Correcting scratched CD's

[lesthegringo]

Guys, I am thinking of getting the gold version, as it has something that apparently helps correct files when ripping a CD that has become scratched. We have a few of those (goes with having kids and moving house) and would like to know whether the function does actually work well. If nothing else it may help resurrect a couple of our discs that would now be otherwise unplayable due to skipping and jumping

Thanks

Les

[MMFrLife]

the gold version, as it has something that apparently helps correct files when ripping a CD that has become scratched.

What feature(s) are you referring to?

[Peke]

The only way that it can help you is to use Secure RIP, also there is fair number of cheap two component scratch remove fluids I used them on few CDs and they helped but previously RIP before and RIP after then combine good tracks. Also it is good to rip on few different drive manufacturers as device lasers can differ in Frequency and width of light.

[AlanH]

I would use a cd scratch remover, then use exact audio copy, this will pinpoint any errors in the rip.

[lesthegringo]

Guys, what I was referring to was this in the 'Gold' version blurb

"Secure Ripping detects when a CD has been damaged and throttles the disc's rotation until it is sufficiently slow to deliver identical reads on at least 2 occasions. Once a disc has been ripped, MediaMonkey can validate that it was bit-perfect by comparing the resultant data to that of the AccurateRip database.

MediaMonkey delivers professional quality ripping in consumer-friendly software"

So, what exactly does this do?

Les

[MMFrLife]

It just means that it slows the ripping process down to read the sectors/data carefully as opposed to the usual normal/standard read that is fairly quick.
Secure Read helps with scratched discs, but it doesn't guarantee anything. AccurateRip verification just confirms if anyone else who's tried to rip the
same cd got the same results. Most people ripping the same cd will not have a messed up copy and will get results that reflect what it is supposed to do when ripped.

In agreement with Peke and AlanH, for best results, you should
clean the disc really good, use a scratch remover, and do the dual rips/mix that Peke suggests.

Your experience with the scratches will depend on basically 2 things:
1. How many discs are we talking about?
2. How badly scratched are they?
a. Are you talking about 1 or 2 scratches on just a few discs, whether light or deep?
b. Are you talking about several, what appear to be light scratches on many discs, that probably don't hurt the playback of the cd? But, you want
to be sure/careful and don't want to have to listen to them first to make sure.

2a. is easier to deal with.
2b., if you want to be certain there is no problem, would be difficult to do by hand if you want to use scratch remover.
A professional disc cleaning machine would be the easiest way on the second one. But, how many people privately own one?

[lesthegringo]

Thanks

So Accurate Rip just tells me what I already know about track, that it is skipping and jumping. While it might save me a few minutes by showing them in a list, realistically unless the CD can be fixed I'm no further forward.

Looking at the CD's they range from some that are covered with very fine scratches (not really surprising for a disc bought in 1991 I suppose), to a couple that actually look as if the outer edge of the data layer has started to degrade. There are one or two that I can't notice any defects on at all that don't want to play ball either, presumably that's something to do with the data layer too. I'll have to look to see if there is a polishing machine available to see if I can improve some of the scratched ones, but suspect the ones with the degraded data layer are gone forever

I just wondered whether there was something a bit like the Genome sequencing in Jurassic Park, whether it was something that checked for veracity of the CD, then if it was genuine could then look up a data base on line to copy and insert any corrupted parts of the track (except maybe not using frog DNA....)

I do have recordable CD's that have the most popular tracks on them that I used in conjunction with a Pioneer 50 CD player that worked like a Jukebox, so I actually have the .wav files for some of them. Is there any way that I can copy those over the corrupted tracks so that all the referencing data is kept?

Cheers

[MMFrLife]

Is there any way that I can copy those over the corrupted tracks so that all the referencing data is kept?

Like, some sort of way to overwrite only the corrupted data with the same data that's part of the clean .WAV copies?
I doubt it (probably not easily accessible process to the public). Maybe in some forensics lab somewhere they may have a way to piecemeal something
like that back together.

The likely solution is to just rip or transfer the .WAVs from the recordable cds to a drive and rerip them back to a disc if you have to have them on a disc.
But that won't necessarily recreate the original disc like you want them, unless you also have copies of the other non-corrupted tracks to put with the .WAV reproductions
and also remember the playback order from the messed up cds without being able to play/see them.

[lesthegringo]

It was worth asking, looks like I have some dead CD's

Interestingly, the old, really scratched ones (Hot City Nights, Rock City Nights) that I bought back in the early nineties look terrible; you'd think that there was no chance that they would play. They in fact play absolutely perfectly, both on a CD player and ripping to .WAV.

In contrast, some later CD's with minor blemishes cannot be read by either. I think the phrase 'they don't make 'em like they used to' applies, clearly the original manufacturing techniques were more robust

Les

[Peke]

do a test and look thru them to see the bulb both old and new ones. difference is amazing.

[NewtonBoy]

do a test and look thru them to see the bulb both old and new ones. difference is amazing.

Exactly. The only problems I have with my older CDs is Disc Rot. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disc_rot I lost several good albums to that over the years.

To quote "K;" "Looks like I'm going to have to buy the "White Album" again."

[Bob_m_54]

I bought a second hand commercial disc repair machine, that came up for sale at a very good price, and one thing I have found is that most discs that won't play or rip properly do so because of data layer problems, not surface scratches. About the only time surface scratches have any great effect is if they are concentric (follow the direction of the data), and quite substantial. The major faults are from discs that have even minor marking on the label side, especially discs that have minimal label material/paint? thickness. Like the ones that are just text printed straight onto the data protection layer. This is because the data layer has only a very thin protection layer on the label side, so small marks (scratches that don't even penetrate the label material) will still "distort" the silvered data layer. Actually, when looking at these marks from the play side of the disc, they are very hard to spot, and look like surface scratches. But if you look at an angle, you will see that surface scratches have a reflection, which looks like two identical scratches. Label side scratches don't appear with the same mirror image.

[RoadRunner]

Find someone that has iZotope RX5 Audio Editor..... I understand that it has tools to do exactly what you are looking for. However it's outta my pocketbook range....

[Bob_m_54]

Find someone that has iZotope RX5 Audio Editor..... I understand that it has tools to do exactly what you are looking for. However it's outta my pocketbook range....

That will work on vinyl, but not so much on CDs, unless it is only a very minor error. If the CD is damaged to the point it skips badly, or is unplayable, the data is lost, so all you can do is chop out the bad segment in the audio file and make it less noticeable. But you will have a missing segment in the track.