Recommendations for Successfully Burning CD for Competition

As a performer there isn’t much worse than being on stage, all excited and ready to go—and then have to nervously wait what seems like forever because your music won’t play. If you are providing a burned CD with your music for this year’s competition, we suggest using the following guidelines to minimize the likelihood of playback problems.

• Don’t burn your disc at maximum speed!!! The faster the disc is spinning when it’s written, the less defined the edges of the data pits will be. Burning at 16x or less greatly reduces read problems between different CD players.
• Use high-quality media—name brand discs with silver or gold undersides usually work best
• Turn off ALL other programs during burning. On PCs, also quit/disable as many of the system tray programs as possible (small icons on the right side of the toolbar near the clock). This allows your computer to devote more processing power to the burning process and reduces the likelihood of errors.
• Make sure your disc is clean and free of scratches.
• Always transport your disc in a case or protective sleeve. CD wallets or individual padded plastic sleeves provide better scratch protection than jewel cases.
• Verify your disc is readable on several different CD players before competition day.