Andrew Hill - Time Lines

[bertrand]

OK - I'm going nuts. Time to resort to my friends at organissimo to help me resolve this.

I'm having a lot of trouble with Andrew Hill's new CD Time Lines. It seems to play OK on my CD player, but I hit some problems on my computer (both realplayer and iTunes). Near the end of track 7 and the beginning of track 8, I start getting pops and skips which are in different places at different times, just to make things more confusing. I'm on my third copy from Borders' already - they were the ones who recommended returning them, I was skeptical.

I first assumed it was my CD-ROM drive, but I have been continuously uploading CDs to my iPod with almost no problems. Once or twice (very rarely), I've had a song skip, but when I download again, it works OK, so I was ascribing this to dust or something. Also, I had A LOT of problems with the Andrew Hill Mosaic - Discs 2 and 3 were not playing properly on my computer near the end of the discs (and even not always on my player). Mosaic replaced them and in both cases, it worked on the third try (i.e. they transferred OK to my iPod and played on my player - I haven't played them on the player in a while, but the versions on my iPod seem to work). Also, the defective copies had some visible bumps on them near the end. Not the Time Lines.

So, what's the deal:

1) If it's my CD-ROM drive, how come it's only this CD that always acts up? I could replace it (it's the bottom one - the top drive has been screwed up for a while, so I need to replace that one anyway). But there's no guarantee that will work - I really have no reason to think this drive has a problem otherwise.

2) If it's the pressing, has anyone else had this problem? Should I send it to Blue Note? Who should I send it to? It seems stupid to bring it back to Borders' anymore.

3) Is this a secret copy protection thing?

If it seems to work on my player, I guess I could keep it and spend $10 to buy it on iTunes if I really want it in the iPod. Seems stupid though.

Any ideas, similar experience etc. etc?

Thanks in advance,

Bertrand.

[Chalupa]

Have you tried extracting w/ EAC and then converting the .wav files???

[Claude]

At what speed are you extracting the data? I always limit the speed to 12x and never had a problem with any CD.

[bertrand]

I need to clarify - I am not importing the data at all. I just put the CD in and use iTunes (or Realplayer) as the playback system. When I take the CD out, the files are not on my PC. So there is no issue of extraction speed.

I did try importing to iTunes and whatever playback problem I was having got carried over.

I have been extracting at the iTunes default speed. The sound is fine for me, and except for the rare problems mentioned above, everything is fine. In other words 500+ CDs went into iTunes at that speed without problems.

Bertrand.

Edited March 26, 2006 by bertrand

[skeith]

Bertrand

I was having similar problems playing it on my cd player - track 6 or 7 skipped.

Looking closely at the disc, I notice a slight blur (maybe oil from pressing process?)

After wiping the cd carefully - I got the skipping to stop.

[alocispepraluger102]

Bertrand

I was having similar problems playing it on my cd player - track 6 or 7 skipped.

Looking closely at the disc, I notice a slight blur (maybe oil from pressing process?)

After wiping the cd carefully - I got the skipping to stop.

sometimes, when a cd wont play for me i copy it onto the hard drive with(e.g. realplayer) and then make a cd from it and it plays.