Sorry, Jeff, CD Architect is Windows stuff. I'm sure, Nicolaj is looking for Mac software, and so do I. Does anybody else have an idea which software does the job on a Mac?

[Nicolaj Roos]

Yes, I do need the software to run on a Mac.
Any ideas? Please help!

[Nicolaj Roos]

Is there anybody out there?

[Irl Sanders]

Have you tried using the SCSI COPY mode in Toast, rather than Audio CD mode? This does make a bit-for-bit copy from CD-to-CD, and is agnostic aboput what kind of data is on the CD.

[sburgess]

I've wrestled with this one, too. The SCSI copy didn't work for me, although I don't recall why. I think it had something to do with those #$(*&&( 2-sec gaps Toast insists on putting between tracks.

The solution I found is to use Astarte's CD Copy to load the disc onto your drive as an image (select all the tracks and choose "Extract as image file..." or something like that). Then, keeping CD Copy open, open up a new PQ list in MLCD. Add the image file to it (which unfortunately doesn't include the actual PQ codes - arrgh!), and then if you resize your windows right, you can view the PQ info in CD Copy and type it into the PQ list window in MLCD.

Clunky, yes. Slower than a one-button solution, but faster and more accurate than anything else I've found so far. I would definitely classify this as a kluge, but I'm afraid that's the way one has to work with these programs!! (this coming from a former Sonic Solutions user who ended up on Digi in my new job.) Hey, Digi, any chance that MLCD could properly read CD Copy's image files?

Also, I've taken to making a backup CD-ROM with Toast that consists of an image file made from MLCD. That way if I need to make more copies, I can just load that image file onto the computer and I'm good to go. The only drag about this is that an image file of a longish CD won't fit on the same sized CD-ROM. Go figure.

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Scott Burgess
Audio Production Manager
Central Michigan University

[Nicolaj Roos]

sburgess, thanks for the tip, I'll try that.

I've already tried the Toast Scsi-copy, but the problem is that this method seems to be extremely sensitive to read-errors, so if theres the sligthest bit of problems when reading from the source, the whole operation aborts!!(not so with CD-copy!).

[sburgess]

Yeah, I tried it again last week, and I was remembering correctly: If you do any sort of audio CD in Toast, including SCSI copy, it insists on seperating the tracks by two seconds. Fortunately for my current project, it's OK for that. Most of the discs I burn have room tone in between tracks.



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Scott Burgess
Audio Production Manager
Central Michigan University