A music CD question-Somewhat success

[Boomyal]

My son played his violin for a memorial song his friends wrote and sang. They had it recorded at a small local recording studio. He brought home the CD and we tried to burn and rip a copy it. It did not work. I copied the song to the hard drive and it would only play when the CD was inserted.<br /><br />I looked at the CD drive in Explore and all that shows is the single track, as a cda file, at 1kb and that had a created date of Dec 1994. When I looked in Properties it shows the disk has no unused space but shows zero bytes.<br /><br />What is going on. Why can I not see how much data is on the CD and why can't I copy it?

 

[Paul Moir]

Re: A music CD question-Somewhat success

Those .cda files are perhaps the most useful windows function. <br /><br />Your burning software should have the ability to exctract audio tracks from a CD. You want them to come out as .WAV files. Then your audio CD creation software should have the ability to insert these .WAV files onto a new CD. <br />Although there's nothing different about the physical CD, the data format is fundamentally different on an audio CD. Make sure you are creating an 'Audio CD'. And whatever you do, don't use RIAA duty paid audio CD-Rs from the record store. Belive it or not, they dont work on computer burners! <br /><br />If you need audio extraction software, just search the internet for 'extract audio tracks'. Pick something free - there's lots out there.<br /><br />What software are you using for burning CDs?

 

[jsfinn]

Re: A music CD question-Somewhat success

Boomyal,<br /><br />Winamp is a great free program that alows you to play all kinds of music formats. You can download it from www.winamp.com.<br /><br />Winamp also alows you to "rip" music from CDs into WAV format (which is what you want). In winamp, under options, select "output" and change it to "WAV Writer". Play the track you want, and it'll output it to a .wav.<br /><br />Good luck - let us know how it turns out.

 

[WoodRust]

Re: A music CD question-Somewhat success

Sorry jsfinn but 'winamp' sucks compared to 'Itunes' from Apple. It rips CDs. Burns CDs'. Great Internet Radio. Play lists. Full Screen Visualizer. Features too many to list. We 'Apples' have had it for years and now there is a free version for Windows 2000 & XP users (only) too thanks to the 'ipod'.<br /><br />It's ad-free too! Just head off to www.apple.com Be sure to d/l the windows version

 

[jsfinn]

Re: A music CD question-Somewhat success

WoodRust,<br /><br />I guess that's why Baskin Robbins has 31 flavors of ice cream.<br /><br />I like chocolate...I guess someone else would like strawberry.<br /><br />I still think Winamp is the way to go.

 

[Boomyal]

Re: A music CD question-Somewhat success

Thanks all! I will check with my son to see how he tried to burn/rip the CD, then try using the suggestions offered. Apparently whatever he used went throught the process as if it were working and never gave any error messages or copy protection messages. There was just nothing on the CD when the process was finished. There should be no reason that this CD would be copy protected and it should give you some kind of message to that effect if it were.

 

[mattttt25]

Re: A music CD question-Somewhat success

my non-technical guess: in '94, not many of us were burning cd's at home. i'm not sure you could buy a cd burner for your home computer then. only cd's out there were made by the professionals (although i assume they were using the same technology we use today). maybe the music was copied to the cd in a format/way that can be read using your drive, but not copied.

 

[Boomyal]

Re: A music CD question-Somewhat success

matttt25, that 1994 date for the cda file is part of the mystery. This cd was just recorded a week ago. The cda file shows only 1kb size just like a shortcut would. The date shown has to do with the shortcut not the music data file, I guess????

 

[Paul Moir]

Re: A music CD question-Somewhat success

There is no copy protection for Audio CDs, just PlayStation and other proprietary formats.<br /><br />Probably the software was taking it's input from the wrong place. If it's not intelligent enough to read digitally from your CD, use something else.<br />Some cheezy programs simply 'Play' the CD and record the music from the sound card. This is a legacy of some old CDROM drives that had really lousy digital data out.<br /><br />Get yourself a trial of Nero Burning ROM (Get it?? ) from Ahead & try that out.<br /><br />Forget about the CDA file. God only knows why it's a 1994 file. I'm sure He doesn't care though.

 

[Scoop]

Re: A music CD question-Somewhat success

The .cda file mean nothing except to Windows. Windows represents the date of a .cda file always as 1994. Any good ripping program will be able to rip your tunes to an .mp3 file. Winamp is good because it is free and works relatively well. They also have an older version that is small enough to run off a floppy (872KB). I don't have experience with iTunes, but I am sure it is also fine. I burn the older small version of Winamp to some MP3 CD's so that there is a small player on the CD and they can be played on any windows computer even if you don't have rights to install software etc.

 

[Boomyal]

Re: A music CD question-Somewhat success

Is there a particular file type I should pick to be able to play the CD on a regular CD player as well as on the computer? I do know that some older CD players won't play burned music CDs.

 

[Paul Moir]

Re: A music CD question-Somewhat success

Hey there Boomyal!<br /><br />The usual reason that an old CD player won't play a burned CD is that the optical pickup head in the CD player is simply incompatible with the CDRs. It just can't see the tracks well. Usually it's a bigger problem with green coloured CDRs.<br /><br />Your looking to create an Audio CD. It is different from a Data CD, but only by it's format. Usually programs that burn Audio CDs take their data in either .WAV format or MP3 format. Usually it's both.<br /><br />I hope this makes everything clear. But I doubt it does. I'm off to find somewhere where they discribe it better.

 

[Paul Moir]

Re: A music CD question-Somewhat success

Should have known it -<br /> about.com CD Writing FAQ

 

[Boomyal]

Re: A music CD question-Somewhat success

Thanx for the link Paul. I'll study up and get that cd copied.

 

[mattttt25]

Re: A music CD question-Somewhat success

ok, i'm still lost in the question and have no real input, but...<br /><br />when i copy files to cd's at work, before i can eject, the program asks me how i want the cd "saved". i get three options- one says the cd will only be able to be read by cd burners. the second option says it will save a program on the cd that will allow it to be read by most cd players.<br /><br />so.... maybe the cd was saved in the first format- where it will only be read by a cd burner.<br /><br />don't laugh if everyone already said this.

 

[Boomyal]

Re: A music CD question-Somewhat success

UPDATE:<br />I downloaded Winamp and successfully ripped the cda file to my harddrive as a .wav file. I am now able to play that file from the hard drive which I could not do after simply copying the cda file to the hard drive.<br /><br />I then tried to burn the wave file to a CD-R disc using Winamp. All looked as if it was going successfully until it took over 20 minutes before it was 'done'. It did not burn. It gave no messages of any kind except 'complete' or 'finished'.<br /><br />When I try to look at the CD from Windows Explore, the drive does not even recognise that there is a disc installed in the drive. <br /><br />What is going on? Could the CD-R discs I'm using be incompatible with my CDR-W drive? The drive is a TDK 40/12/48x and the discs are uncolored GQ brand.

 

[Xcusme]

Re: A music CD question-Somewhat success

Boomyal,<br />Sounds like you're trying to burn a CDA music CD with WinAmp...I'm not too familiar with WinAmp (beyond playing MP3's).<br />If WinAmp doesn't have a plugin to convert wave files to CDA format, it won't fly.<br />You didn't mention if your cd burner came with burning software, like Nero. This would be the software package to get it done. Run Nero and pick Audio CD, move your wave file to the new compliation window. Nero will convert the wave file to a CDA format and then hit Burn. You'e done.<br />If you pick Data CD (in Nero), you can move MP3 files to the compliation window. This will produce a CD that can be played in your computer or just about any MP3 player, even your home DVD player that supports MP3's.Be sure you pick 'multi session' before you burn the CD if you didn't fill up the CD. If you don't pick multi session, the CD will be finalized and no more MP3's can be written to it.

 

[Boomyal]

Re: A music CD question-Somewhat success

Xcusme, I am simply trying to copy an existing audio CD whose data is already in the .cda format. I want to be able to play it on other audio CD players. According to the info in the link above that Paul Moir provided, audio CD players read/play the .wav file format. I told Winamp to rip the .cda file, off of the recorded CD, to my harddrive as a .wav file. So far so good. I can play that file, on my computer, from the .wav format.<br /><br />I used Winamp to Burn the .wav file, from my harddrive, to a blank CD-R in the .wav format. This is where the problem is. It goes through the motions of burning, with no error messages, it shows finished but there is no data on the CD. I haven't tried Nero but all of the elements seem to be present in Winamp.

 

[Xcusme]

Re: A music CD question-Somewhat success

OK, try this....grab a commercial audio cd. Place it into your cdrom, in your computer.<br />Goto WIndows Explorer, click on the CDrom drive and have a look at the files on the CD.<br />You should see that the format for the files on the audio CD are in CDA format.<br /><br />This is assuming that your Windows is setup to display all known file types and shows file type extentions. By default, some Windows installations don't show the file types, it might say CD Audio File, which is really a CDA type file.<br />Example song/file list:<br />Play that Funky Music Whiteboy......CD Audio File<br />which really is:<br />Play That Funky Music Whiteboy.CDA<br /><br />Nero and other CD authoring programs can freely convert your wave file into either MP3's or into CDA type files depending on the 'type' of CD you tell Nero to burn. If you specify Audio CD, you'll create a CDA type CD that should play in any CD player including your computer.Nero will convert your wave file into a CDA type file.<br /><br />If you specify a Data CD in Nero, Nero will burn the CD in a data format and keep the file as is ( wave format). This CD will play in your computer but not in a regular CD player.

 

[Scoop]

Re: A music CD question-Somewhat success

With the TDK drive you bought (As long as it was the retail version) you would get Nero. When going into Nero, do a CD Copy and it should work fine. Nero will handle the rest.<br /><br />Old CD Players may or may not read CD-R's. Try using a CD-RW. IF a player will not read the CD-R. it may read the CD-R. My car, my older DVD player and my old boombox have their quirks. Car plays CD-RW, DVD plays CD-RW and Boombox will only play CD-R's<br /><br />Good luck.