I have to second Terry's opinion on the Alesis Masterlink ML-9600.
Personally I think this is the absolute best option for a home studio
owner to make studio quality CDs. I got the newer version that ships
with a 20GB hard drive and I am amazed at the flawless audio quality
of this technical marvel.

First off, the unit costs $900. However, you must realize that you
are getting a hard disk recorder, CD burner and Mastering Tools
bundled in a very nifty easy to use standalone package.

Often home studio owner have the problem of not being able to get
their CDs to sound as loud as commercial CDs. Typically they sound
2-6dB softer. The missing link is the Masterlink. The Masterlink
has a clever look ahead peak limiter. When you engage this DSP tool
you can listen in real time how your average level will jump up
as you lower the threshold parameter. In addition, the Masterlink
has 3 more DSP tools. It has a 3 band equalizer, compressor and
a normalizer.

I also have a Tascam DA30 DAT machine and a Philips CDR880 CD
burner that I no longer use.

The Masterlink is a wonderful tool for a hobbyist. Short of going
to a professional studio for doing your mastering on mega budget
studio gear, the Masterlink will get you closest to audio nirvana.

After lots of trials and errors, I found the best way to make
those big sounding transparent mixes was to playback your MIDI
modules live via a software sequencer into an analog Mackie Mixer
like the LM-3204 or CR-1604 and take the stereo out and feed
that directly into the Masterlink and record to the hard drive
at 24-bits, 96kHz. This bypasses the noisy computer altogether.
Next, define your start/end points for each song, and crop.
Move the start time by 2 seconds for all songs. This will give
you a constant 2 second gap between songs with absolute silence.
Finally, make a red book CD while dithering down to 16-bit, 44.1kHz.

These CDs sound fabulous. Moreover there are no SCMS hassles and
the unit accepts any bargain basement brand of CDRs.

The Yamaha Ultimate CD burner mentioned before is another excellent
choice.

Tapas

To answer beachbum's question: if you already have a CDR in your computer then get Sonic Foundry Sound Forge. It'll do everything you need. All the thing that Tapas mentioned that he does with the Alesis Masterlink, Sound Forge does and much more for way less money than any hardware processor. It makes editing audio and doing common things like clean fades very easy, plus it is a CD burning program - it will tell you how much time is remaining on your CDR and offer the options you need for closing the finished CD so it'll play on any CD player. And it'll create MP3 files from your wave files, which you'll be wanting when you get your wifey an MP3 player.

dano ..... Thanks for the info .... some of the literature I've read indicates that you can record on any type CD .... I'm really a novice at this stuff.... what should I be asking specifically? .... also, I have been checking that the units have analog inputs for recording .... I've noticed that the Phillips retail for about $100 more than the others ..... are they that much better? ...
thnx agn .....
t.

I have to disagree with Dano.

I have a Philips CRD 765 CD recorder and player for over 4 years and it does a great job.
I payed $499.00 for it at that time.

I just recently bought 50 blank TDK CD's for less than 50 cents each.
My Philips burner accepted each and every one of them.

beachbum .... the cd recorder is 'busted'? ..what happened to it? what model was it? .....
How did you go from your kb to the cd recorder? .. thnx ...

dano and alex... The Philips CDR880 literature says "• Records on all Digital Audio CD-R & CD-RW discs" ...... Can you translate what that means as far as the more expensive vs the 'cheap' cds? ....
thnx,
t.
PS ... With all these questions, I'm starting to feel like Scottyee
t.


[This message has been edited by tony mads usa (edited 12-05-2002).]

Standalone consumer audio CD recorders like the Philips CDR880
and others are designed to record on CDR blanks marked as
"Digital Audio". They all have a circuit inside to check
if the CDR is a Data CD or an Audio CD. There is no difference
in the media, except that the Audio CD blanks have a special
code. They cost more than data CD blanks because a portion
of the sales goes to the recording companies.

Recording companies assume that you are making illegal
copies of copyrighted audio CDs and so they exact the money
upfront from you!

A typical generic data CD costs about 14 cents. A typical
digital audio data CD costs about 50 cents.

Having said that, you can still fool the Philips CDR880 in
accepting generic data CDs. All you have to do is insert
a digital audio CD, close the tray, let the Philips scan
the blank CD for the code, and give it a few seconds to
auto calibrate. Now that the Philips is happy, pry out
the tray very slowly and exchange the digital audio CD
blank with the cheaper data CD blank. Close the tray
back very slowly. Begin recording. Problem bypassed!

However, if you are using your computer CD burner, all
this does not apply - it works with any CD blank.

Tapas.

Why is that ? ? ? ? ? ?

Now that PCs are getting increasingly cheaper and more powerful,
it would be a much better investment to buy the powerful software
tools offered by Sonic Foundary as suggested by 'The Pro' in an
earlier post.

For starters, get the CD Architect 5.0. This is the perfect tool
for Red Book CD mastering complete with PQ code editing. Next,
add Sound Forge 6.0, the Professional Digital Audio Editor and
apply the Compressor, Volume maximizer and Normalizing tools.
To remove pops and clicks, machine noise, rumble and tape hiss,
you can add Noise Reduction 2.0. These tools complement each other
and offer serious editing and mastering power.

For your CD burner, the reigning champ is the Yamaha Ultimate
CD burner. It can print text on the unused portion of the CD
using the laser to etch letters.

PCs in the past suffered from noisy low quality sound cards.
This is not true any more. Check out the RME Hammerfal DSP
cards. This will give you professional analog to digital
converters.

The PC is the future. With so many software tools out there,
you are better off going this route. It is cost effective,
more versatile, and offers hours of fun while you explore
and experiment with the myriad of options.

Tapas.

Beachbum,
I understand your feelings about spending any more right now. My wife is still "reminding" me of my purchase back in August. I don't see it stopping soon

If you check out http://www.synthzone.com/ubbs/Forum37/HTML/005281.html

There is a mention of a $99 recorder that is used with the PSR2000. Worth checking out I guess. Or just record when your wife is out of the house.

Good luck,
- Brian

Thanks to ALL of you for your input ... for me the current overriding factor is budget priorities!!! At home I am struggling with a dinosaur of a pc that is constantly reminding me that I am running out of memory space... (I THINK it's referring to the computer, not me ?!? ) so I would have to invest in a new pc first ... I'll be looking for a used cd recorder on e-bay, which should hold the expense down somewhat, and it will take the place of my current cd player, which I will try to sell on e-bay.... plus, I have a lot of old cassette recordings of the group that I played with for MANY years and a lot of 'vinyl' that I want to preserve on cd....
thnx agn to all of you ....
t.