CD Master Burn and todays 52x burners

I have just moved my recording system from Mac to PC and I have an issue. I tried burning a master CD for duplication, and the CD is coming up with errors and will not play properly, let alone being ready for duplication.

When making the masters out of Cubase 7 for each song, I exported to aif files, then brought those files into Studio One project’s page to make my master cd.

The burn went fine, with the exception that I can’t get it to burn slower than 12x. Always before on my Mac, I set the burn inside Toast to burn at 1x and burned to a gold mastering cd and all was well.

So, what is my issue on this PC? Is it the burner? Studio One coding? All I know is that I have to have a dependable burner to burn the masters at very slow speed to be able to make dependable burns for small run projects (200 copies and under).

And, in my Mac World I used Toast and Jam, as well as the Bias program, Peak…and of course, iTunes at times.

I am open to suggestions for a program to use on PC and the kind of drive I need to burn dependable CDs.
Do I need to think about Wavelab or changing Cubase to Nuendo for my production/mastering needs?

Suggestions…

Thanks

Try a different brand of CDs might be the cheapest first step…

What software are you using when you tried to burn (and got these errors)?
What type of files are you using in this program?
What type of CD blanks are you using?
Was the precess different than the one you listed below, using AIF and Studio 1 ?

I can’t say why you cannot burn slower than 12x. It could be a Studio 1 issue, Burner issue, or the CD blanks you are using.

I know that with An older version of Wavelab (5), I had to be sure that we purchased a compatible drive (not all work well with the software). And you had to have the right driver. See if Studio one says anything on their forum about compatibility issues with your burner model #.

Also check to see what the specs are for the burner, it may not support low speed burns.

When I first started using Wavelab, Plextor drives were recommended. But over time Plextor discontinued certain drives, and started selling rebranded “Lite-on” drives that did not play well with Wavelab-5.

For CD pressing I have used Wavelab-5 and Sony CD-Architect. They both have their plus and minuses.
CD-Architect may not be getting much more development.

Depending upon the way you work, there are some nice tie-in features when using Cubase & Wavelab.
We mix in Nuendo, export AES-31, open AES-31 file in wavelab, and burn.
When you import the AES, it will point to the desired audio files from your Nuendo/Cubase project, place them in a montage in the correct order (the order used in Cubendo, not alphabetical order). Wavelab can import start and end markers (that you manually inserted in Cubendo), or you can use the Wavelab wizard to place all start and end marks at once.

See if they have a demo version for you to try.
If you decide to use Wavelab, check the forum to see what drives people like, or what drives have issues.

No, As far as mastering is concerned you will gain nothing by moving to Nuendo (unless you happen to need the Nuendo specific features). You have the choice of preparing the files for CD-pressing in Nuendo or using a good mastering program to process the files before pressing. That is simply a matter of how you like to work. You can end up with the same result both ways.

one thing to note; I’d days gone by it was recommended to burn at a slow speed however in my experience these days CD’s are designed to be burned at high speed and I actually have problems if I try and burn at low speeds.


MC

All I know is, I can’t burn an audio cd that works on my Windows 7 machine. I tried it by using Studio One at 12x (fast in my opinion) and trying itunes at 4x (acceptable in my opinion) and neither cd could be read by my conventional audio cd player.

I would like to find a drive and a process that works for my pc, as I am doing all of my music work there. For now, I have to mix on the pc, and port the audio files over to my mac and burn the cd there.

I had a problem with Studio One when I had Slate FGX on my tracks, no matter what I tried, I couldn’t burn a cd properly, not even a cd image. I love Studio One for mastering, but now, I master in Studio One and then export the mastered tracks, then import back to a new project in Studio One to compile and burn the cd.