Skipping Audio CD Burns - Nero 7, mp3pro.dll

[LCBXX]

I have posted many solutions on various forum threads now regarding this problem and perhaps there is someone reading MyADSL that may be experinecing the same issue.

If you are using Nero 7 (some later versions of Nero 6 too), you may find that Nero burns audio CDs created from MP3s that seem to skip during playback. This onlt happens when you burn MP3s encoded with VBR (Variable Bit-Rate) and not CBR (Constant Bit-Rate, 192k, 256k etc). This occurrence is random, depending on the hardware and OS configuration, from what I could determine during my investigations, and does not occur on all PC running Nero 7.

Anyway, if you are one of those frustrated ones experiencing this problem, here is a possible solution. I have tried and tested it on over 20 PCs with the same problem, and it works.

The fault lies with the mp3pro.dll, located by default under C:\Program Files\Common Files\Ahead\AudioPlugins, that Nero used to decompress MP3s before burning them as normal CD Audio.
To fix the problem, you need to replace the mp3pro.dll with and earlier version than 2.0.4.8. On my PC, I had to go as low as version 2.0.1.1 (Nero 6.0.0.4) for the problem to go away! On my laptop I only went down to version 2.0.4.7 (from Nero 6.0.0.18) for it to work.

To test weather your replacement mp3pro.dll version is working without burning another CD that might potentially skip, just play the track (that normally skips) directly from the compilation window after dragging it over. If it plays fine, then the mp3pro.dll file you have resolved your problem and all your Audio CDs from there onwards will be OK!

I'm not posting links to the various mp3pro.dll versions as the links are mostly alive for only a few days or weeks before being broken. A bit of Googling should get you to the version you need.

 

[ant1b0dy]

Thanks for the tip - I've been having the same problems, including some mp3s sounding very tinny.

I've been converting the mp3s to WAV files before burning with Nero to work around this problem.

 

[LCBXX]

Thanks for the tip - I've been having the same problems, including some mp3s sounding very tinny.

I've been converting the mp3s to WAV files before burning with Nero to work around this problem.

I have had the same problem too, also resolved by downgrading the mp3pro.dll. Getting support from Nero surrounding this problem non-exsistent and they refuse to refund me the money I paid for Nero 7.2.2.0 (R330)

 

[JTech]

I've had this problem for years, so what I do is I convert mp3 to .wav files before I burn. Have been doing so since 2001 to avoid problems with Nero's crappy internal MP3 decoder

EDIT: I was cleaning out my office this morning and found one of the CD's I wrote with the skipping. It is defnitely due to mp3pro.dll. I just wrote another CD now on my other machine using Nero 7 and it still does it, at least one track has a bad skip in it. The best advice I can give is to use a 3rd party application to do the conversion to .wav format prior to burning. If you need some software, PM me.

 

[NoRulez]

all true... mp3pro.dll can cause this, but imho another solution is to burn the result at the slowest speed your writer will support. If a low as 2X even better.
I run a studio and never burn new masters faster than 2X. For normal playback on audio equipment 4X will do.
Older hi-fi systems however still run 2X DAC.

Nero 7 still very buggy. Version 6.6.0.3 is still the most stable version to date. If you're not into pro DVD authoring, suggest to stay with v6.

 

[JTech]

Older hi-fi systems however still run 2X DAC

Actually the write speed has nothing to do with the speed of the end system that is going to read the disk, or the clock rate of the D/A converter. That is determined by the design of the CD player itself and what scheme was used i.e. oversampling sigma-delta DAC or normal 16-bit D/A converter which is fast disappearing for cost reasons. CD player sampling rates are variable between 32, 38, and 44.1kHz. These sampling rates are set by flags on the CD and have nothing to do with how fast the disc was written.

Lower speed writing results in a better quality disk because the laser has more time to burn the pit on the medium, not because of the clock rate to the D/A converter.

Older CD Players do not perform well with CD-R because of the simple reason that their optics and signal processing were set up and designed to read standard pressed CD's. Nowadays many CD players have included an AGC block to allow the optics and processing blocks to change the gain to compensate for media with lower reflectivities.

 

[LCBXX]

all true... mp3pro.dll can cause this, but imho another solution is to burn the result at the slowest speed your writer will support. If a low as 2X even better.
I run a studio and never burn new masters faster than 2X. For normal playback on audio equipment 4X will do.
Older hi-fi systems however still run 2X DAC.

Nero 7 still very buggy. Version 6.6.0.3 is still the most stable version to date. If you're not into pro DVD authoring, suggest to stay with v6.

This has nothing to do with the write speed. Nero decodes the MP3 in order to be able to write a compatible Audio-CD BEFORE actually writing. That's why I mention that you should hear the skipping during preview playback in the compilation window.

 

[LCBXX]

I've had this problem for years, so what I do is I convert mp3 to .wav files before I burn. Have been doing so since 2001 to avoid problems with Nero's crappy internal MP3 decoder

EDIT: I was cleaning out my office this morning and found one of the CD's I wrote with the skipping. It is defnitely due to mp3pro.dll. I just wrote another CD now on my other machine using Nero 7 and it still does it, at least one track has a bad skip in it. The best advice I can give is to use a 3rd party application to do the conversion to .wav format prior to burning. If you need some software, PM me.

Just downgrade to a earlier version of mp3pro.dll. It will solve your problem. From experience, the version from Nero 6.0.0.18 and earlier does the trick.