Question about Easy CD Creator 5

Mylos Sonka · Post by **Mylos Sonka** » 3 Apr 2001 8:51 pm

Does anyone have any experience comparing Versions 4 and 5? I like v.4 fine, except that it doesn't do a good job of discriminating between tracks when I try to record my vinyl albums to CD. It all becomes a laborious process of recording each individual track to the hard drive.

Does v.5 perform this task any better? If not, I don't see any reason to upgrade. Another product has been mentioned which reportedly performs this track separation task pretty well.

Thanks,

Mylos[This message was edited by Mylos Sonka on 03 April 2001 at 09:52 PM.]

Jack Stoner · Post by **Jack Stoner** » 4 Apr 2001 2:15 am

Have you checked their web site to see if they have anything on the upgrade? A lot of the upgrades I've seen them do mostly has to do with adding support for new CD burners.

A lot of times new S/W has the "commercial" for the new version on the box and what is new/updated. They also changed their name from Adaptec to Roxio and the new S/W reflects their new name (no reason to update).

I have never got Version 4 to detect silence correctly when recording either. I've played around with the setup for that option and it still didn't help.

Greg Cutshaw · Post by **Greg Cutshaw** » 4 Apr 2001 4:28 am

I've upgraded my Easy Cd creator and it still doesn't detect the gaps. Neither does the Harmon Kardon CDR30 or the Philips 775 stand alone decks. I'm pretty much done burning CD's for awhile, else I would consider recording a whole record as one .wav file then using something like Cool Edit to slice the file into tracks later. I've gotta believe that would save me babysitting the record player waiting for each song to end.

Greg

Mylos Sonka · Post by **Mylos Sonka** » 4 Apr 2001 9:29 am

Here's my email to Roxio and their response:

Subj: EZ CD Creator 5 question
Date: 3/29/01 8:05:36 PM Pacific Daylight Time
From: MylosSonka
To: customerservice@roxio.com

Hi--

I am a more or less satisfied user of Easy CD creator 4. The problem I have found with your software is that it often fails to discriminate between tracks when converting my vinyl LPs to CD format-- it requires lots of time-consuming babysitting, to get the tracks apart.

Has your new version, Version 5, overcome this drawback? I am told that a $20 downloadable product called Music Match Jukebox does this quite well, but I would prefer to stay with your product since I am used to it. I have a lot of vinyl LPs to convert, however, and the glitches in your earlier product are a disincentive to getting down to doing it.

Can you comment on what you have done to the new version to improve this situation?

Thank you very much.

Mylos Sonka

AND HERE'S THE RESPONSE, AND THE ONLY RESPONSE I GOT:
Subj: CS - Auto Reply [T20010330000U]
Date: 3/29/01 8:07:19 PM Pacific Daylight Time
From: customerservice@roxio.com
To: MylosSonka@aol.com

Thank you for contacting Roxio Customer Service. This is a confirmation that your e-mail message has reached our department. At this time, we are experiencing unusually high e-mail volumes. We can assure you will respond to you as soon as we can. Please accept our apology for this inconvenience.

If you have a TECHNICAL QUESTION, you may want to visit our support knowledgebase (ask.roxio.com) or click on the link for our peer support group. If you are unable to find an answer to on our website and are qualified for complimentary support, your best resource for troubleshooting your issue is to contact our technical support team directly.

Roxio On-line Support: http://www.roxio.com/en/support/rx-ask_us.html
On-line Peer Support Group: http://www.roxio.com/en/interest/community/index.html
Europe Phone Support: 49 2405-4508-80
US Technical Phone Support: 408-934-7283

Thank you again for your e-mail. Again, we apologize that we cannot answer your message immediately. If you have an urgent issue for Roxio Customer Service, please contact us at 408-946-4949.

Thank you for your patience.

Roxio Customer Service
----

So-- I guess I will give Music Match Jukebox a try. Has anyone else used it? I will report my experience.

Mylos

Jack Stoner · Post by **Jack Stoner** » 4 Apr 2001 10:23 am

I downloaded the "free" version of MMJB. I wasn't impressed with it and it didn't do anything that Windows Media Player or Adaptec Easy CD Creator 4 didn't do. I also had to download two versions and exchange e-mail with their tech support to get MMJB to detect I had a blank CD-R in my burner.

I've downloaded and am now using Audiograbber for "ripping" CD's. It is much faster and displays a lot more statistics as it's doing it.

mickd · Post by **mickd** » 4 Apr 2001 11:10 am

I've got version 4 and I have 2 problems with it
1) although the playlist shows all the MP3 track names as I do the burning, the track names are lost once the CD is done - all the names show up as 'track1' 'track2' etc
2) the Jewel case programme that comes with it doesnt work at all - it crashes when I try to print.
Anyone seen similar probs or is it me ?
Mick

Jack Stoner · Post by **Jack Stoner** » 4 Apr 2001 12:12 pm

Mine always come up as "track 01", etc. However, my HP CD burner does not support some of the optional format data, such as the mode that writes the song name.

If you go to the Roxio site (formerly Adaptec) and check on your CD burner model it will tell you if it supports that format.
http://www.roxio.com

Fred Murphy · Post by **Fred Murphy** » 4 Apr 2001 1:15 pm

I like my Music Match Jukebox. I don't have any trouble with it at all. If you are recording from a line in (such as a turntable, or cassette player, you should type in the name of the album and artist, before recording and it will appear in the playlist with this information. It will show up as (track 01) Etc. All you have to do is type in the name of the song, after you are done with all the songs on that album or tape. If you are recording a CD, you should type in the artist name and album name, and song title, then all you have to type in, individually is the genre of the songs of the CD you are copying from. (Genre) is the default setting, which you can change to something else if you wish. If you do not do this in advance of recording, you have to type all of this information on each song individually,(Album title, artist name, song title, and genre.) When you are recording a CD, you don't have to do anything between songs, just preselect the songs you wish to record and it will automatically record all the songs you have selected on that CD to record, and give you a beep and open the CD tray when finished. If you are recording from a line in format, you must start and stop recording each song and type in the name of the song you are recording individually. When you wish to burn back any of these songs, whether they are from a CD, or a Tape, or a Turntable, They will burn back to the CD with the same amount of spacing between songs as they were recorded with. For example if the songs from CDs are recorded with a 2 second delay, that is the way they will be burned back. If you record from a tape, you must have the taped songs started with the amount of lead you wish them to have. If you have ten seconds of no sound, that is what will be recorded and buned back to CD with. If you have only 1 or 2 seconds of blank tape recorded that is the spacing that will result when burned back. You must preselect whether you are recording from the line in, or the Cd player, before recording. It is a different process, but is still quite easy to record albums or tapes from. At this time I have over twelve hundred songs on my hard drive. I can select any of these songs, in any order, to burn back to CD. All you have to do is select the songs and it will tell you how much room you have left, and when you have selected the ones you want, just click record CD, install a blank CD, and it takes about ten minutes to record 18 to 20 songs of your choice. They will be burned back with the same spacing as they were recorded with.

Jack Stoner · Post by **Jack Stoner** » 5 Apr 2001 2:46 am

Fred, it's not the burning s/w. The songs do not display when the CD is played back. Bernie gave me one to play that you had made for him. It only shows "Track 01", etc instead of the actual song name.

A CD burner must have "text mode" capability or it won't write the actual song name when it burns a CD.

Fred Murphy · Post by **Fred Murphy** » 5 Apr 2001 5:24 am

I didn't realize that was what anyone was wanting. My burner for my Roland will do that, but I didn't use that capability when I made my own CD. I know some commercial CDs will show the names on my computer, but most won't. Why does anyone want this? It's not hard to type in the information on your computer, and if you are just playing the song on a CD player, you wouldn't see it anyway. If you have MMJB, it will show the name and album title and everything else, even the words, if you want it to. If you were recording from an old vynl or tape the information would not be there anyway, you would still have to type it in. The only CD which I have that shows the information, is a few of Alan Jacksons, none of the rest do on my computer. You can even have the album cover displayed on screen if you wish. OR="#8e236b">[This message was edited by Fred Murphy on 05 April 2001 at 06:37 AM.][This message was edited by Fred Murphy on 05 April 2001 at 06:48 AM.]

Jim Smith · Post by **Jim Smith** » 5 Apr 2001 5:35 am

I'd like to see that added to CD's by steel players especially. All "commercial" CD's that I have get the Play List info from the Internet and add themselves to my Play List database automatically. I have yet to purchase a steel CD that I didn't have to type the info in manually. I always submit the list to the Play List providers, and I expect that others do as well, but they don't seem to get added to their database.

mickd · Post by **mickd** » 5 Apr 2001 11:20 am

The reason I wanted to read the titles from the CD was so I could generate a track list to use in printing the Jewel Case (the programme built-in to Easy CD has an option to do this automatically).
I looked in the Roxio site for the capability of my player (Iomega ZIP 8x4x32) and I see :

Supports CD Text? = read only
Supports audio indexes? = no

Jack - does that mean I can't do what I want to do ?

Jack Stoner · Post by **Jack Stoner** » 5 Apr 2001 12:07 pm

Mick,

According to that your burner will not support text in the burning mode, which means it will not add the song title, artist, etc to the CD when you burn it. You are in the same boat as I am with my HP 8250i CD burner.

That's one option I will make sure I have if I ever upgrade the burner I have now. Many of the newer models have that feature.

Fred Murphy · Post by **Fred Murphy** » 5 Apr 2001 3:35 pm

MMJB will print the CD list, of the CD titles you are burning. After burning, just click create Cd list and cover, and the printer will print it right out. When you burn back, you use the MMJB, not Adaptec to burn the CD. On my computer, when I am in MMJB and click on create CD, Adaptec will appear, but you just click it off and MMJB will take over. I use Adaptec to copy a data CD, or to just copy a CD with, and you can use it to create a custom CD, but MMJB is much quicker and easier, and you won't have to type in a title list again, it will create it automatically.

Fred Murphy · Post by **Fred Murphy** » 5 Apr 2001 3:41 pm

Also, when I put a CD I have created in my CD drive, it will show the name of the song, the name of the artist, and the album name. All will scroll across the jukebox window as the song is playing. It is exactly like looking at a Jukebox, and you don't have to put in any nickels.

FIONA TOMANY · Post by **FIONA TOMANY** » 6 Apr 2001 9:20 am

I can;t be bothered with all that. I found it took forever to do. I make up my Jewel case using word 97 (a couple of text boxes the right size does the job).Not only are the end results better you get to use all the Fonts and word Art in the programme.

Fred Murphy · Post by **Fred Murphy** » 6 Apr 2001 9:44 am

I use the Neato program to make personalized CDs with. I think it is easy to use and makes a professional looking CD. The paper is a little expensive. About $2.00 per.

Jack Stoner · Post by **Jack Stoner** » 6 Apr 2001 11:35 am

The Neato CD book and back inserts are $9.98 for 20 the last time I was in Wal-Mart. That would make them 50 cents for each set.
But, if you wanted to buy them in larger quantities they are less from their web site.

That's what I use for my CD.

mickd · Post by **mickd** » 6 Apr 2001 11:59 am

Jack
thanks for clueing me in on that - I could have wasted a lot of time trying to make it do something it can't ever do. It didnt say anthing about that on the box, but its a pretty trivial feature really - I can get by typing out the tracks now I know I have to.

I've been trying out a Shareware prog called 'Coverpro' for making case covers. It works well.

Fred
I use MMJB for recording the tracks from cassette and it works fine but when I try to print from the built-in 'Jewel Case' programme it crashes. Does this happen to you ?
Mick
[This message was edited by mickd on 06 April 2001 at 01:04 PM.]

Jack Stoner · Post by **Jack Stoner** » 6 Apr 2001 2:30 pm

Mick, I have jeweliner, a shareware program that makes CD inserts and books from plain paper. You can download a copy at http://user.mc.net/~eda

The same site has a caseliner program that makes tape cassette J liner cards from plain paper too.

mickd · Post by **mickd** » 6 Apr 2001 3:31 pm

Thanks Jack, I'll give it a try
Mick

Jonathan Cullifer · Post by **Jonathan Cullifer** » 6 Apr 2001 5:02 pm

I always record non-CD tracks to my hard drive because I can tweak with it and make it sound really good by tweaking the volume and mixing it.

Just my 2¢.

Jonathan

By the way, you can create that ¢ sign in Windows by using Alt+0162.

------------------
www.cullifer.com

Fred Murphy · Post by **Fred Murphy** » 6 Apr 2001 8:56 pm

Mick, it is probably your scanner software that makes it crash. I didn't ever have problem with that, until my HP scanner went bad a couple of weeks ago. I bought a new scanner I liked the looks of and after I installed the software it just wanted to take over my whole computer, and when I went to print the CD list, it crashed. I took the scanner back and bought another HP, and all my problems went away. It's back to working fine. No problems. That makes two scanners I've have bought that had bad software. From now on I'm sticking to HP. And just my luck, after I bought the new scanner, I was cleaning out a drawer in my desk and discovered I had purchased insurance on my old scanner and had forgoten about it, so now I will have two good scanners. Jack thanks for telling me about Wal-mart. I have been paying $16.95 for 20 covers, and $14.95 for 40 CD labels, at Office Max. I never thought to check Walmart prices.

Fred Murphy · Post by **Fred Murphy** » 6 Apr 2001 9:01 pm

Jonathan you sounded great at Chattanooga. Great touch and tone. I use Goldwave to modify my recordings that I have in MMJB.if anything needs changing. You can change volume or just about anything you want to do that way also. Also with the new version 6 of MMJB you can buy the DFX which will let you change tones and the mix and add effects. It is very nice also. This feature is not available on earlier versions.

FIONA TOMANY · Post by **FIONA TOMANY** » 7 Apr 2001 6:46 am

Did you know there is a free download from www.neato.com called Media Face| | for CD labels and jewel case covers. I use the mini Disc section and it very impressive.