wondering if anyone has had success with this:

Platform: Mac (OS X). I have a large library of live recordings downloaded from archive.org, etree folk, etc. Playing the resulting FLAC and SHN files is no problem (although gapless playback would be nice...). Burning CDs / audio DVDs / DVD-A is no problem.

Encoding *individual* tracks to AAC or Apple Lossless for use on iPod also no problem. But: I can't figure out a way to successfully join tracks (ie join several decompressed aiff/wav files to have a single file for encoding) *without* first burning them to CD, then reripping using the iTunes "Join Tracks" capability; or going the (not too messy, but inconvenient) path of first joining them in an audio editor. The goal of course, is to have a single file for encoding when the source is tracks that flow into each other, like ie Help On The Way > Slipknot! > Franklin's Tower.....

Is there any way to stay on the hard drive but have iTunes think it's sourcing the tracks from a CD, so as to allow "Join Tracks" functionality? I've tried various ideas like having Toast/Jam write a disk image, etc, but no joy yet in Mudville... Also, I've seen some Applescripts (ie TrackSplicer), but there are problems having the full joined file recognized.

All suggestions appreciated!

In Windows, you could simply create a CUE sheet and load the album in DAEMON Tools, which works fine. But I do not know whether there is a similar program for OS X... although I suspect someone has figured out how to load an image as a drive on the Mac platform!

- M.

One way would be to decode the files and stitch the wav/aiff files together and then encode those in itunes. You could probably script something to speedup the task.