Brasero hangs up burning wav audio cd doing normalizing tracks

**heboland** · 08-Sep-2013, 00:03

Hello! Opensuse 12.3-64 desktop 3.7.10 kernel, and Lxde up to date. Hope I can get some help with this here!

I created some wav files with audacity. Brasero takes the files in an audio project and recognizes the audio text from audacity.

Going to "burn" brings up an option menu of burn speed and open/closed disk. Taking the defaults gives a quick flash in the progress bar, then it prints out "Normalizing Tracks". Eventually canceling the hung normalize menu causes the blank media to eject untouched.

I think there are Brasero plug-ins missing, but yast > Sw Managment doesn't show any, nor does it have an update for Brasero.

Lxde has another burner which is part of nautilus. It invokes with

Code:

nautilus --no-default-window --no-desktop burn:///

This nautilus burner is a plain-jane job. It will burn the audacity wav files that gag Brasero, but it burns them as data files. That's all it knows.The nautilus burner will also burn mp3 files, but again only as data files.

It may be easier to get nautilus fuller featured than to make Brasero work. I dread the thought of trying to make k3b work for this simple application.

I would appreciate some help to get an audio cd burner working! Heboland.

**vazhavandan** · 08-Sep-2013, 00:45

heboland wrote:
>
> Hello! Opensuse 12.3-64 desktop 3.7.10 kernel, and Lxde up to date. Hope
> I can get some help with this here!
>
> I created some wav files with audacity. Brasero takes the files in an
> audio project and recognizes the audio text from audacity.
>
> Going to "burn" brings up an option menu of burn speed and open/closed
> disk. Taking the defaults gives a quick flash in the progress bar, then
> it prints out "Normalizing Tracks". Eventually canceling the hung
> normalize menu causes the blank media to eject untouched.
>
> I think there are Brasero plug-ins missing, but yast > Sw Managment
> doesn't show any, nor does it have an update for Brasero.
>
> Lxde has another burner which is part of nautilus. It invokes with
>
> Code:
> --------------------
> nautilus --no-default-window --no-desktop burn:///
> --------------------
>
>
> This nautilus burner is a plain-jane job. It will burn the audacity wav
> files that gag Brasero, but it burns them as data files. That's all it
> knows.The nautilus burner will also burn mp3 files, but again only as
> data files.
>
> It may be easier to get nautilus fuller featured than to make Brasero
> work. I dread the thought of trying to make k3b work for this simple
> application.
>
> I would appreciate some help to get an audio cd burner working!
> Heboland.
>
>
Did you try xfburn ? It seems to be light weight burner with a good
reputation.

--
GNOME 3.6.2
openSUSE Release 12.3 (Dartmouth) 64-bit
Kernel Linux 3.7.10-1.16-desktop

**heboland** · 08-Sep-2013, 19:46

Thanks for the reply vazhavandan!

If I may, let me respond with a summary followed by details. My Brasero revision is 3.6.1.

The xfburn did burn my audio files. It was already installed, but for some reason, it didn't "just work". I took the plunge and installed k3b. For me the install went easily and it burned the WAV and MP3 files OK.

Details follow:

For some reason the xfburn gui didn't see my blank CD. To get it to work, I invoked it from a shell as follows:

Code:

xfburn --audio-composition /home/frank/Sounds/BobW/Cd1tracks/*.wav

A side note here is that xfburn converts mp3 files to wav on the fly if asked to burn mp3 files.

My dread of a k3b install from past experience is that a k3b version installs that's incompatible with it's codecs. Again in the past, if both k3b and the codecs are selected for install only k3b installs. It's newer than the codecs, so a complicated list of install options follows.

For this install, I selected the codecs for install and that pulled in the k3b dependency. What I did worked slick, but the truth may be the k3b install "just works" too. To me k3b is an elegant app, but the problem for me was to get all it's pieces I needed to work together.

So k3b has and advanced tab that has a "normalize" checkbox. If I checked that, I got this popup:

K3b uses normalize (Normalize) to normalize audio tracks. In order to use this functionality, please install it first.

My guess is that this is what Brasero wanted also, but for me failed silently, and didn't offer an option of not requiring normalization.

Now on to a k3b behavior that may expose some audio technical ignorance on my part. With audacity, I digitized a cassette tape and exported each selected tune into both WAV and MP3.

Without normalization k3b burned separate WAV CDs for each side of the cassette, but the size of the MP3 files for both sides of the cassette was only 100MB.

Attempting to burn the 100MB collection of MP3 files with k3b on a single 700MB CD showed a tally at the bottom of the "add file" window of 96.07 minutes - exceeded by 16.07. Trying to burn that as is caused k3b not to recognize my blank CD. Apparently k3b wanted a larger capacity media to pick up the 16 minute overflow.

By removing enough "minutes" (6 tunes) I burned a First 24 and a Last 24 pair of CDs. So either audio CDs have a time limit, or k3b is converting the MP3 files to something bigger like WAV.

I would like to know why this happened, but I can live without knowing the magic. Hopefully if someone else with similar problems finds this thread, the deatails may have some value. Heboland.

**vazhavandan** · 08-Sep-2013, 20:44

heboland wrote:
>
> Thanks for the reply vazhavandan!
>
> If I may, let me respond with a summary followed by details. My Brasero
> revision is 3.6.1.
>
> The xfburn did burn my audio files. It was already installed, but for
> some reason, it didn't "just work". I took the plunge and installed k3b.
> For me the install went easily and it burned the WAV and MP3 files OK.
>
> Details follow:
>
> For some reason the xfburn gui didn't see my blank CD. To get it to
> work, I invoked it from a shell as follows:
>
> Code:
> --------------------
> xfburn --audio-composition /home/frank/Sounds/BobW/Cd1tracks/*.wav
> --------------------
> A side note here is that xfburn converts mp3 files to wav on the fly if
> asked to burn mp3 files.
>
> My dread of a k3b install from past experience is that a k3b version
> installs that's incompatible with it's codecs. Again in the past, if
> both k3b and the codecs are selected for install only k3b installs. It's
> newer than the codecs, so a complicated list of install options follows.
>
> For this install, I selected the codecs for install and that pulled in
> the k3b dependency. What I did worked slick, but the truth may be the
> k3b install "just works" too. To me k3b is an elegant app, but the
> problem for me was to get all it's pieces I needed to work together.
>
> So k3b has and advanced tab that has a "normalize" checkbox. If I
> checked that, I got this popup:
>> K3b uses normalize ('Normalize' (http://normalize.nongnu.org/)) to
>> normalize audio tracks. In order to use this functionality, please
>> install it first.
>
> My guess is that this is what Brasero wanted also, but for me failed
> silently, and didn't offer an option of not requiring normalization.
>
> Now on to a k3b behavior that may expose some audio technical ignorance
> on my part. With audacity, I digitized a cassette tape and exported each
> selected tune into both WAV and MP3.
>
> Without normalization k3b burned separate WAV CDs for each side of the
> cassette, but the size of the MP3 files for both sides of the cassette
> was only 100MB.
>
> Attempting to burn the 100MB collection of MP3 files with k3b on a
> single 700MB CD showed a tally at the bottom of the "add file" window of
> 96.07 minutes - exceeded by 16.07. Trying to burn that as is caused k3b
> not to recognize my blank CD. Apparently k3b wanted a larger capacity
> media to pick up the 16 minute overflow.
>
> By removing enough "minutes" (6 tunes) I burned a First 24 and a Last 24
> pair of CDs. So either audio CDs have a time limit, or k3b is converting
> the MP3 files to something bigger like WAV.
>
> I would like to know why this happened, but I can live without knowing
> the magic. Hopefully if someone else with similar problems finds this
> thread, the deatails may have some value. Heboland.
>
>
If you want to play music in plain *old* cd players then they don't
recognize mp3 file format. This is because mp3 is a compressed file
format *similar* to "zip/tar" file for a text file. If the old player
doesn't understand mp3 then you have no other go other than converting
the mp3s into cda files(this automatically done by most of the cd
burning software if you create an audio project). cda file are
uncompressed and will be about many times the size of the mp3 files you
are trying to burn.

If you want to create a music cd of mp3 format you need to burn as a
data disc. No specialised audio project is required in cd/dvd burners.
Most of the recent cd/dvd players do support mp3 file format and you can
just burn a huge *Data* DVD with a lot of mp3s(hundreds) and keep
playing them for days. For example:- If you have about 500 mp3s on a
data DVD then it will play for atleast 1.5 days depending on the various
factors like mp3 bitrate
Mp3 Bitrate:- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bit_rate#MP3

--
GNOME 3.6.2
openSUSE Release 12.3 (Dartmouth) 64-bit
Kernel Linux 3.7.10-1.16-desktop

**hcvv** · 09-Sep-2013, 06:43

I do not understand all of what you say, but when you talk about converting MP3 to WAV and/or vv. shouldn't this thread been in the Multimedia forum, where I have no doubt those that know something about these formats are lurking?

When you want me to move this to Multimedia, please ask so in a post here (and please do not doublepost).

**heboland** · 09-Sep-2013, 10:14

Thank you hcvv, vazhavandan!

hcvv, thanks for your offer to move the thread to MM, but I think I have all I need from what I got here. My original thread topic was Brasero which seems to fit here.

vazhavandan, thanks for your explanation of audio CD formats. My DVD player will play the mp3 tunes from a data CD, but my truck player needs an audio format.

For me this thread is complete, but I won't mark it as solved because the Brasero is still broken. Apparently both Brasero and kb3 can use normalize when burning an audio CD. Normalize is a non-gnu application. kb3 will use it as an advanced option where Brasero uses normalize inline and fails silently if it can't find it. Heboland.

**vazhavandan** · 09-Sep-2013, 20:51

heboland wrote:
>
> Thank you hcvv, vazhavandan!
>
> hcvv, thanks for your offer to move the thread to MM, but I think I have
> all I need from what I got here. My original thread topic was Brasero
> which seems to fit here.
>
> vazhavandan, thanks for your explanation of audio CD formats. My DVD
> player will play the mp3 tunes from a data CD, but my truck player needs
> an audio format.
>
> For me this thread is complete, but I won't mark it as solved because
> the Brasero is still broken. Apparently both Brasero and kb3 can use
> normalize when burning an audio CD. Normalize is a non-gnu application.
> kb3 will use it as an advanced option where Brasero uses normalize
> inline and fails silently if it can't find it. Heboland.
>
>

Did you try and install (normalize - An Audio File Volume Normalizer)
from packman and try to burn with Brasero ?
--
GNOME 3.6.2
openSUSE Release 12.3 (Dartmouth) 64-bit
Kernel Linux 3.7.10-1.16-desktop

**heboland** · 09-Sep-2013, 23:26

Thanks for your question vazhavandan!

No I didn't try to find normalize. When k3b gave me that non-gnu link for normalize, I expected that would be a third party install which would not be kept up to day by opensuse.

If I can get normalize from packman I’ll try that. I suppose apps like flash player and adobe reader are also non-gnu apps.

OK, searching for normalize with the yast > SW manager gets a hit from my configured repros. It's a small app and it's installed now complete with man page.

It's too late to try it tonight, but I'll try it soon and report back. My CD stock is running low! Heboland.

**heboland** · 15-Sep-2013, 11:50

Replying back to myself, I've had a chance to try to burn an audio CD with Brasero after I installed normalize using yast > SW Manager. I think this normalize application came from packman.

Brasero is still behaving as before, attempting to normalize the track volumes unconditionally. It hangs as tho the normalize it needs isn't what I installed or not where Brasero is looking for it. No errors show on the display or in dmesg.

k3b uses the installed normalize now, but highlights a contradiction between the capabilities of the installed normalize and on-the-fly burning. Disabling OTF burning allows normalize to function and k3b burns the CD OK.

I've since discovered regarding Xfburn. There is a flame colored button that allows my CD burn drive to be recognized. It's no longer necessary for me to invoke Xfburn from a terminal to get it to work. Xfburn does burn an audio CD successfully. Apparently TAO is it's default method which I wanted, and the opposite of the k3b default of DAO.

Last and a bit off topic is that none of these burners has been able to burn an audio CD that would play in older automotive players. I've tried Memorex and Maxwell CD-Rs with the same results. I will take this topic to multimedia if I can't figure it out by myself. I'm thinking I'll have to try installing Windows Media Player as a Wine application. Heboland.