ImgBurn Problem

[Chip Fossa]

I finally figured out how you can create the order you want your songs to play in, in ImgBurn.

But when the disc was completed and I played it, ImgBurn went right back to an alphabetical listing of the songs [as they appeared when first dragged/dropped in the main display window].

But after the burn and I re-checked the display window, ImgBurn still had the songs listed the way I had re-arranged them.

This program is quite sophisticated and of course
I only care to use it to make audio Cds (right now), so I may have missed a major move here; like a final "are you sure you want this order?" click.

Mitch, are you there, brother? Can anyone else using ImgBurn help me out with this?
There's gotta be something I missed.

Oh yeah, after I closed out ImgBurn, I got an error flag, too.

See what I'm talkin' about, here:

[Mitch Drumm]

I finally figured out how you can create the order you want your songs to play in, in ImgBurn.

But when the disc was completed and I played it, ImgBurn went right back to an alphabetical listing of the songs [as they appeared when first dragged/dropped in the main display window].

But after the burn and I re-checked the display window, ImgBurn still had the songs listed the way I had re-arranged them.

Chip:

I'm not following you.

Regarding your first sentence: Do you mean that you figured out how to burn CDs with the songs arranged in the order of your choice? You use the phrase "play in", when in fact Imgburn controls the order songs are "burned in".

Regarding your second sentence: Do you mean that the disc was burned with the songs in your chosen order, but it won't play back in the chosen order and instead uses alpha order? If so, three questions: How do you know it burned in the correct order? Does the burned disc play back in incorrect (alpha) order when played back in ALL players or only when played back in Imgburn? Are you sure you are playing back the burned CD or are you simply using Imgburn to play back from your hard drive, which would likely be alpha order, not your chosen order?

Regarding your third sentence: I would expect the display to show the songs in your chosen re-arranged order, assuming you are looking at the playlist (aka cue file) that you created. So I don't understand why you think anything is wrong here. If you navigate to the cue file on your hard drive and open it, I would hope it shows the songs in your chosen burn order.

[Chip Fossa]

Mitch,

I guess I made it sound more complicated than it actually is.

Let me try again.

I made a folder of "Best Of Lightfoot". I painstakingly re-numbered the songs from #s 1-23.
All those songs came from different sources and all had their own numbers, so I put them in the order I wanted and re-numbered them from 1-23.
I figured this would be picked up in ImgBurn and that this 1-23 order would be listed as such.

When I dragged all 23 songs into ImgBurn, they immediately changed to the alpha listing. So after reading HELP I found out you could expand the window and use the blue arrows to re-arrange the order. Which I did. So it looked like the CD would be burned in that order.

The Winamp order [see pic] is from the just-burned CD. Alpha listed.

As to your 3rd inquiry, I did save the project and here is a pic of the save:

[Mitch Drumm]

Chip:

I'm still not sure exactly what you have done, but it sounds like you are off the beaten path.

You need to create a cue file and then burn from that cue file. I have no idea if you have done this. Cue files will have a cue extension, so you would have something like Gordon Lightfoot.cue, but you could call it anything.

Here is the exact sequence of steps. If you can't get anywhere with this explanation, send me private mail.

1: Convert the files you intend to burn from mp3 to WAV if you need to. Not all CD players will play mp3s.

2: Open Imgburn. Switch to Write mode from Mode menu.

3: Choose create CD cue file from Tools menu. A window will pop open.

4: Choose browse for a file from the folder icon at the upper right of that window. An explorer type window will open showing your drives and folders.

5: Navigate to the folder with your Lightfoot songs. Select each file you want to burn with the mouse. Choose open from the bottom of the window when all are selected. If the files are scattered across several folders, choose the first folder, select the songs in the first folder, choose open, and then navigate to the next folder and repeat the process.

6: When all files have been selected and opened, you should be back at the "create CD cue file" window. The songs will be in ALPHA order, not your chosen order.

7: Notice the 4 little arrows along the right side of that window. If you select a song, you can use those arrows to move it up or down in the list. Move each song around until they are displayed in your chosen order.

8: Depending on how you like to work, you might want to check the 'Add To Write Queue When Done' box here. By doing so, you won't then have to load it manually when you are ready to burn.

9: When songs are in the correct order, choose OK at the bottom of the Create CD cue file window.

10: A save as window will pop open. Give it a name and save it wherever you want. This is the Cue file. Note that it has a CUE extension. A cue file is just a list of your songs in proper order,showing where they are on your disc. When you burn, Imgburn will refer to the list to find the songs and order them properly.

11: You should now be back at the main Imgburn window. Choose your write speed at the lower right. You can choose the "test mode" checkbox in the lower left if you want to make a dry run to see if it will burn.

12: Poke the big "write" button to the left of the green arrow at the lower left to begin the burn. I normally choose verify also.

That's it. Burning will start assuming you followed step 8 above.

I deliberately left out setting whatever blank gap you may want between songs. And I deliberately omitted the "CD text" stuff, which I personally never use. You can fiddle with that stuff yourself if you use it.

When the disc is done, play it back to confirm things are in proper order.


Note: I did no manual renumbering or anything like that.

You don't have to save the CUE file unless you think you might eventually reburn another identical Lightfoot disc. Normally, I just confirm that the disc plays well and then delete the CUE file. You can always make a new one.

There is normally no need to "save a project" or anything like that. Just save the cue file, burn, and then delete the cue file when satisfied.

Below are 2 images of a sample CD burn of Dean Martin songs. The first shows the songs in Alpha order, just after I selected them and loaded them into Imgburn. The second image shows the reordered songs, just before I saved the Cue file. They will burn in the order shown in the second image.







Send private mail if you are still fouled up.

[Chip Fossa]

Thanks Mitch,

I think you solved my problem.

I never made a CUE file to start with. That must have been my missing step.

I simply dragged the songs into the main ImgBurn window, re-ordered the listing [with the blue arrows], and hit burn.

You explained the sequence very well. I'll give it a go, fer sure.

[ImgBurn doesn't seem to easily show that sequence you just wrote out. I looked all over for some kind of instructions, but just couldn't lay my fingers on it. I'm sure I was lookin' in all the wrong places .]

[Mitch Drumm]

Chip:

http://www.imgburn.com/

Above is the imgburn site, which includes both a forum and guides to usage.

The basic instructions, not quite as complete as I wrote out, are in the guides section within the forum section.

Look under the forum and then choose guides.

Scroll down to:

How to write an Audio CD from music files using ImgBurn


Lots of good info on that site.

[Chip Fossa]

That worked, Mitch.

But the songs are listed as "tracks" this time around. Before, when I did it bassackwards, the artist/song appeared. Maybe it's Winamp.

I downloaded ImgBurn's PDF guide. Yeah, it's written like the MA Plumbing Code. They don't spell it out, sensibly, such as you did. You just hafta read and read through it, to get it.

I sent the saved CUE file to desktop to make it easier to locate when ImgBurn asked for it. But it wound up in the 'Best Of Lightfoot' folder after all was said and done. Anyway, I definitely want to keep it, as I like the order, will make more CDs, and thusly, don't want to have to 'blue arrow' all the songs on the next burn.

Verify? Just what is the pro side for verifying?
If an error IS found, on a plain old CD-R, all will still be lost anyway, right? ie - it ain't gonna matter if you find out now or later, the CD will have to be re-burned.

Thanks again, Mitch, for the 12-step program.

You saved me a lot of time. It would have taken me hours to figure out how to pull this off.

[Mitch Drumm]

Chip:

I assume you mean the songs read out as track 1, track 2, etc on your player's panel on playback and you don't see actually see the song artist and title on the player? Even though they are named something like "Jerry Byrd - Moon Of Manakoora" on your hard drive?

If so, I'd guess the way around that is to use the CD Text function when you burn, which I bypassed as I mentioned above during the 12 steps. I don't care about it because I don't need anyone to tell me I am listening to Jo Stafford sing "Shrimp Boats".

Realize that the cue file contains the hard drive location of each track to be burned. If you move some of those Lightfoot tracks around on your hard drive, Imgburn won't be able to find them and you would have to make a new cue file.

I normally keep the cue file for a few days until I have time to listen to the CD carefully. The main thing to listen to is relative volume track to track. I don't like to have to adjust playback volume track to track when listening. If songs vary noticeably on playback, you have to adjust their volumes with a separate program, but you can use the same playlist.


You're right that verification may serve little purpose. In the real world, I don't care about errors to the extent that the CD nonetheless burns OK and plays as I want it to on the device of my choice.

The default best choice for CDRs is Taiyo Yuden brand, which are hard to find except online (maybe $25 per hundred). You can also find them at most Guitar Center stores in 25 packs. They are the best insurance you can have against making coasters.

[Chip Fossa]

Yo Mitch,

I'm listening now for the second go-around with the correct order IB CD.

In Winamp again, the TRACKS [yes 1,2,3 etc.] are now changing into the song title [only] as soon as the player moves onto the next track. No ARTIST/TITLE, as in the first CD [the mistake].

You're right, I don't care anymore about how things are listed on someone else's player. There's just too many quirks and variables, I've finally realized. Not to mention any given player.

Thanks for the heads-up on the Taiyo Yuden brand. I'm using cheap-o Memorex right now. They are far from perfect. There are a few hiccups on both CDs I just made, not bad though, and I definitely blame it on the Memorex media.

All in all, ImgBurn is a dynamite burner [as you stated in the past]. And a lot of it is definitely HIGH TECH to me. But that's OK.

Here's a snap of Winamp as I'm typing and listening to the second go-around:

[Mitch Drumm]

Chip:

If you play that CD back on some other player, you might get something else displayed. Ideally, you'd want the readout to match the tags on the song as it sits on your hard drive before burning, but I don't know how well that stuff works out in practice.

I've found that most of my home burns will occasionally play with a skip in a track when played back in my car. Never at the same spot in a given track, so it's not like a scratch on a record that is guaranteed to repeat whenever you play it. It may be vibration from the car or it may be a characteristic of the car player.


I rarely play CDs at home so I am only guessing this skipping thing is peculiar to my car playback.

For home playback, I have a standard RCA cable running from a video connection on my stereo receiver to the sound card speaker output of my PC. I then just play back direct from my PC hard drive through the stereo system using I-Tunes.

It works out better than CDs. I never have to listen to CD filler songs that I don't like and I can just shuffle play through thousands of songs or use a more specific playlist, like "Elvis" or "Buddy Emmons" or whatever.

The only downside is I need to run my PC to play the tunes. You would think that someone would have made a hard drive based stereo component that could just be plugged directly into a home stereo system to enable mp3 playback without a PC, but the last I checked, it had not happened.

[Chip Fossa]

More great input Mitch.

Naw, I play all music inside my trailer from the HDD.

I make CDs for friends, mostly, and for my truck's CD player.

You're right - sometime glitches I hear, on immediate CD playback [on the PC system], disappear in the AUTO[mobile] environ.

I know CDs are going the way of all audio dinosaurs, but I'm drawing the audio-frenzy line. Enough is enough.

I just don't have the money or will to keep up. Unless, of course I'm held hostage to outdated tech.
It hasn't happened yet.

BTW, the CDs I used were NOT Memorex [sorry for the dis, Memorex], but instead TDK. They are good-enuff.
A playback glitch can come from many sources, I've slowly come to find out.

[Storm Rosson]

Chip u can buy a Dual all digital player ,FM/AM, USB, SD card, Aux (mp3 player) no stinkin cd to skip and crash, for 40$ at Wal-mart. It's the coming thing imo, the firmware in the deck needs refining but overall it works quite good. You just drop songs or folders with albums/playlists, etc on a flsh drive or sd card and go.It will read up to 16GB usb drive....thats a LOTTA tunes, oh yeah they have to be mp3 format up to 320kbps or WMA (no lossless ie:WMA9) up to 384kbps NO CD-A format, must rip first

[Chip Fossa]

Thanks Storm,

Maybe I'll make one exception and check out this unit.

One can always go window shopping [NPI].