[Duncan]

I'm really sorry if this is a newbie question... but, I really don't know how to do this

Using only my computers CDRW drive, i'd like to make compilations of my music CDs - in their raw format, without having to convert to wav, mp3 or whatever... - I can copy whole CDs using WMP or Nero - but I want to pick tracks from various CDs... how do I do this without entering into the realms of compression?

Thanks

 

[minya]

Download Exact Audio Copy

Using EAC, extract various tracks from various discs to your hard-drive

Then, once you have various WAVs on your computer, use a CD burning program to assemble them in the order you desire. Then burn the disc.

- Chris

 

[MusicLover]

Or you can just directly copy the songs from one cd to the cdr, then do the same for the next cd, etc. as long as you leave the cdr open to more burning after you are done with each cd. You can do it with Nero, I think.

 

[stereth]

What, .wav's aren't good enough?...I didn't think you lost anything ripping to .wav.

Some good info on the first few paragraphs of this site: http://www.adobe.com/support/techdocs/31966.htm

 

[Duncan]

Quote:

Originally posted by stereth What, .wav's aren't good enough?...I didn't think you lost anything ripping to .wav.

Thanks guys

btw, the only reason I didn't want to use wavs and the like is after my failed experiment with the 'mathmatically lossless' WMA files... POS!

 

[minya]

Ummm... wavs ARE the raw format, dude. They're uncompressed PCM audio.

- Chris

 

[Duncan]

Sorry Minya... I'm not being awkward...

Was just hoping that there was a way to transfer the CD audio along with the CDA header straight from CD to HD to CDR... I'm now guessing not... so am gonna probably mess with WAVs as you say, after my botched attempt with WMA

Thanks

 

[MusicLover]

edited

 

[Kirium]

I just made a test disc with some of the songs I feel show off different musical attributes that test speakers and hi-fi gear mainly, but also head-fi stuff.

My first attempt was also using the WMA Lossless encoding, and it sound like it has introduced alot of discrepancies into the signal, particularly on a track taken from a disc that i think is pretty good from a mastering POV. (The best of The Corrs)

I've just downloaded EAC to see what it's done to that track, i'm expecting some clipping of the signal from the sound of it..

looks like i'll use EAC to re-create the disc, wasting a perfectly good CD-R..

 

[Sovkiller]

Duncan:
If you have two drives that is a piece of cake, just select the tracks you want, and the program will ask you for the next CD everytime it finishes to record the tracks of the one that is in, at least I do that with Roxio all the time, you do not need to change the original format of the files....unless you want ot compress them....this is a very simple procedure believe me, if you want a different order, just place them in the order you want in the target disk and period .... with one drive you have to otransfer them to the HD, and from there to the CD, I don't know if in this case they change the format or not...but "on the fly" is very simple....

 

[grinch]

rip with eac (duh).

real men write their own cue sheets and burn with eac too! eac's cuemaker is decent too though, if you want to go the not-so-manual way about it.

 

[Lando]

Ripping to .wav is as good as it gets. Just burn at a low speed (4-12x) to get the best quality discs. If you're not afraid of finding out you don't have Golden Ears (or your equipment isn't as good as you think), you could even try ripping and encoding as --alt preset standard mp3s.

 

[Mr.PD]

The only problem I have found with ripping to wav from various CDs then burning them back is the volume level. I always seem to get a couple CDs that are louder than all the rest. So, when I burn the songs from them back onto a compilation CD I get those songs louder than the other songs on the CD I burned. I have taken to ripping them all then I open a wav editor program and adjust the volume on all the songs so they match up. It takes forever. I have tried the EAC set to "normalize" but that doesn't seem to work very well. I think because it reads peak levels and not the over all energy of the song. This seems to be the worst when mixing new music with old music, or newly remastered stuff with older remasters.

 

[evil-zen]

trying using foobar2000 diskwriter with replaygain enabled. it does what you are looking for in a few easy steps.