The popular Jam CD‑burning software, from Adaptec, makes CD writing with a computer‑based recorder fast and easy.
I would be very grateful for your advice on what I need to burn CDs from my Mac G4/Digi 001/Pro Tools LE setup. I have read your reviews of different types of CD recorder in previous issues and would be very grateful for any help on the following points.
Would a stand‑alone CD recorder go well with a Digi 001? How would I connect it (would I need to get a SCSI card for my G4 or would I connect it via my Digi 001 box)? Would I need additional software? Or could I just use a CD writer from somewhere like PC World?
Adrian Mathie
Assistant Editor Debbie Poyser replies: As it happens, Adrian, you have the exact same setup as myself and my partner — Digi 001 and G4 Mac — and we've just bought a CD writer that's working well so far. We used to use a Philips stand‑alone CD writer, first sending mixes out of the optical S/PDIF digital output on the Digi 001 PCI card to our DAT recorder, then copying them to CD. (We could, of course, have gone direct to CD via the coaxial S/PDIF output on the Digi's breakout box.) This worked fine, and I'm sure that any of the current stand‑alone models would work fine in this way too, but when you have such a good computer it's a shame not to take advantage of it for CD‑writing.
We've now bought a Yamaha CRW8824 SX computer‑based SCSI CD writer — not from PC World, but from another general retailer — which came bundled with a version of Adaptec's Toast CD‑burning software and can write CDs at up to 8x normal speed. This is much faster than the real‑time writing that stand‑alone models offer. The Toast software allows CDs to be recorded, and you can also use the combination for data file backup, unlike a stand‑alone CD recorder. (Adaptec's Jam software, which you could buy to go with the CD writer, has more sophisticated audio CDburning powers; details of the software, along with a list of compatible drives, can be found at www.roxio.com/en/support/index.html — Paul White)
We bought a SCSI CD writer (and an Adaptec PCI SCSI card for the computer) because we also want to connect it to our sampler, but if you don't need this kind of facility, you could buy a USB or FireWire CD writer instead. Either way, try to buy from a Mac specialist, so you can get the Mac support software and Mac‑specific sales backup.