Topic: Any other frustrated mac users?

[som]

I'm frustrated. I bought a dual processor mac G4 from a friend for Christmas and I think I'm firing up the old Windows ME machine for music stuff from now on. What I've found:

- No CDWav equivalent. Yes, I have managed with great effort to split up shows with Audacity and Peak, but there is nothing as simple and elegant as CDWav. There just isn't. (Oh, and fon't forget to fix those SBE's!)

- No CDRWin equivalent. I have Toast, but have to remember to change the 2 second gap *every time* I burn.

- No EAC equivalent. I use xACT which has a CD extraction utility, but the user interface and feedback aren't EAC quality.

- No GoldWave equivalent. I don't do a lot of tweaking, and for the little I do I've found Peak and Audacity too difficult.

I'm sure in all these cases there is other software I could find, but I don't want to spend a boatload of money when there are windows apps that are the standard, at least from what I can find,   

This morning I extracted a CD with xACT and then burned it with Toast. Listening to it in the car I found that several tracks just ended in the middle and it went on to the next track! WTF! This is the 2nd time I've experienced this since getting the mac. I've never had anything like this happen with my Windows tools.

I'm kind of sad....I have heard such great things about the mac and was looking forward to a new experience in computing. At this point, though, I have shows that I am putting off tracking and burning 'cause it's such a pain with the mac tools. That's just not right.

And - to be honest - I'm not too wild about the mac interface in general. For instance, applications remain open even when all windows are closed. And some apps "open" with no window at all, just the title bar and a couple of toolbars. It's just....weird. I have a general sense that I'm "using software" vs. "using a computer". Maybe that's the "ease of use" that is supposedly so much better on a mac. I feel like there's a "layer of abstraction" between me and my computer.

Am I missing something here? Anyone else have a similar experience?

PS - I know this is like arguing religion. Fundamentalists need not respond! 

[ehren]

Well, I'm a mac user who just got a windows machine to use for music editing and as a media server. I didn't want to switch, but the price of new macs is through the roof for a fast desktop and that is ultimately why I went to the pc. I'm a graphic artist and I would never ever give up my powerbook for graphics/pre-press/every day computer tasks, but the windows software you speak of all kicks the macs ass.

My advice would be to pick up a copy of Sound Studio 3.0., it is pretty handy for splitting tracks and basic editing.

[cpatch]

- You can rip tracks onto the Mac simply by dragging them from the CD to any folder (or the desktop) on the Mac. You don't need an app to do this. (If you want to rip to MP3 then use iTunes with the following LAME encoder tool: http://blacktree.com/apps/iTunes-LAME)

- Check out Amadeus II at www.hairersoft.com/Amadeus.html for a more intuitive two-track alternative to Audacity for splitting tracks and tweaking. A steal at $30.

- Have you looked at iTunes for CD burning? You can burn a playlist really easily and you can also set it to no gap between tracks in the Advanced preferences tab in the Burning subtab.

Craig

[spreetaper]

i have been frustrated with not having a cdwav like program.. well as convenient anyways..

but then again i have a pc and a mac and i try to be able to do everything on both and i purchased my mac more for educational reasons and just to broaden my tech background..

my next project is running ubuntu on my old P3 pc.. but thankfully i can port just about every windows app with wine so that solves that problem

[Kevin]

or go all out with pro tools.
I have a mac and PC, personally I love the mac (youll get used to the interface, and if not they have a windows like cover program--interface like windows).  As said previously just simply drag the files wherever you want, personally, only with CD's (not recorded shows) I just import them through Itunes.

[ashevillain]

This morning I extracted a CD with xACT and then burned it with Toast. Listening to it in the car I found that several tracks just ended in the middle and it went on to the next track!

I had this happen too. I wonder if it has anything to do with some sort of copy protection. In my case it seems like it cut off all tracks that were longer than 3 minutes right at 3 minutes.

[brianp]

Track your files in Peak, export tracks. Then go to xACT > fix SBE and output as .flac. That's 3 steps basically.

I have Toast 5.2 on a PowerBook G4, and Ive never had a problem with any cds playing in all sorts of players.

I usually just use iTunes when extracting cds and check use error correction in the preferences, again never any issues.

Sorry to hear your having problems, I'm sure you'll get it worked out and eventually come to love that Mac.

[spearheadtaper]

Sorry to hear your having problems, I'm sure you'll get it worked out and eventually come to love that Mac.

very true....when I first made the switch I kept the old pc in the other room....and the first few weeks I spent more time on the pc......slowly I figured out how to do what I was doing on the windows machine even better on a mac....   and eventually the pc got packed up and put in the attic

[som]

Sorry to hear your having problems, I'm sure you'll get it worked out and eventually come to love that Mac.

very true....when I first made the switch I kept the old pc in the other room....and the first few weeks I spent more time on the pc......slowly I figured out how to do what I was doing on the windows machine even better on a mac....   and eventually the pc got packed up and put in the attic

I've had the PC packed up since Christmas. It's been 2 1/2 months and I'm ready to pull it out again. I've successfully split tracks with a Peak, but it is a pain compared to CDWav. And the crap with the tracks cutting off after a few minutes.....

Track your files in Peak, export tracks. Then go to xACT > fix SBE and output as .flac. That's 3 steps basically.

If there is no SBE on a track, it deletes the track and doesn't convert it to FLAC. Plus, what if you just want to track it and burn to CD? Track with CDWav and burn to CD. That's only 2 steps. To burn to CD with the method above you still need to decode the flacs and burn to disc. 5 steps.

Anyway, I approached it with an open and willing mind, and I'm ready to go back to the PC for music stuff. Apparently others have reached the same conclusion.

[greenone]

Track your files in Peak, export tracks. Then go to xACT > fix SBE and output as .flac. That's 3 steps basically.

If there is no SBE on a track, it deletes the track and doesn't convert it to FLAC. Plus, what if you just want to track it and burn to CD? Track with CDWav and burn to CD. That's only 2 steps. To burn to CD with the method above you still need to decode the flacs and burn to disc. 5 steps.

It only deletes the track if you tell it to delete the source files...and you can fix SBE and output as wav/aiff if you want to avoid those last two steps.

As for the cutting tracks off after 3 minutes, I've NEVER heard of that happening.

For tracks out of order, I've seen that happen on occasion - I think it depends on whether you drag them to the app in the dock vs. dragging them to the Toast window itself.

I'm no fundamentalist or anything, but it stands to reason that you'll be most comfortable with whatever application you learned with first. What I'm reading is that most of the options you're looking for exist within the Mac world, just not the way you're used to. It's like going from eating with a fork and knife to eating with chopsticks - you can still get the job done, it'll just take a little longer until u get used to it.

[cpatch]

I had this happen too. I wonder if it has anything to do with some sort of copy protection. In my case it seems like it cut off all tracks that were longer than 3 minutes right at 3 minutes.

Are you guys using fully licensed copies of Toast?

Craig

[scb]

Well, I'm a mac user who just got a windows machine to use for music editing and as a media server. I didn't want to switch, but the price of new macs is through the roof for a fast desktop and that is ultimately why I went to the pc.

imac is pretty cheap

[scb]

I've had the PC packed up since Christmas. It's been 2 1/2 months and I'm ready to pull it out again. I've successfully split tracks with a Peak, but it is a pain compared to CDWav.

i can't stand peak.  i've never used audacity either.  i use spark, but i know sound studio (which is shareware, right?) gets the job done and it's not anymore steps that cdwav.

on a pc, you split tracks and then encode to flac or shn, right?  on the mac, you split tracks, and the encode to flac/shn can also fix sector boundary errors.  the same 2 steps

If there is no SBE on a track, it deletes the track and doesn't convert it to FLAC.

that's just plain wrong. xact doesn't delete  unless you tell it to delete the originals

Plus, what if you just want to track it and burn to CD? Track with CDWav and burn to CD. That's only 2 steps.

and it's only 2 steps on the mac.  track in whatever you want and burn. 

Anyway, I approached it with an open and willing mind, and I'm ready to go back to the PC for music stuff. Apparently others have reached the same conclusion.

for every mac user who switched to a pc for music stuff, i know 4 who switched from a pc to mac and will never go back

[krebsy]

Just a thought, you may want to get used to the basic mac interface first, then start learning how to do your music related stuff on it.  I had a hard time adjusting to the basic mac interface (programs still open even though windows have been closed, etc.), but once I let go of wanting it to function like windows, I got used to it. Actually it was more accepting the differences rather than getting used to them.  FWIW, I still do my editing, tracking, flacing, etc. on my windows computer just because I'm comfortable with it.  One of these days, I'll learn to do it on my mac.

[scb]

if i were to write a cdwav equivalent for the mac that outputted directly to flac (allowing the mac to do things in all of ONE step), would that make you happy?

[brianp]

"If there is no SBE on a track, it deletes the track and doesn't convert it to FLAC. Plus, what if you just want to track it and burn to CD? Track with CDWav and burn to CD. That's only 2 steps. To burn to CD with the method above you still need to decode the flacs and burn to disc. 5 steps."

I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure Toast will fix SBE's before it burns to CD so that is a non-issue on a Mac.

[Krispy D]

I do everything on a mac and love it.  it just takes time and a willingness to adjust.  It's like a new language.  even if you know 1000 words you can hardly communicate as well as a three year old!

I'll take that POS g4 off your hands if you want to throw it away...   

[scb]

"If there is no SBE on a track, it deletes the track and doesn't convert it to FLAC. Plus, what if you just want to track it and burn to CD? Track with CDWav and burn to CD. That's only 2 steps. To burn to CD with the method above you still need to decode the flacs and burn to disc. 5 steps."

I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure Toast will fix SBE's before it burns to CD so that is a non-issue on a Mac.

toast has always fixed sbes when burning

[Patrick]

if i were to write a cdwav equivalent for the mac that outputted directly to flac (allowing the mac to do things in all of ONE step), would that make you happy?

[scb]

it would defintiely take some work.  but it i think it can be done.  but there's a bunch of other stuff i need to get to...

[som]

If there is no SBE on a track, it deletes the track and doesn't convert it to FLAC.

that's just plain wrong. xact doesn't delete  unless you tell it to delete the originals

Yes, that's true. If you don't tell it to delete original files, it will leave the original file, but not encode it. So, you need to figure out which files did not encode, and do those seperately.

What would be cool is if in xACT, you could encode to FLAC with an option to fix SBE's, which is a little different than fixing SBE's with an option to encode to FLAC, know what I mean? "I will encode all of these files to FLAC and fix any SBE's along the way" vs. "I will see if any of these files have SBE errors, and if any do, I will fix the SBE's, and any files I fix I will encode to FLAC."

I do not mean to rag on xACT at all.....it is definitely the best mac software I've found for all this computer music stuff.

on a pc, you split tracks and then encode to flac or shn, right?  on the mac, you split tracks, and the encode to flac/shn can also fix sector boundary errors.  the same 2 steps

As often as not, I split tracks and burn to CD. Not everything I tape gets torrented/traded, and I keep the master DAT as the backup, so I don't always encode. However, if Toast fixes SBE's on the fly, that's good to know.

I had this happen too. I wonder if it has anything to do with some sort of copy protection. In my case it seems like it cut off all tracks that were longer than 3 minutes right at 3 minutes.

Are you guys using fully licensed copies of Toast?

My copy was on the G4 when I bought it, I assume it's fully licensed. I'll check on that. I think I'll also try to burn the CD with I-tunes.

if i were to write a cdwav equivalent for the mac that outputted directly to flac (allowing the mac to do things in all of ONE step), would that make you happy?

It just might!    Say what you want about all the sound editors that can split tracks, that can't match the ease of a tool that is *made* for splitting tracks. it is by far the biggest gap between doing all this stuff on a PC and doing it on a Mac.

So, yeah, that would be wonderful! And even more wonderful to have the option to output as flac or aif/wav. (Doesn't anyone burn CDs anymore?)

[Patrick]

it would defintiely take some work.  but it i think it can be done.  but there's a bunch of other stuff i need to get to...

I'll bet it would take some work.  Although it seems like such a simple program it really executes alot of steps at once.  

I was halfway kidding about the CDWav equivalent for OSX, it would be nice, but I'm not complaining about it not being around or anything  

[cpatch]

So, yeah, that would be wonderful! And even more wonderful to have the option to output as flac or aif/wav. (Doesn't anyone burn CDs anymore?)

You really do owe it to yourself to take a look at Amadeus II on the Mac (http://www.hairersoft.com/Amadeus.html)...for full control of the split points you simply scroll or play through the file, add markers at the split points, and then select the "Split According to Markers..." menu option and choose your file format (including AIFF, Wave, and FLAC).

If you want a more automated approach, there's a "Generate Markers" option that lets you search for gaps between tracks with full control over the minimum length and threshold level for a section to be considered a gap.

Once you have your markers, BTW, there is a "Modify Markers" menu option that allows you to align the positions of the markers to 75Hz to make sure the resulting CD is completely gapless. (You do have to use Toast or iTunes to burn the CD.)

If that doesn't cut it for you, Toast used to come (and may still come) with a helper application called CD Spin Doctor that looked a lot like CDWav. I never spent much time with it or CDWav so I couldn't tell you how similar they were in actual use, but it might be worth looking into.

Craig

[som]

+T's for all of the advice and suggestions....I guess there are a few more tools worth looking into.

[scb]

shouldn't you be at a keller williams show or something?

[Patrick]

No issues on my end 

[ashevillain]

if i were to write a cdwav equivalent for the mac that outputted directly to flac (allowing the mac to do things in all of ONE step), would that make you happy?

yes.

[Massive Dynamic]

You really do owe it to yourself to take a look at Amadeus II on the Mac (http://www.hairersoft.com/Amadeus.html)...for full control of the split points you simply scroll or play through the file, add markers at the split points, and then select the "Split According to Markers..." menu option and choose your file format (including AIFF, Wave, and FLAC).

If you want a more automated approach, there's a "Generate Markers" option that lets you search for gaps between tracks with full control over the minimum length and threshold level for a section to be considered a gap.

Once you have your markers, BTW, there is a "Modify Markers" menu option that allows you to align the positions of the markers to 75Hz to make sure the resulting CD is completely gapless. (You do have to use Toast or iTunes to burn the CD.)

If that doesn't cut it for you, Toast used to come (and may still come) with a helper application called CD Spin Doctor that looked a lot like CDWav. I never spent much time with it or CDWav so I couldn't tell you how similar they were in actual use, but it might be worth looking into.

Craig

Craig, I downloaded the trial version and I've looked at the manual, but haven't had a chance to play with it much. Will it take 24 bit files and dither for redbook CDs? If so, any idea what dither scheme it uses?

[cpatch]

Craig, I downloaded the trial version and I've looked at the manual, but haven't had a chance to play with it much. Will it take 24 bit files and dither for redbook CDs? If so, any idea what dither scheme it uses?

I know it handles 24-bit files (and arbitrary sampling rates) but I have no idea about the dithering...I just started working with 24-bit recently. I do know it supports VST plugins and either comes with one for dithering or there's a free one available. (I have one called "mda dither" installed but I don't remember if it came with the program or I downloaded it later.)

Craig

[som]

This morning I extracted a CD with xACT and then burned it with Toast. Listening to it in the car I found that several tracks just ended in the middle and it went on to the next track!

I had this happen too. I wonder if it has anything to do with some sort of copy protection. In my case it seems like it cut off all tracks that were longer than 3 minutes right at 3 minutes.

Okay, I burned the same extracted disc with ITunes instead of Toast. Now the tracks play all the way through, but turn to silence at the point where they wre cutting off! I listened again to the original disc and the tracks play all the way through with no problem.

Another off thing....the original disc is TAO. It's a CDR copy of a long out-of-print LP. Cheapo brand CDR. There are a couple of songs that segue without a break, which is what alerted me to the fact that it was TAO (there's a two second gap in the middle of the segue). However, when I extracted it, it looks like the TAO gaps were gone! There was no silence at the end or beginning of the two segued tracks. I extracted with xACT.

Tonight I'm going to listen to the tracks on the computer and see if the tracks that cutoff play okay on the computer. I expect that they will have some sort of problem since two burning softwares had problems with them.

I will also try to extract by just dragging the tracks from the CDR into a folder. I assume that this is not a very safe extraction method, correct?

[cpatch]

I will also try to extract by just dragging the tracks from the CDR into a folder. I assume that this is not a very safe extraction method, correct?

I've never had a problem with it, although I doubt it does much error checking if that's what you're asking.

Craig

[wbrisette]

I've had the PC packed up since Christmas. It's been 2 1/2 months and I'm ready to pull it out again. I've successfully split tracks with a Peak, but it is a pain compared to CDWav. And the crap with the tracks cutting off after a few minutes.....

I've used Peak since version 2, I've never had a problem with tracks cutting off. With version 5, they have made marking regions a no brainer. Find the spot you want, use cmd-cntrl-shift-R and you're done.

I have never understood why people freak out with the sector boundry thing. Nobody doing professional mastering I know screws around with it (I don't either) and nobody complains that commercial CDs sector boundries are screwed up. I've submitted a few final projects to their owners who had them turned into CDs and we've gotten zero complaints over the years. I've read what the SBE stuff is suppose to do, but I've always thought it was more folklore than science in actual practice. Those who don't believe, me feel free to download any of the stuff I've put up on archive. You won't hear clicking between tracks. It's just not there.

Anyhow, back to Peak, what version are folks using? I find Peak a no brainer when it comes to marking tracks and making CDs without having to set the gap, because the gap is determined by where you set your region markers.

Wayne

[scb]

I have never understood why people freak out with the sector boundry thing. Nobody doing professional mastering I know screws around with it (I don't either) and nobody complains that commercial CDs sector boundries are screwed up.

"commercial" burners might fix them when burning

[wbrisette]

"commercial" burners might fix them when burning

Maybe, I'm not sure what the entire process is when the glass master is made.

Wayne

[scb]

i've only heard the sector boundary problem on 1 cd player that i've owned.  it's definitely not something you'll hear on every player.  but it does exist

[ehren]

First off, I love macs, and have used them for 12 years. If I was using a computer for multi-track recording I'd use a mac. If I was using it for concert recording, I'd also use a mac.

In my situation though, the new computer is serving as a basic daw, but more so, it's simple data management and the pc does this faster and easier than a mac. I'm using the pc as a media server and a very basic editing platform, i.e., cdwave or wavelab>flac>foobar. These programs simply do not have equivalents on the mac, not that I've found. Sure you can use itunes, but it doesn't burn DAO. Sound Studio works ok but it's a cpu hog and it's buggy. Foobar is simply one of the most powerful audio apps I've used, it's a thousand times more powerful than a program like itunes. When I'm done converting my collection I should have around 500gigs of music. The pc is faster and cheaper to manage this kind of data. Keep in mind I'm typing this on my powerbook

The imac is a great machine at a great price, for a mac. I bought my dell through the dell outlet for $500, 3ghz p4 800fsb, 160g drive,  16x duaI layer dvd, 1g ram ect... I could buy a mac-mini for that price but the performance of a mac-mini is complete shit compared to this machine, I bought one for my sister last year and it's slow as hell. All I'm trying to say is that for basic music/data management the pc is a cheaper/better solution for me. I'm still lusting over one of the new mac book pros though!

[MattD]

Foobar is simply one of the most powerful audio apps I've used, it's a thousand times more powerful than a program like itunes.

The lack of a 24-bit CoreAudio capable FLAC player is the only reason my PC still sees use. I wish I knew enough about both the CA and FLAC APIs to write a program that did this.

[som]

This morning I extracted a CD with xACT and then burned it with Toast. Listening to it in the car I found that several tracks just ended in the middle and it went on to the next track!

I had this happen too. I wonder if it has anything to do with some sort of copy protection. In my case it seems like it cut off all tracks that were longer than 3 minutes right at 3 minutes.

Okay, I burned the same extracted disc with ITunes instead of Toast. Now the tracks play all the way through, but turn to silence at the point where they wre cutting off! I listened again to the original disc and the tracks play all the way through with no problem.

Another off thing....the original disc is TAO. It's a CDR copy of a long out-of-print LP. Cheapo brand CDR. There are a couple of songs that segue without a break, which is what alerted me to the fact that it was TAO (there's a two second gap in the middle of the segue). However, when I extracted it, it looks like the TAO gaps were gone! There was no silence at the end or beginning of the two segued tracks. I extracted with xACT.

Tonight I'm going to listen to the tracks on the computer and see if the tracks that cutoff play okay on the computer. I expect that they will have some sort of problem since two burning softwares had problems with them.

I will also try to extract by just dragging the tracks from the CDR into a folder. I assume that this is not a very safe extraction method, correct?

Curiouser and curiouser...I just listened to the tracks that don't burn properly and they sound fine on the computer. So xACT did a fine job of extracting, but *two* software programs mess up when burning the *same* two tracks. Weird.


Also, regarding SBE's, I've heard plenty of shows that have little blibs at the track boundary (not two-second TAO gaps, just little blips) and I always assumed that was the effect of SBE's. If it's not (like you're saying Wayne) then what is it?

[scb]

Curiouser and curiouser...I just listened to the tracks that don't burn properly and they sound fine on the computer. So xACT did a fine job of extracting, but *two* software programs mess up when burning the *same* two tracks. Weird.

maybe there's somethign wrong with your burner...

[taper420]

Hey, Spin Doctor is still included with Toast and I was relieved to find its basicaly the mac version of cdwav (but it can handle more formats). I grew up on pc's but love my G4. You will get used to it, it is well worth the transition.

[scb]

The imac is a great machine at a great price, for a mac. I bought my dell through the dell outlet for $500, 3ghz p4 800fsb, 160g drive,  16x duaI layer dvd, 1g ram ect... I could buy a mac-mini for that price but the performance of a mac-mini is complete shit compared to this machine,

but i bet the dell wasn't the size of 4 stacked cd cases...

[cpatch]

I bought my dell through the dell outlet for $500, 3ghz p4 800fsb, 160g drive,  16x duaI layer dvd, 1g ram ect... I could buy a mac-mini for that price but the performance of a mac-mini is complete shit compared to this machine, I bought one for my sister last year and it's slow as hell.

It's a little better as of 30 minutes ago...Apple just updated it to include either a 1.5GHz Intel Core Solo (3x faster) or a 1.67GHz Intel Core Duo (5x faster).

Craig

[ashevillain]

- No CDWav equivalent. Yes, I have managed with great effort to split up shows with Audacity and Peak, but there is nothing as simple and elegant as CDWav. There just isn't. (Oh, and fon't forget to fix those SBE's!)

I just figured something good out the other day about Sound Studio. I can't believe that I'm the 1st but I haven't found it posted yet so here it is:

Sound Studio guide to tracking files without SBE's (I've used version 3.0.1 and 3.0.2 ...I'm not sure if 2.2.4 works the same):

1. 'View' menu: Check 'Grid Shown' and 'Snap to Grid'

2. 'View' menu: 'Edit Grid' > Set 'Offset to first grid line' to 0:00.000 and 'Spacing between lines' to 0:01.000. If you want to you could use 'samples' (instead of h/m/s) in which case you would make 'Spacing between lines' = to a multiple of 75. I find 1 second grid lines to be more useful..especially since my brain already thinks in terms of h/m/s and not samples.

3. Now you can add your markers as usual. Since they will always snap to the nearest grid line and the nearest grid line will always be on a sector boundary there are no SBE's!

4. These changes do not need to be made everytime. They will stay put (unless you trash your prefs).
 
I've done this about 4-5 times now and it's worked everytime. I'll run the files through xACT and they come back with the "everything seems ok, nothing to fix" message everytime. This fact, combined with my increasing familiarity with Sound Studio, caused me to actually purchase the software! 

ps- pardon me if I've just stumbled upon something that everyone else already knew.

[ehren]

The imac is a great machine at a great price, for a mac. I bought my dell through the dell outlet for $500, 3ghz p4 800fsb, 160g drive,  16x duaI layer dvd, 1g ram ect... I could buy a mac-mini for that price but the performance of a mac-mini is complete shit compared to this machine,

but i bet the dell wasn't the size of 4 stacked cd cases...

This is very true, macs have a lot going for them, no doubt. For the average user a mac mini is great, but I want something I can stack hard drives in, swap out video cards, ect...More of a geek need and I can't afford a flippin G5 or I would have one, without question.