Getting .wavs to a CD

[pratherj]

Hi All,

Again, I am having trouble moving from PC to MAC. The tutorial for the PC version gave me an excellent example of the steps to get to a good CD; the MAC version doesn't seem to have anything similar. The editing seemed to go very well. I stumbled around and apparently got tracks exported to .wav files. These play just fine within Audacity and iTunes. I went to the Disk Utility and got confused; I fumbled around and THOUGHT I had burned a CD. But that CD won't play anywhere.

I was never confident that I had gotten a good export in that the pre-export procedures weren't quite the same as on the PC. That could have caused a problem in the MAC burning process. Then again, this is my first attempt to try to burn an audio CD on the MACBook. My searches in HELP were not enlightening.

I guess I need a tutorial.

Thanks in advance,
Jerry

[kozikowski]

<<<I guess I need a tutorial.>>>

Or maybe you just need to know how iTunes works.

You got your music cuts into iTunes, right? Mac iTunes will accept both Mac AIFF or Windows WAV files, so everybody uses WAV.

File > New Playlist.

Drag your music cuts from the main iTunes window into the new playlist. When there, the playlist will let you rearrange the order of the songs however you wish. Drag songs to the new order and let go. Note that the songs don't have to be from the same album or even the same music technology. How about everybody who ever recorded "Hound Dog" starting with Elvis's 78.

Lower Right > Burn Disk.

The middle-top panel will tell you when to put a blank disk into the machine. DO NOT put a disk in before it tells you. No matter how many government officials you bribe, a Music CD will not contain more than 80 minutes of music. Actually, something like 79:30.

Pull the disk out when it's done. Enjoy.

I know you're gong to ask me about song titles. Deep breath and sit down. Music CDs do not have song titles. The computer simulates song titles by figuring out from the character, length and order of the songs which album you probably have and what the titles probably were by looking it all up on GraceNote. If you put a Music CD into a computer not connected to the internet, the song titles will be reported as "Track 01, Track 02, etc."

If you play your cards right and lived a good life, sometimes vinyl transfers will contain enough information to look up the titles.

Koz

[kozikowski]

One more note. There is one way you can dig yourself a hole with Audacity. Open up one of your WAV files (before you put it into iTunes) in QuickTime and press Apple-I. Does the Info panel say anything about 32-bit?

Koz

[kozikowski]

Another note. The above is not the most sonically pure and perfect way to make a Music CD on a Mac. It is, however, the technology most people use to listen to iPods, so it's usually good to go.

Let me know if you want to get crazy.

Koz

[pratherj]

Okay, I'm crazy!

I've managed to more or less successfully burn a CD. But your statement about quality bothers me. I thought I was recording a .wav, not an .mp3. My eCS computer doesn't recognize the format, but plays the CD. The CD also plays successfully on another CD player. How do I know what I'm getting? How do I get the best quality?

Thanks again,
Jerry

[kozikowski]

A few term definitions would be good.

Music CD is a very specific format defined by the Red Book document in 1980. It takes a Music CD authoring program to prepare the music for burning in a very specific way. Some common programs that do this are Windows Media (later versions), iTunes, Nero, Veritas, and Easy CD Creator.

A Data CD is a round, flat, silvery, highly portable hard drive. You can put anything on a Data CD that will fit. Photoshop pictures, no problem, Excel Spreadsheets, sure.

Typical Music CD players won't play anything else although that line is blurring. If I present my truck with a Data CD -- even if it has music files on it -- it will look at me like I'm nuts. Music CDs only, please.

I need to drop out for a little while.

Koz

[kozikowski]

When you use the default settings for all the programs on a Mac, it assumes you want to make an iPod presentation to take with you parasailing at the beach. Audacity assumes you want to make a very, very good quality, multiple pass, edit session. Music CD isn't directly compatible with either one.

In Audacity, open Preferences and change to 44100, 16-bit, Stereo. These are not the settings that Audacity wakes up with on First Birthday.

Open iTunes preferences and change CD Import Preferences to WAV - Auto.

Now when you capture a performance (vinyl, cassette, etc), Audacity will do it directly in the Music CD sound standard.

Then, when you dump your individual songs into iTunes, it won't try to "help you" by converting the songs to anything else. It will leave them Music CD standard WAV files.

Then when you create your PlayList, drag your files over and burn it, there will be no conversion there, either, subject to the very minor WAV manipulation that iTunes has to do to create a standard Music CD. It doesn't affect the sound at all.

So that's how to create a perfect capture to Music CD transfer on a Mac.

You will notice when you do this that the new music files are huge compared to everything else (you may need to scroll to the right in iTunes to see the music data size). 12MB, 10MB, 15MB, 572MB, 13MB. Quick. Which one's the WAV file?

The joke is the music is perfect, but you can only get four songs on your iPod.

Back into iTunes Preferences and change the import preferences to Apple AAC 128/Mono - 256/Stereo. I think they call this iTunes Plus. Close the preferences panel.

Select one of the songs in the main iTunes window and Advanced > Create AAC version. This will create a second version of the song in iPod AAC format. Much smaller data size and very little, but some, damage.

Everything else is just versions of juggling all those setup panels.

Koz

[pratherj]

Thanks, Koz; got it!
Jerry