Distorted songs via CD

I had the same problem with three Warner's CDs and scoured the web for answers. I found this and it worked: use an older CD drive. I used an old external drive, connected via USB, and the ripped discs play perfectly in iTunes. I believe it is caused by disc that have pre-emphasis (amplification, basically) built-in to them. iTunes cannot handle it and, when ripped, the extra oomph distorts the sound. This, apparently, causes no problem for older CD drives and it is believed that Warner's have some agreement with drive manufacturers as a form of copy protection, but only with newer drives. The distortion was there even if only playing, not ripping them. Older ones work fine. Hi-if drives work fine, just the newer PC CD drives that have an issue.

Frankly, I don't know what the cause actually is, just that an old external CD drive solved it for me.

it is not to do with the CD's themselves as they play fine in CD players,

Don't be so sure. There are many CDs out there, especially from the Warner Brothers group, that play fine in audio players but are designed to add distortion when ripped. (Some folks refer to this as "defective by design.")

If the CDs were purchased from Amazon, you can download good MP3s using the Amazon Auto Rip capability and add them to your iTunes library, instead of ripping the CDs themselves. If they were purchased somewhere else, take them back and insist on a refund.

sophiesmith97 wrote:

Is there any other way it can be fixed at all? As I have borrowed the CD's from a friend

Both of those albums are easy to find in downloadable form, so it might be easier to just buy clean undistorted copies. In fact, Tom Petty - Wildflowers is now on sale at Amazon MP3 for $3.99 (or at the iTunes Store for the regular price of $9.99).

sophiesmith97 wrote:

As I have borrowed the CD's from a friend

😟

Purchasing the CDs or downloads from iTunes/Amazon (or other source) would be the best and legal way to do it.

I have exactly the same issue. Downloading MP3s is not a solution - I rip as lossless (usually both as FLAC for my music server and Apple Lossless for iTunes) MP3 is not the same quality, period. It happens - as far as I can see - with external drives. On my MacBook Pro (now sold) it was fine, it had an internal drive. On my Mac Pro and on my MacBook Air, using either SuperDrive or a brand new Toshiba drive, purchased for this reason, all I get is distortion and a smudge of music behind it. Not all CDs, just some.

Nothing illegal about ripping your own CDs now http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/mar/31/uk-copyright-tweak-legally-rip -cds-ipod

Mad Pierre wrote:

Nothing illegal about ripping your own CDs now http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/mar/31/uk-copyright-tweak-legally-rip -cds-ipod

Okay.

I never suggested it was illegal to rip your own CDs.

If you have, "borrowed the CD's from a friend", then they are not your own CDs..

No offence was intended, sorry.

I read the other replies but they don't seem to make sense. Obviously you want full fidelity, lossless rip so mp3 is out of the question. I encountered the same problem on "Love fro Levon" which is Blackbird Production Partners e.g. as far as I know not Warner. Further I can stream the same CD using iTunes from a USB CD player to an AirPlay amp with not problems whatsoever meaning that iTunes CAN deal with the signal off the CD. It just fails to rip it correctly (in my case only 1 song). Seems most likely this is just a bug in Apple software that needs fixing.

I had a very similar problem and decided to turn off the "error correction" feature on the preferences box. Song was then ripped correctly. I'm leaning towards the CD being somewhat error prone hence the variable results.

I encountered the same problem on "Love fro Levon" which is Blackbird Production Partners e.g. as far as I know not Warner.

Actually, the Blackbird Productions albums are distributed by Time/Life, which is owned by Time Warner.

I have experienced the distortion issue when importing to iTunes from a Superdrive but found it odd as it was a triple CD (Rickie Lee Jones compilation) and only two out of the three CDs were 'bad'. They played just fine in a regular CD player but even when playing directly from the Superdrive the huge distortion was there. I played around for a while then discovered that the 'good' disc (disc 1) was now also distorting which was very weird indeed, as I had just imported it cleanly.

I then tried (with disc 2) opening the CD on the desktop and dragging the files directly to the VLC icon in the dock.. Guess what? All the tracks played cleanly but even more weirdly, the CD in the drive now also played cleanly and at the next attempt also imported the files cleanly.

I tried the same with disc 3 and... it didn't work. Playback was distorted on iTunes, VLC and the CD. I was about to give up and buy a wind-up gramophone, when I thought I'd try dragging a track straight from the CD folder on the desktop to - of all things - Quicktime Player. Yup, the track played cleanly and instantly the whole CD would play cleanly through iTunes, then also imported cleanly.

This has to be a fixable software issue then, surely? It's certainly the most bizarrely erratic OS glitch I've some across to date, for sure. I'm wondering what other programs we could try if I can't get repeat success with Quicktime, should this ever happen again. Playback via Microsoft Word, p'raps.

This has to be a fixable software issue then, surely?

Maybe. Or it could be a peculiarity of Ms. Jones's CD set. Her Anthology is distributed on Rhino, a subsidiary of Warner. As noted earlier in the thread, Warner is often the common denominator in CDs that perform poorly. Have you experienced the same problems on other CDs?