Portable CD burning apparatus?

Special Interest Groups Recording Equipment
1

Hey, everybody. Thanks, for the program and forum.
My question regards a “portable CD burning apparatus”. I would like to get one.

  1. I hope it can fit in a backpack and is laptop-size, if possible.
  2. I put a high value on having the fewest errors. And I plan on burning 100 CD-Rs, per week.
  3. If it ends up being a system dedicated only to this, that is fine with me.
  4. I need to be able to turn off the “apply volume leveler during burning”.
  5. As far as price, I naturally want to spend less than more. But I know that it is worth at least 400, to me.
    Thanks, again.
2

stand alone burner or attaches to a pc ??
one copy at a time or n:1 capability?

100/week is not that many. but may take a fair amount of time.

error rate and speed are contradictory goals. ditto price.
you need to set your requirements and then make tradeoffs based on what you can actually buy.

the normalise feature is in software not the hardware.
you may want to consider a pro quality software package not the lite version that may or may not come with the hardware.

you get what you buy. $400 is feasible but may not suit your demanding needs.

try google. you can find a lot of stuff that way.

3

<<<And I plan on burning 100 CD-Rs, per week.>>>

You are painting a picture of someone backpacking up into the Sierra Madre mountains with a nice tent and sleeping bag and burning a couple of hundred Music CDs while you’re up there.

Did I get the wrong picture? What’s the show? Sometimes knowing more about the show and work can lead us to some ideas.

Koz

4

What’s wrong with using a laptop?

5

<<<What’s wrong with using a laptop?>>>

That did occur to me.

Koz

6

Hey y’all thanks, for the help.
A laptop is a great idea.
I think that my question should have been “could I get a cheap (old) laptop to do this?”
I’m sorry that I wasn’t clearer.
I don’t know a lot about laptops, desktops, of any other top.
But I was hoping that Moore’s Law would mean that my application would be small
and computers that could handle it would be many and cheap.
I brought up the software thing because I don’t know what software used computers come with.
If I’m way off, on the price, I could make more room in the budget.
I’m sorry that I didn’t give y’all more to work with last time.
But does this clarify it any?

P.S. I’m not planning a rock concert for bears, or whatever you were thinking. :wink:
I’m just moving out of state, my address might not be settled for a while, and this is my first laptop.

P.P.S. I think my question should have been “what laptop can do this and how much should I pay?”

7

Audacity has been designed to run properly on all three computing platforms of relatively modest power. You do need an actual computer. NetBooks and smaller systems do not support Audacity without a lot more work than most people are willing to put in and even then, the results may not be so good.

I got tired of struggling with my PCs, so I use Macs now and I’m happy. I still have a couple of PCs around because there are one or two jobs that didn’t cross well. There are people on the forum with hands-on experience in all three: Windows/Linux/Mac.

But nobody’s going to tell you what computer to buy. That’s just a little too wide open. Get friends and family to recommend units and play with them a little (the computers, not the friends). Pick the jobs first, not the computer first. “I want to edit music” will take you a long way to deciding what to buy.

Koz

8

Just about any modern laptop computer will handle editing with Audacity and burning CDs.

I’ve no experience with Netbook computers but suspect that may may be a bit underpowered for the job, and I don’t think they have built in optical drives for burning CDs. I’m sure someone will correct me if I’m wrong.

A second hand laptop may be a false economy - optical drives wear out, and you would have no way of knowing how much life was left in the drive. Repairing faulty laptops can be very expensive. With a new laptop you get a guarantee.

You can buy external (USB) optical drives quite cheaply, but that would make the set-up less portable.

I have a cheap (£300 new ~ $350 US) Acer laptop, running Linux and all free software and is capable of making audio CDs quickly and easily. It was supplied with Windows Vista (now removed because I prefer Linux), but I could also have just used the supplied operating system and CDBurnerXP software (free and very good) for burning the CDs.

Macs have a reputation for being well made and reliable, but are a lot more expensive than PCs. A Mac with similar specifications to my Acer would cost around £1000.

9

Thanks, alot, for the good advice.
I’m sorry that my question was too general.
But you mentioned principles, that will support my decision, greatly.
And definitely pointed me in the right direction.
Thanks, so much.
P.S. Thanks, for informing me about the CDburnerXP. And the appox prices for Acers and Macs.
And the trade-off to measure, regarding used equipment.
If you care, it looks like I’m leaning toward a Mac, due to the reliablilty.
And I’ll just have to make room in the budget for the 1150 US.
Thanks, again.

10

do you have hard data done by an independent lab that shows that macs are more reliable ? which model? more reliable than what?
with which operating systems?

i lean toward pcs cause they have been fully reliable for me — a lot more than my govt motors car has been. and i still drive that thing.
and the software choices are much bigger on pcs, and the aps cost less. toe MAY toe or toe MAAH toe - take your choice.

i notice that we went from a $400 max stand alone device to a
$1200 laptop. which could burn a 100/week. but do you really want to do that? one week i might. for a year i would be looking for better alternatives.

11

First some background on myself… I’m an electronics engineer, I’ve been using computers for the last 20 years or so (I’m only 30, but I started playing around with them quite early :stuck_out_tongue:). I started with DOS, then windows, like most ppl. For the last 12/13 years I’ve been using mostly Linux on all my desktop PCs and laptops, except for the last two years, since I bought a Mac laptop.

I still use desktop PCs, all of them running Linux (and very rarely windows xp). For the last 10 years I’ve owned and used a Toshiba laptop running win98 and linux for most of the time, and more recently win xp and linux (I still use it occasionally, for some “dirty” jobs in harsh environments).

Windows has been, for a long time, the OS I feel less comfortable with… It’s the one I have more difficulty using and in which I take more time to do whatever I need too and the one that makes me feel frustrated more often… (most ppl say windows is the most easy OS to use, I feel exactly the opposite… which proves my theory that the easier OS to use is the one you’re more used to…)

Now the interesting story… two years ago I felt I needed a new laptop… I went searching for a new one to find out that most laptops only had that awful glossy screen which I hate… (I never understood that thing about glossy screens…) So after searching a lot I could only find two laptops that would fulfill my hardware requirements, namely the non-glossy screen… My two options were either a macbookpro or an hp from the business line… Surprisingly, the Mac was actually cheaper than the HP, and its hardware was even slightly better… plus I wasn’t paying for an OS I wasn’t going to use… (windows) At this point my plans were to install linux on it regardless it was a mac or not.

I naturally ended up buying the mac. I’ve been using it for the last 2 years and I’m very very happy with it! I never got to install linux on it… I got used to the MacOS-X quite easily and quickly, I think it’s a wonderful OS, it’s as robust (or even more) as linux and it has all the simplicity, usability and eye-candy that linux never quite had and that microsoft has always been trying to copy from it and then presenting like if it was their invention…

In terms of design and those little details that make a different the mac is absolutely wonderful… The multi-touch touchpad is amazing… after you get used to it you’ll never what other thing… I never felt the need to add an external mouse to my mac like I always did with any other laptop I’ve used… My father has an hp laptop with windows vista I think… the touch pad is supposed to have a scroll function on the side… which sometimes works… and sometimes don’t… I always get quite stressed every time I try to use it… The magnetic plug for the power cord in the mac is one of the best inventions ever! It has saved my laptop from falling to the floor a few times… and there’s a lot more of other interesting and useful small details/features on the mac that I would have a hard time living without now…

HP support is usually good, but Apple’s support is definitely the best I’ve seen…

That said I can only but recommend everyone to get a Mac laptop… Yes they’re more expensive than most consumer level laptops… but if you go for business line of laptops the Mac might actually be cheaper…

When it comes to hardware reliability regardless of the OS… I can’t say Macs are more reliable, they also fail… like other brands do… There is no faulty-free brand… Some brands might be slightly more reliable than others… But the most important here I think it’s the support service, and Apple’s so far has impressed me… but YMMV

Now a few tips on choosing your laptop… you should make a list of requirements you need and then try to narrow your options based on those requirements… things like screen size, max. weight, battery life… things you need (cd-rw), things you don’t need… etc…