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Audio CDs & MP3s
How to make your own audio discs, or convert music to or from MP3 files
Introduction
From a technical standpoint, the MPEG-Layer 3 audio format (known colloquially as "MP3") isn't the best format in which to save audio files if optimum sound quality is your goal; however, its sheer popularity on the Internet makes it a format worth understanding well, especially if you intend on burning those MP3s onto your own custom audio CDs -- or, conversely, "ripping tracks" from CD into MP3 format. Let's start with this latter topic.
MP3 Encoding tips
There are two main varieties of MP3-encoded files: those saved in what is known as the "Constant Bit Rate" (CBR) format, and those saved with a Variable Bit Rate (VBR). Not all encoders can handle the newer VBR format; thus, CBR files are more common. However, VBR files usually provide better audio fidelity. Most audio buffs (if they use MP3 at all) save files in VBR format @ 160Kbps (the bitrate under VBR becomes a guaranteed minimum) with a "quality" setting of "high."
I want my MP3
If you've ever tried copying an audio CD (one that you own, of course) using one of the many available CD recorders that provide disc copy functions, you might have discovered that the audio CD you created didn't sound like the one you started with. For example, the audio discs created with the "Copy CDs" function in Hewlett-Packard's SureStore CD-Writer and the disc copy feature in the Nero CD burner program both said they had completed their tasks successfully, but produced audio CD duplicates with strange "scratch" noises that made the discs unlistenable. Even stranger, the track lists as shown by a CD player didn't correlate with the audio on the disc, and songs started in the middle or the end, when selected from the CD player. Clearly, we were missing something! The tools and links below can help you solve problems like these, and create music worth listening to.
Software/Firmware updates:
As with many computer problems, our first stop was to check whether this was a known bug. Indeed, HP confirms that, prior to its 3.01 firmware update, the Disc at Once (DAO) function of the 7100 and 7200 series drives wrote a bad TOC (Table of Contents) on audio CDs.
We also found a number of software tools to help us convert audio into digital formats.
Audio
For Windows PCs:
AudioGrabber - A program designed to grab CD audio -- and song names! -- and automatically save them as WAV or MP3 files. Makes perfect audio copies by copying the audio digitally, without using your system's sound card.
AudioCatalyst - Xing's US $29.95 utility supports variable bitrate so that the encoder can dynamically use as many bits as needed to get the sound as good as desired.
As for our earlier attempts to use the tools that come standard with the HP SureStore series drives, it's worth noting that a preference setting allows a tradeoff between audio fidelity and recording performance. Our unsuccessful initial test used the default "fastest" setting, the company says the slower settings can help solve audio problems.
(However, as a perusal of CD-writer reviews at a site such as www.cdrinfo.com will demonstrate, some CD-writers and CD-ROM drives are physically incapable of "ripping" data from audio disks without errors -- and there are many other factors that influence recording performance.)
Another, more important change you can make is to consider dumping the MP3 file format entirely, in favour of a higher quality audio format. Many bootleg enthusiasts use "Shorten," a lossless compression format. The SHN files it creates won't play directly on any player we've encountered, but can be converted back to full-quality WAV files, restoring the pristine quality of the original CD track, or in the case of a live recording, the full fidelity of the original recording. Read more....
For cleaning up noisy files:
CLEAN! (95/98/NT/2000/XP) - This easy to use program from Steinberg removes hiss, pops and other extraneous noise from audio files and writes CDs in just six steps. Suitable for use when digitizing old tapes or records. Clean! also includes software for producing labels, booklets and inlay cards for the CD packaging. It can extract WAV files from audio CDs, or via an import option, load WAV files and control your recorder to create your own discs. We really like Clean. It's our tool of choice for getting rid of hiss, noise, increasing the bass response and enhancing stereo separation that can add a bit of punch to otherwise "blah" recordings.
Serious users may prefer a tool such as Sonic Foundry's Sound Forge. Simply put, I love this program. Sound Forge is my program of choice when I need to to record or edit a file. The latest 5.0 release provides an extensive array of audio enhancement tools (noise reduction, EQ, compression, acoustic environment modeling, waveform repair, etc.) and they all work like a dream. The real-time preview functions are, for me, the "must have" feature when attempting almost any audio editing task.
"Ripping" CDs
Not all CD-ROM drives are capable of "ripping" CD audio, allowing you to extract the WAV data for re-recording onto CD-R, or converting into MP3.
For the Macintosh:
The free release of Apple's own iTunes for the Mac has put something of a damper on the third-party development of commercial MP3 applications for the Mac, but there are still a few in active development, should iTunes not meet your needs. AudioCatalyst is available for the Mac platform, providing CD audio-to-MP3 conversion. US $29.95 from Xing.
At the NAMM (National Association of Music Merchants) show in Los Angeles on Jan. 27th, Emagic announced WaveBurner, a Mac-only software title for editing audio and mastering Red Book audio CDs. WaveBurner will ship in March for US$199 and will, the company says, be able to write CDTEXT (song name) information on supported CD-R drives (this is currently only possible on the Sony CDU 9485).
Adaptec, meanwhile, offers its popular Toast CD-burning app for Mac. Toast can copy virtually any kind of CD (including audio discs) by dragging and dropping. A separate program, called Jam, specializes in creating audio CDs.
Converting MP3 to WAV
Of course, there are times when you might want to go the other direction, too. If you've amassed a collection of MP3 (or SHN) audio files and you want to record them as a standard audio CD, it's easy -- and the tool you need to convert the compressed files to WAV files is freely available.
WinAmp, a freeware title available from www.winamp.com, has a Save to WAV function, accessible under Options>Preferences>Output. Just Choose "Disk Writer Plug-in" from the list of output options, and the next MP3 file you play will be saved to the directory of your choice as a WAV file. Set it back to "WAVout Plug-in" to go back to listening mode.
Music Maker Professional, from Magix can convert MP3 files to WAV and other formats, including a range of streaming media types. This US$599 package has many other useful capabilities, too, including multitrack audio sequencing and editing, loop matching and the ability to convert MPG video to AVI.
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