Subject:High Resolution Audio + CD Burning Discussion

Posted by: Mike / SCS

Date:8/22/2013 1:54:54 PM

Hello Sound Forge Users,

A couple of weeks back, you may have been asked to participate in a survey that we created. The focus was on platform preferences, CD burning, and high resolution audio. Thanks for your responses! We're taking a close look at the data we collected in order to help us pinpoint what your needs are and what you're interested in.

Our survey didn't have a place for you to type in anecdotal information, and so I'm hoping that we can utilize this forum for that. It'll also be fun to discuss this stuff among us.

Here's a chance for you to vent your spleens on these topics! We're listening and we'd love to hear what you have to say about:

High resolution audio. Do you listen to high res (24/96 and up) formats? Do your clients? What do you play high resolution files back on? What's the future of high resolution audio?

CD burning. What's the current status? Are you burning a lot of CDs? Listening to CDs that you burn? Burning CDs for clients? Creating and burning Red Book masters? Is CD burning important to you? What's the future going to look like?

PROS: how often are you asked to burn audio CDs? What's the demand? When was the last time you bought a spindle of blanks? :-)

And so on. Can't wait to hear your thoughts on CD burning and high res audio, and in particular, what the PROS are doing, and where you see things trending.

Thanks! Can't wait to hear back from you...

Mike

Subject:RE: High Resolution Audio + CD Burning Discussion

Reply by: Chienworks

Date:8/22/2013 3:57:14 PM

In my neck of the woods, where i mostly record local artist live performances, CD usage has nearly evaporated. Whereas i might have been asked for 100 to 300 copies years ago, now i might get asked for 3 or 4. Everything's gone to MP3/M4A online downloads.

Outside of my mom asking me to put some old vinyl on CDs for her, i've probably used less than 50 CD-Rs over the last 5 years. My own listening is entirely from hard drive or memory cards now.

Hi-Res? Nope. No call for it in the slightest. 44.1KHz/16 bit is way better than tapes, and most of my clients were perfectly happy with the quality of cassettes back in the day and probably didn't even notice the increased quality they get from plain old standard Redbook CDs, back when they were ordering them.

Subject:RE: High Resolution Audio + CD Burning Discussion

Reply by: ChristoC

Date:8/22/2013 6:08:27 PM

Here I burn Red Book CD Masters for Duplication/Replication regularly.
Also make Reference copies for the client, as well as many work-in-progress CDs before project is finished.
No requests for Hi-Res (yet!).
I'm mainly working at 48k/24bit masters, mostly SRC and dithered by SSL & Prism to make 44.1kHz/16bit for CDA, where I basically just compile order and set the pauses, CDText; though sometimes let CDA do all the conversion work if there's to be tweaking and changes made in CDA.

Regarding Masters Duplication/Replication:
for some time the duplicators have been asking for DDP Image, so I have been preparing the CD in CDArchitect (because I like it, use features such as 2nd Audio Layer, and historically know exactly how it feels & works...) then transfer to "Sonoris DDPCreaterPro" (which imports CDArchitect Image file (=CDA exported Wav file)) to make DDP Image, Burn DATA CD or DVD, Reference CDs, ISO Image, PDF Cue Sheet, MP3 files of each Track etc (Can even directly upload the image from that application as well).
Be nice if CDArchitect did all that!

edit: BTW there's a (small) bug in CDA which needs fixing: When 'Extract Audio from CD' is used, CDA fails to read the ISRC for each track ~ all other CD Text is successfully read, but not the ISRC (other software such as DDPCreaterPro can read the ISRC, so I know it is there!).

Subject:RE: High Resolution Audio + CD Burning Discussion

Reply by: ChristoC

Date:8/23/2013 9:45:44 AM

Oh, and I neglected another bug:

When using |File|Save As|"CD Architect Image File (*.wav)", Architect fails to embed the Track "Artist" CDText in the file.

Subject:RE: High Resolution Audio + CD Burning Discussion

Reply by: Iacobus

Date:8/24/2013 12:09:33 PM

Musician's perspective incoming:

Like Kelly said, my CD usage has pretty much plummeted due to practically everything going electronic. You can practically deliver/keep anything on solid- state media nowadays.

I suppose this is where I would put lamentations about the death of physical media but, to be honest, burning is a pain in the rootie-patootie time-wise. I'd rather put that time and energy into engineering the recording and creating artwork for the project.

I feel sorry for the blank media industry, though. They've got to be feeling this and will have to adapt to survive.

I don't go any higher than 48 kHz sample rate; no point due to the Nyquist Theory....unless one is superhuman, of course.

I do like using 24-bit for the extra processing headroom. The future of high-resolution audio? Everything will probably go 32-bit/192 kHz; not that it's practical in any way but just because we can. Kind of silly, but remember those gigantic speakers audiophiles use to love in electronics stores? Same deal. xD

Subject:RE: High Resolution Audio + CD Burning Discussion

Reply by: Geoff_Wood

Date:8/24/2013 5:43:40 PM

I also regularly burn (and duplicate) CDs. I get through a couple of spindles a month. My clients often want MP3 versions as well, but do appreciate having access to the the full quality and delicacy of sound that they recorded.

Not much call for >CD quality, as few people have playback devices or bat-hearing.

I regularly buse CD Architect, and would love for it to have it's deficiencies addressed.

geoff

Subject:RE: High Resolution Audio + CD Burning Discussion

Reply by: Chienworks

Date:8/24/2013 6:49:31 PM

"those gigantic speakers audiophiles use to love"

Some of us still love them. I have six 15" woofer three way towers in my living room (my mom thinks i'm insane). I have a pair of home-made 12" three way for my bedroom stereo. Even my computer speakers are 10" three way driven with a classic old 75 Watt Kenwood power amp. I've been to people's houses with the teeny high-mid speakers and a single subwoofer, and it just doesn't quite work right. The sound is very canned. I couldn't live without my monster speakers.

I keep drooling over the 6 foot tall 5-way Cerwin-Vega speakers at the local stereo store, but at $7800 each, i think i'll satisfy myself with the mere drool.

Subject:RE: High Resolution Audio + CD Burning Discussion

Reply by: Iacobus

Date:8/25/2013 3:14:44 PM

My brother had a pair of Cerwin-Vegas back in the 90's. They were great but, damn, they could double as coffins for Pete's sake and they were heavy. lol

I bought him Logitech's Wireless Boombox for his birthday once so he could pair something with his smartphone. Thing's only a little over a foot across with 8 drivers. Sound is phenomenal but needs to be plugged in with its AC adapter to get the full benefit. (Still sounds very good when not plugged in, though, just not as a bass-heavy.)

Subject:RE: High Resolution Audio + CD Burning Discussion

Reply by: iain_m

Date:8/26/2013 6:58:05 AM

I occasionally use 88kHz or 96kHz for sound design/fx work. For both sound design and music, I almost always work at 24-bit or above whatever the sample rate, until dithering down for the final release.

I don't burn CDs very often. However when evaluating the feature sets of audio editing software, the ability to burn CDs is still crucial to me: if the need does arise, I don't want to have to switch to a different program.

I would *strongly* value the integration into Sound Forge of the non-destructive CD Architect-style method of adding FX and adjustments to tracks. This would be useful both in CD-building workflows and for managing assets that are exported as digital files (e.g. a stem of processed sfx).

Subject:RE: High Resolution Audio + CD Burning Discussion

Reply by: Sijon

Date:9/25/2013 6:56:53 PM

Hello Mike. I just came across this thread as I don't get in the forums often.

I burn, on average, 1500 CD-Rs a month (and that has increased yearly) as I also manufacture a finished product. We buy them by the box using only the Taiyo Yuden Watershield CD-Rs. I use replicators for orders over 1000. Among classical professional musicians I still see a very strong preference for CDs. I also do some work for schools and their contests. They also require CDs. Other than clients requesting files in formats suitable for server streaming I have never been asked for electronic files. I don't really see that changing among my clients. The CD is still the best device for archiving a "sound" performance. When asked clients tell me they want the CD and they'll "burn their own MP3s").

I record to SF or Vegas depending on the requirements and use CD Architect daily to burn Red Book masters. All recording here is 24 bit and dithered down to 16 bit. I've had no complaints or demand for high resolution audio. The whole world has gone to boom boxes, ipods, and little speakers with 4 or 5 inch drivers in them. Why go to something better when customers can't hear any better than that? Occasionally I'll have a customer here in the editing room and their jaw drops when they hear a full-range speaker system and their comment is usually, "Doesn't sound like that at my place!"

The trend may be the other way. By that I mean that, among audiophiles, more and more vinyl is being cut and pressed! When it is read with a laser it's pretty amazing! (I still have my Ampex's and Editall blocks but it's more fun to edit on a computer.)

My request is for a way to export CD-text in a manner that can be used in a database. I just want to enter all that info once and carry it through the entire manufacturing process and archiving.

Subject:RE: High Resolution Audio + CD Burning Discussion

Reply by: R0cky

Date:11/8/2013 2:57:59 PM

I sometimes do live recording and create small numbers of CDs and/or multichannel DVD-Audio. I record 24/88 or 24/96. Musicians I know are still creating CDs as well as delivering m4a/mp3 versions for download.

I use CD-Architect for CDs. Also sometimes do audio restoration of cassettes and vinyl and deliver it on CD.

I create DVD-Audio for hi res delivery of live recordings. I use Wavelab for that. It's the only reason I bought Wavelab. It's user interface is a mystery to me, very difficult to use.

For personal use I sometimes buy high res downloads and burn DVD-Audio of those too.

I buy SACD and DVD-Audio sometimes, but I'm only interested in multichannel disks. I have a 96" screen home theater/surround setup for listening.

rocky

Subject:RE: High Resolution Audio + CD Burning Discussion

Reply by: MacMoney

Date:11/21/2013 7:00:46 PM

I've moved on to StudioOne Pro 64bit
It has all the tools that I've begged for over the years
Right now no HRA CDs
I burn a lot of DDP & Image CDs and upload to Disk Makers web site.
I can't do this in CDA
I use a lot of VST as a part of my mastering.
I can't do this in CDA. (No I don't want a VST to DX wrapper!)
SF11 is not apart of my mastering setup.