Gentlest way to squeeze a CD?

[hellosailor]

So, normally I would just save an old recording to lossless WAV format and let MediaPlayer burn it to a CD.

But today, my WAV files total 777MB in size, and I need to get that down to 650MB to squeeze it on one CD.

What's the best way to do this? I'm in 44k/16bit format, I suppose I could drop to 22K or 8-bit but wondered how badly that would mangle the audio--and reduce the chances that it plays on a standard CD player?

Is there some other obvious alternative I'm missing, for tossing out the least amount of quality while making the whole recording fit on one CD?

[kozikowski]

<<<down to 650MB to squeeze it on one CD.>>>

Or 700MB for an 80 minute CD.

<<<how badly that would mangle the audio>>>

Wouldn't make a bit of difference to the outcome. Music CD Authoring Software will just blow it back out to Stereo, 44100 and 16 bit, only this time it would be doing it to a pre-mangled show. There are no other specifications for a Red Book Music CD.

You have too much Show for a Music CD.

Koz

[hellosailor]

Sorry, Koz, no compris.

Are you saying, go to 22K sampling rate? Or, what precisely?

Overstocked on old 650MB CD's. just as soon burn it off to a couple of them (backup) as use the good new stuff.

[steve]

Sorry, Koz, no compris.

Are you saying, go to 22K sampling rate? Or, what precisely?

He's saying that Audio CD's are 16bit 44100Hz stereo always.

Some CD burning software will accept other formats (Nero will accept MP3's), but when they burn it as an audio CD, they must convert it to 16 bit 44100Hz stereo, because that is what audio CD's are.

The only way to get 777MB onto one CD is to use a high capacity CD (some will go to over 90 minutes, though some CD players may not be able to play the full CD). The better option would be to find a suitable point to split it over 2 CD's.

[hellosailor]

Steve-
"The only way to get 777MB onto one CD is to use a high capacity CD"
I do understand, that was poorly phrased of me. I'm looking for a way to reduce the size of the audio files so that there will be only 650MB of data. I know the same album, with supposedly the same song versions and cuts, has been released as a single CD--so either they've squeezed, or gone to a higher capacity pressed CD.

I was hoping there was some way to squeeze the WAV files, akin to the way that you can downgrade MP3s by using lower sampling rates or VBR.

[kozikowski]

<<<I was hoping there was some way to squeeze the WAV files>>>

Music CDs are uncompressed--always. No matter what you do to the music ahead of time, the Music CD authoring software will always blow it back out to the same size. Try it. Take the same song and export three MP3 versions, each smaller than the last. Burn a standard Music CD with all three songs and they will--assuming the duration of each song didn't change--be the same size on the CD, only they will sound rattier as the original MP3 size shrunk.

WAV files do support compression, but I don't know any software that will let you use them that way, and you still can't put that on a Music CD.

They may not come out exactly the same size because Music CDs also have that block data thing to worry about.

<<<I know the same album, with supposedly the same song versions and cuts, has been released as a single CD>>>

I would be so buying that CD to see what they did. I bet the song durations are different. The other thing you can do is speed up each song. Song duration and data size are directly related.

There may be another problem as well. DVDs are 4.7 GB storage devices, but you can't put 4.7G of data on them. You always have to hit it under that number. I wonder if Music CDs work the same way...

Koz

[hellosailor]

Thanks, guys. I pulled the WAV files into Roxio instead of WMP, and Roxio said I'd need a 2:13 overburn--but wouldn't quite allow one that large. So I started some merciless intertrack clipping...and by the time I got done, Roxio now says there's a full 1:16 of free space when the job runs. With no overburn needed! <G> Not a big difference in source file size, some 735MB instead of 777MB, but enough to make the difference.

If I was a perfectionist I'd go back and add some 1.5 second silences, but not for this job--this is mainly a favor for a family member who has mislaid the CD from the jewel case "and its around here SOMEPLACE". I figure, they'll find the real thing about ten minutes after I get this job done.<G>