Catching Up

[tamaranth]

Have not been on LJ for a couple of days. Have failed to catch up. Sorry if I missed your vital posts!

Wasn't online yesterday because I was on a Dreamweaver course (half-price via boss's girlfriend, or I wouldn't have bothered). There were two of us on the course. I've been designing (or possibly 'committing') websites for ten years. The other delegate was a primary school teacher who was trying to put together a site on her friend's Mac, but wasn't very computer-literate. ("Which one's the Return key?") I didn't hold out much hope of learning anything: but I was very pleasantly surprised. The trainer was excellent, and managed to gear the day so that both of us benefitted. Was amazed.

Last night I started compiling a Christmas CD. I have hit two problems. Can you help? (Have given up, for reasons of Last Posting Dates, on including these two tracks on the CD: but would very much like to have the opportunity in future!)

1) I have an MP3 that plays perfectly but that I've never been able to burn to CD using Windows Media Thing. Is there any app/utility I can use to 'fix' a 'broken' MP3? Or any other way of getting it burnable? Or, failing that, can anyone supply a copy of X's 'We're Having Much More Fun (in the New World)'?

2) Last week I went to a fab gig and bought the support band's CD. But I can't listen to it on the iPod, because as soon as I put it into the CD drive it starts up a Flash app. Explorer shows me nothing that's recognisable as music: there are five tracks on the CD, and (allegedly) only four files. Am feeling cheated. Any ideas?

Ooooh, look, blue sky! But damnably am at Werk.

Comments

PC or Mac?

[the-magician.livejournal.com]

I have various MP3 "cleaner" programs I've bought recently. PC World have one or two around the 25 pound mark. There must be cheaper copies around but I don't know what they are.

If you're using a PC, then before you put the CD in the drive, hold down the SHIFT key, which stops Windows running the first track (which is likely to be an antipiracy/anticopy program).

[drplokta]

Hold down the shift key while you insert the CD (assuming you're on Windows), and you should be able to rip it as normal with iTunes. This fantastically subtle and high-tech procedure will disable most CD copy protection schemes, and I could go to jail in the US for giving you this information. It stops Windows autoplaying the software on the CD.

[tamaranth.livejournal.com]

I thought I'd done that ... must try harder!
I promise not to tell George Bush that I heard it from you (and from the_magician ...)

Re: PC or Mac?

[tamaranth.livejournal.com]

PC, I'm afraid ...
If I were to upload the MP3 at some point, would you be able to test your program(s) on it? I'm really not sure there's anything wrong with it at all (other tracks from the same rip can be burnt without problems) and as it's a one-off ...

PC is good!

[the-magician.livejournal.com]

... because that SHIFT key thing for bypassing the auto-run on the CD drive only works on PCs (as far as I know).

I'll be happy to do something with the MP3 but since I don't have my PC hooked up to the internet at the moment (I'm using someone else's PC to type this, and they use a 56k modem that gets 33k on very good days) it won't be for a little while ... (if you're going to be at B&Cs on Saturday, I could collect a CD-R or something and post you back the track after it's been "cleaned")

[lproven.livejournal.com]

Agreed - but AFAIK it only works if you do it /first time./ If you don't, it installs its antipiracyware and you're stuffed.

[rayb.livejournal.com]

I found MP3 Tag Studio to be excellent at fixing 'bad' MP3s (usually VBR ones). You can download a fully-functional copy from http://www.magnusbrading.com/mp3ts/. Select the 'Repair MP3' tab from the 'File Tools' button, and try the various options presented. This has worked many times for me.

Burning to CD is a lot easier with something like Nero, Roxio Easy CD Creator or iTunes than using whatever M$ provide.

You don't say whether the to-be-burnt disc is audio or data. If the former, note that some burning software has difficulty decoding MP3 to raw WAV on the fly (required for an audio disc). One way round this is to feed the problematic MP3 through, say, WinAmp first, and have that program convert it to wav rather than play it. Then, burn the resulting wav instead.

Do you still need a copy of X? I may know of a source.

Regarding the 'flash' thing... the shift key trick sometimes works, but as Liam pointed out it may already have done its damage. Look in your startup group & associated registry locations for loader/handler programs that shouldn't be there. Also if you download and install TweakUI http://www.annoyances.org/exec/show/tweakui then you can control what happens when you insert discs (e.g., "do nothing"). Alternately put the disk in a non-Windows machine; 99% of the time the auto-play thingy will not even attempt to load.

Try looking at your disc with Exact Audio Copy http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/ - it can usually see 'music' and 'data' tracks and enable you to rip just the bits you want.

R

[tamaranth.livejournal.com]

*waves*
- downloading Tag Studio right now, thanks!
- have had horrible problems using anything but built-in Windows stuff to burn CDs. Nero just wouldn't. And to be fair, the problems I've had burning CDs have been limited to a couple of MP3s which never burn; everything else has been lovely.
- audio CDs. Shall try that WAV route at some point.
- I'm going to try EAC on the Northern Remedy CD.
- and I'm installing TweakUI. (Would usually hold down shift key -- but had no idea there was multimedia on the audio CD, and just wanted to quickly rip it, not to be shown links to band's pretty, though content-free, website, etc).

Many thanks for advice! Your copy, sans X / Northern Remedy, will be winging its way Real Soon. The cover is nice.

And may take you up on the X...

[tamaranth.livejournal.com]

Well, Northern Remedy successfully MP3'd and neatly tagged! But Tag Studio refuses to even open my X MP3s -- any of 'em -- though only one track has the 'burn' problem. Will experiment more later, when not quite so pre-Christmassy. Meanwhile, would you like one of the CDs with the bonus track? Or not?