This page last modified on November 27th, 2001.

• A reasonably fast PC. (150 MHz Pentium class w/Win 95/98/NT) I know, that seems terribly slow in today's world of 1.0 GHz (and faster) class machines, but considering that I've done this work on an 80MHz 486 machine, 150 MHz will work fine, at least up to 4X or even 8X. If you'll be burning at 12X, you'll probably want to be over 200 MHz. And make sure you have 64MB, or more of memory. Again, I started with 16MB, but that was when memory cost an arm-and-a-leg. Any of today's systems should be quite adequate for CD recording. I should note that if you're burning from .MP3 files, you'll need a machine faster than 150MHz to burn directly to CD-R, otherwise you'll have to convert your MP3 files to .WAV files first, because decoding .MP3 files takes a fair amount of processing power.

• Hard disk space, IDE or SCSI, to hold the digitized music (10 Meg/min. of music) If you set aside a 1 Gig partition to burn from, you'll be in good shape. If you'll be doing any processing on your audio files, you'll need at least twice as much space as the music you'll be working on. Disk space is pretty cheap, so get a multi-gig drive and set it aside for this work. (If you have the resources, it's quicker to move files from one drive to another, rather than moving them around on the same drive, so if you can arrange to process from one physical, not logical, drive to another, it'll be faster.)

• CD Recorder. Take your pick, SCSI or IDE or USB. You'll read about some people swearing that you should get a SCSI, or some that you should get an IDE. I'm going to suggest that both interfaces work, and some people will have trouble with either.

• Sound card capable of 'recording' at 44.1Khz stereo. Here's where you'll find some variability in quality. If you can find one, I recommend the original Ensoniq Audio PCI card, with the 1370 chip NOT the Creative Ensoniq AudioPCI card with the 1371 chip. Other people claim good results with the Creative "Live" card. But try what you have, and if you're happy with the sound you get, that's what's important.

• Stereo Equipment to provide the audio signal

• The Connection - to connect your stereo to your PC, you'll need a "Y" connector that has to "RCA" style plugs at one end, and a single, stereo 1/8" plug at the other.  The RCA plugs connect to the a "Tape Out" connection on your stereo.  The 1/8" plug goes into the "Line-In" jack on the sound card of your PC.  Be careful not to put it into the Mic. input!  Also, if you're coming from a turntable, the signal must first go through some sort of preamp, which increases the signal level, and applies the RIAA equalization to the signal.  If you're turntable is already connected to the "Phono" input of your stereo, you're all set.  Don't try to connect the turntable directly to your sound card.  The signal will be too low, and not properly equalized.  If you need to you can go out and by a separate turntable preamp.  Check with Radio Shack, your favorite electronics outlet, or look at www.tracertek.com for one of the preamps they sell.

• Program to support the sound card for putting the music on disk (see CDWAV below).

• CD-R program (i.e. Easy CD Creator, Gear...)

• .WAV file editor for processing the music files before putting them on CD (again, see CDWAV below).

• Mixer Application for controlling your recording volume. You can start with the default Windows mixer, or whatever came with your sound card. I've recently found the XG-GS Enhanced Mixer, which gives much better control. Where the default mixer gives you 32 steps from 0 to full volume, the XG-GS Enhanced Mixer gives you 200 steps. You can get this program by searching at http://www.shareware.com for the keyword mixer. Then download AMIX266.ZIP.   I've also found that using the regular Windows volume control, you can get better control using the arrow keys. Select the volume control you want to move by clicking on it, and you'll notice that it gets outlined. You can now adjust the volume with the arrow keys. It takes 4 up/down arrow key hits to visually see one "bit" of movement on the screen. So you get 4 times the control using the keyboard than you get using the mouse.

• A little background first. Files to be put onto an audio CD (CD-DA) must be recorded at 44.1Khz, 16 bit, stereo format. This means that each sample can have a value from -32768 to +32767. If your sound cards A-to-D converter is 'overloaded', it'll try to put out values beyond that range. Since it can't, the signal will be clipped, and may cause audible distortion. To keep this from happening, I record a 'loud' passage of music, using Mike Looijman's CDWAV program and watch the clipping indicator. I set the "Loud is above" setting to 26,000, and set the recording volume so I occasionally light the yellow 'loud' indicator. This level seems to make the CD's I make 'volume compatible' with commercial CD's (important if you're mixing them in a multi-disc player). Easy CD Creator Deluxe includes "Spin Dr.", has an option to balance the volume of .WAV files which makes this easier. You can find CDWAV at Mike Richter's CD-R homepage.

• With the volume level set, you're ready to digitize. System and disk speed are kind of important here. Any IRQ conflicts, system overhead, or disk calibration can cause you to lose data. If you have a screen saver set up, you might want to consider either disabling it, or setting it to kick in at some time longer than you'll be recording. The disk you're recording to should be either empty, or defragmented. If your songs all have gaps between them, you can go ahead and digitize each song individually. If you have songs with no gaps, record them as one file and split it up later. Here again, Mike Looijman's CDWAV program is very useful. (see above)

• If you haven't done much digitizing with your system, it's wise to listen to your .WAV files after creating them. As with the actual CD recording process, digitizing requires that the data can get to the hard disk in a steady stream. Any interruptions in the data flow can cause 'skips' in the music. (IRQ conflicts, operating system overhead, background tasks, can all cause data flow interruptions. Sometimes you'll have several good minutes of data, then a slight skip. Verify! Verify! Verify!)

• If you've done a careful job of digitizing the songs from your album, you may not need to do any file editing. If you need to adjust the beginning or ending silence of your files, now is the time to do it. Recording an Audio CD (CD-DA) can be done in two ways, Track-At-Once (TAO), or Disc-At-Once (DAO) mode. TAO takes the first file, puts it on the CD, writes lead-out blocks of data, then writes lead-in blocks of data as it starts up the laser to write the next track. These lead-out/lead-in blocks of data make up a two second gap between songs. If all your songs need a gap between them, TAO recording is fine for you. If you have songs that need to be recorded/played back with no gap, you need DAO mode. Not all CD recorders support DAO mode!

• Disc-At-Once mode writes the entire CD in one pass without ever turning the laser off. This means data needs to keep going to the CD Recorder without interruption, or you'll make yourself a nice shiny drink coaster. If you've digitized multiple songs in one file, you need to split the songs out before putting them on CD if you want the songs to be indexed. You'll need some sort of .WAV file editor to do this. One point to keep in mind is how your CD recording software handles partial block s at the end of a song. CD blocks are 2352 bytes long. I use Easy CD Creator 3.0, and if I have a song that ends before the end of a block, Easy CD Creator fills the end of the block with silence and starts the next song at the beginning of the next block. This could cause a small, gap of up to 1/75th second between songs. Once again, CDWAV was written specifically for the task of splitting .WAV files in preparation for DAO recording. It splits on 2352 byte boundaries. Get it, try it, register it.

• If you're using some sort of filtering program to remove clicks and pops, that should be done now. I've been using Roxio's Easy CD Creator Deluxe for some time now, which comes with a program called Spin Doctor. Spin Doctor has an option for 'cleaning' your .WAV files. Below, you can see some screen shots of 'before and after' files, when they've been run through Spin Doctor's cleaning algorithm. (Spin Doctor uses Arboretum's "Ray Gun" program. I also use Tracer Tek's, "DART Pro 32" for cleaning up more damaged albums.) The program I used to display the .WAV files is CDWAV. The top image is a direct comparison with two copies of CDWAV running. The top part of CDWAV shows the entire .WAV file, the lower part of the display shows an enlarged section represented by the green bar separating the two sections. You can see that there's a pretty loud repetitive click running through the first part of song, which is visibly (and audibly) reduced, and almost eliminated.

Click to see 97K full screen image.

Click to see 90K full screen image.
 

For those who doubt how effective the cleaning is, I subtracted, byte-for-byte, the cleaned file from the original file. What's left is what was taken out. Believe me, it's a lot of clicks, and barely audible with the volume all the way up, a little cymbal and music.
 

Click to see 70K full screen image. 

• At this point, your files are all edited and ready to be put onto CD. It's good practice to make sure the hard drive with your .WAV files on is defragmented, all screen savers are turned off, and any background tasks are killed. Easy CD Creator 4.xx and above has improved the reliability of it's burn engine so you don't have to be as paranoid about interrupting the data getting to your CD Recorder as much as you used to. I've done word processing, 'Net surfing, and some gaming, without causing a problem. If you have questions about setting up and optimizing your PC, you can check out the archive files of the Easy CD list and the FAQ's at: