Through it’s Paces…
Hi n-Trackers:
Now that I’ve found and got v5’s volume evolution issue resolved I’m looking at some of the “Tool-Bar” features that I may use sometime Down-the-Road… One feature I’ve been looking at is, Writing and Burning audio files from with-in the n-Track Desk…
I want to write a series of tracks in a specified sequence/order to archive this session/project I’m working on…
So, I opened the Burning utility to see how it might serve my request… I “Dragged” the files/tracks in the order I chose and burnt the files from the n-Track Desk… All worked just fine till I repro’d the burnt disk… The files/tracks did not appear in the order I choose to list/burn them in… It appears that the utility writes the files in an alpha/numeric order… as opposed to writing the files in the chosen order…
If a few of you who might be reading this topic, could you do a CD from the n-Track “Burn Utility” to confirm this and report your findings? I’d be interested in knowing if this feature works on your setups … the same way…
Quite possibly, Flavio might be able to look at this “Coding” and alter the way the utility writes the tracks/files to a CD… if-in-fact that is the default configuration…
Bill…
Hi Bill
I know you have been with N for a good few years now, below is how to burn a song to a CD and have the song re-appear exactly in the same order you saved it - it is easier to do than may seem described below - i have tried to make it as clear as i can so it will be easy for a novice to understand yet not to insult the inteligence of the experienced user.
Try this
create 2 new folders on your c drive (or somewhere easy to remember)
name one PACKED SONG FOLDER and the other UNPACKED SONG FOLDER -
copy ANY 16 short wave files (lets say from a sample CD) into PACKED SONG FOLDER -
in windows explorer, right click on top file to bring up properties and use ‘RENAME’ to change title to TRACK ONE.wav - then do the same for the second file calling it TRACK TWO.wav - continue untill you have renamed all tracks (TRACK 1 through to TRACK SIXTEEN) -
open N, and use ‘TRACK/INSERT WAVE FILE’ and navigate your way to the ‘PACKED SONG FOLDER’ open folder and import all 16 tracks in order (track one contains file called TRACK ONE.wav etc) -
then using the new +sign feature stagger tracks 2 through to 16 at random across the timeline - leave track 1 in imported position -
if you want to be really perdantic, double click on TRACK 1 to bring up the properties box, (if lower part of box is empty, click on ‘wave file properties >>’ (when fully visable) look at the ‘OFFSET’ box it will say 00.00.00 - make a note of this and also do the same for the other 15 tracks - you can also enter comments into the upper ‘comments’ box to help you remember such things as the date of recording etc -
now go to fILE/SAVE AS, navigate you way to the folder you called ‘PACKED SONG FOLDER’ click on the yelllow folder to open it (the folder will be empty) in the ‘File name’ box give your song a name (something like) PACKED SONG TEST - then click on the box marked ‘Save as type’ and select 'Packed song file (*.sgw) - click on save -
a new box will appear on the screen - this box has a slider on it - move slider to the far right till righthand box says ‘No compression’ make sure the ‘Include’ section is set to ‘all tracks’ - click OK - N will save tracks - when finisher close N
re-open N and using FILE/OPEN navigate your way to the ‘PACKED SONG FOLDER’, open folder and click on the file you have just saved - a new box will appear, this box asks you where you want to unpack the saved file to, navigate your way to ‘UNPACKED SONG FOLDER’ click OK, after a short delay the file will load and you will see your song appear exactly as you saved it - you can check this by comparing the ‘Offset’ values against those you noted down -
if all is well?. close N - you can now use your CD burning software to archive your track - drop and drag the file you called 'PACKED SONG TEST.sgw which you saved in the ‘PACKED SONG FOLDER’ to your burning software, put a ‘DATA’ CD in drive and burn CD -
open N and navigate your way to your CD drive, click on the track you have just burnt and do as above to send track to UNPACKED SONG FOLDER - song should appear from CD exactly as it did from your hard drive -
yours Dr J
Hi DR Jackrabbit:
Thanks for your reply and well written directions to this process… I’ve never used n-Track to create a CD from a completed project yet… I think I can see how to complete this task from you post… It’s not as easy as a drag-and-drop, though… I have a 10-song project in progress… I was surprised that the end/finished product didn’t play as I loaded the song list… I guess nothing comes easy…
I just did the deed in Nero v7.5.1.1 just before I checked my mail to see you replied to this thread… I’m playing the CD now and the songs are written to the CD exactly as I Drag-and-Dropped the files into the “Burn List”… on that utility…
The Nero Properties of that utility is a staggering 189 megs+… So I can see there are a whole lotta things going on inside that application…
Nothing comes easy, I guess… But It would be nice to have the n-Track burn utility write the files in the “Given Order”, as opposed to an alpha/numeric order…
Bill…
Hi Bill
see where you are coming from now -
from my point of view it seems that NERO is performing some form of alphabetical sort on your tracks before it burns them - there may be a setting you can alter? -
are you burning a DATA CD for playing back on a PC or an audio CD for playing back on a CD player ?
for PC playback you could fool NERO (as many romans did) (ha ha joke) by adding the prefix ‘track’ and then the ‘track number’ before your track title
ie
track 1 its always cold
track 2 in the north
track 3 wish i lived
track 4 in california
etc
however Windows may display track 10 before track 1 (my win2k does that - are you still on 98se of have you upgraded ?) - you could try putting all of your tracks in a folder and burn the folder to the CD then see what happens -
when you make a DATA CD NERO takes it upon itself to FINALISE the CD automatically (that is, to make it impossible to add anything else to the CD -
what you need is software that allows you to add your tracks to the CD one at a time and only FINALISE it when you say so - this way your tracks go onto and play back in the correct order, or look at NEROs settings to see if you can de-activate automatic finalise - remember software is now designed for the PLUG and PLAY generation who want the simplest possible way of getting from A to B which means more and more options are hidden away in some hard to understand menu -
if you are making an audio CD, things can be a little more complicated as you cant burn a folder to it - but NERO (when he is not fiddleing with yout tracks) may burn them in the correct order - try making an audio CD and see what happens -
contrary to common belief there is a difference between the coating on a AUDIO CD and a DATA CD the coating (recording surface) on an audio CD is designed to melt quicker so giving clearly defined boundaries between the pits it generates in the surface - cheap DATA CDs can smear the edges of the pits which lead to poor sound quality and even loss of audio or great distortion - it may sound good today but tommorow when the CD has cooled down and the surface has settled it may be unuseable, so lay in a stock of quality AUDIO CDs from a well known manufacturer and get known for producing TOP QUALITY SOUND - its well worth the extra few cents that an audio CD costs
when i make an audio CD i do it this way -
i open the track in N - (always N as it has the best sounding audio engine available) i feed the output from my M Audio sound card into my mixer from where it then goes into my mastering rack which contains a hardware limiter, hardware compressor and a hardware enhancer on then to a FOSTEX professioal CD recorder by which i can monitor the audio on my speakers and can preview exactly what will be recorded onto the CD - i then burn eack tracks in the order i want in 1 to 1 realtime which greatly improves the recording quality -
this may seem OTT but there is a valid reason, i dont use plugins as they slow N down (not only N but all DAWs) my mixer a Behringer 3216 has a whole range of facilities which work in realtime so keeping the PC running at max speed this lessons the chance of ‘GLITCH’S’ -
having a small recording studio this is very important - as it can get rather expensive in both time and CDs if Windows decides to blow its nose halfway through recording, keeping the PC running at max speed and useing the highest buffer setting for ASIO on the soundcard for playback ususlly overcomes Windows generated problems it also means that it is much easier to obtain THE SOUND that the client wants without spending hours with the mouse altering this and that when all i have to do is turn a few knobs -
i know the above is of no real help to you if you are stuck with just a PC and a PRAYER - however if you can find someone with a 'LIVE 1 to 1 recorder locally i suggest using that -
if you want to make more than i copy of your project i suggest you make the best sounding CD you can then send it away to a studio/mastering house and have them record the tracks professionally in the order you state - this is not so expensive as it sounds and then you will have a master CD to produce your own copies from -
YES - you are right things are never easy - when i was looking for a location to put my studio i found a nice room, good rent and reasonably quiet, so i took the room and set up my equipment - great - NO - this was at the beginning of last summer, what i did not realise was that the room was by a very noisy pump for the central heating which had to supply the whole block (VERY BIG PUMP) so i had to spend all winter adding more and more sound proofing to my vocal recording booth as this pump got louder and louder as it got colder and colder -
keep up the good work Bill.
yours DR J
Hi DR Jackrabbit:
Nero Utility is writing the files in the correct order… That utility appears to be the only burning utility I have that does… this operation…
It’s the n-track utility and several other burning utilities that is altering the order of the written files.
When I write DATA Files it’s not important what order they are written in… well… to some degree…maybe… I’ve never spent much time before or in the past here in my operation taking tracks to the finished product. Most of the work I do here ends up as DATA Files… as opposed to CD Playable Product… That is generally left in the hands of someone else…
It appears that the burning utility of n-Track skipps the process or doesn’t include the process of “End Product” beyond alpha numeric Burning…
I am hoping that Flavio might expand this “Writing Utility” to include the process beyond the Alpha-Numeric burnning/order step…
Bill…
Also remember …
When you number things to be sorted by a computer, you should start with at least two leading zeroes (001,002,003,etc.). When the software sorts, it reads the first digits in the number. That’s why 10 will be put at the beginning of a list instead of in its proper place. The computer reads the first digit in the number 10 and places it first as opposed to sorting through 001 vs. 010 where 010 is down the list where it belongs.
Did I make any sense at all…? 
cliff
Hi g8torcliff:
That clears another conundrum up… I tried doing the numerical list by only using one zero… It didn’t want to work… I see now it requires two zeros to make that work… 
Bill…