MestreLion wrote a good tutorial for EAC beginners, as well as advanced users, about the gap settings :

http://www.digital-inn.de/showthread.php?postid=54218

Fine

It seems correct :
If I do "Action>create Cue>current gap settings",
I get a cue identical to "Action>create Cue>Multiple WAV files with Gaps...noncompliant"

(I didn't detect gaps, but I could have explicitly detected&appended to previous track)

My question is: why do so many people create a "Multiple WAVs with Corrected gaps" Cue sheet, if gaps were appended to previous track (explicitly or implicitly)? I thought "Multiple WAVs with corrected gaps" was meant for the "append to next track" situation?!

A quick test shows it is different from the standard Cue ("Multiple WAVs with gaps noncompliant), and it doesnt seem to be convertible to the standard "Multiple WAVs with gaps".

Good question, I have been wondering this too.

I should immediately try it - but atm my harddisk doesnt allow me to (full)

Okay, I tried with 2 subsequent tracks, which i ripped with default settings (gaps appended to previous track)

EAC accepts both CUE sheets (even the one that is meant for gaps appended to the next track).
As expected, Nero doesn't accept the Noncompliant CUE, but it accepts the other one.

Conclusion: Nero and EAC are smarter than I thought.

hmmm


Damn, I forgot something: wouldn't the CUE meant for corrected gaps, consider the two first seconds of each track as a 'gap', even it is not a gap (e.g. if the real gap was appended to the previous track)?
That would be very bad

Or are those burning programs really smart (let's hope...)

Can anyone tell me?

Wow, never thought my newbie post would make it that far!

Thanks a lot for such support, Pio!

Just a plea: I wrote this "faq" in a real lazy way, so *please*, if any of you out there have *any* suggestions, comments, critics, flames, etc, feel free to tell them!


Btw... Im still reading several forums, looking for the Holy Grail of "perfect, balanced, high quality, space saving Audio ripping and encoding". I just settled with my EAC settings, and now turned my attention to mp3 encoding. I thought I would be forever happy with LAME 3.92 --r3mix preset... but now Im seriously thinking about changing to LAME 3.90.2 --alt-preset standard

Thats how I, after some hours reading and browsing and seaching, came to this forum... and thats how I found this little post
Really glad you liked the lil tutorial.. hope it can be useful for someone

last but not least... you said "as well as advanced users" ? Wow, Im flattered, but... it cant be true. A month ago I had no clue about what VBR is, and only started to use EAC a week ago.

But thanks a lot. To see you, the great Pio2001, Moderator of EAC's, HA and R3MIX forums, post a link to such a humble message, is a great honor to me! )

Yes, I consider myself as an advanced user, but I didn't know what gap settings meant what. People here know that I hate gap detection, and that I've sworn my life to its complete eradication



To be correct, I consider myself no more moderator in R3mix, though I'm still labeled as such, but on the other hand, I work as hard as a moderator in EAC, where I'm not.
FWIW I also linked your post in CDFreaks.com audio forum, and Afterdawn.com audio forum.



If I understood well, EAC will read the gaps from the CD, not from the wavs. If the CD has no gaps, there will be no gaps in your cue. If the CD has gaps, the beginning of each wav will be considered as the gap, even if you appended them to previous track.

So if I rip the tracks without detecting gaps first, and then create a CUE sheet with the Multiple WAVs (non-compliant) option, I'll get the correct settings?

ok, I have a gap related question:

I have a cd, The Tea Party : Transmission

I believe it's track 9 (I don't have the cd infront of me at the moment) The track has an instrumental intro that starts at -01:59. At 00:00 the actual song starts. How do I rip this so the intro comes out as a seperate track that can be encoded?

Action / copy selected tracks index based

I always detect gaps -> copy with left out gaps (like the original file on the CD) -> create cue sheet with left out gaps - fits!

Wombat

I'll try it out

Yes.

When you dont manually detect gaps first, EAC automatically insert gaps at the end of the previous track, by default. And the CUE Sheet that correctly matches such layout is the "Multiple Wavs (Noncompliant)".

Or you could always Create CUE Sheet -> Current Gap Settings. Since you didnt change any gap settings, this option will give you the same CUE as using the Noncompliant option. So, if is the same result, why do I reccomend using "current gap settings" instead of "manually" picking "Multiple Wavs (Noncompliant)"? 2 reasons:

- Its easier to remember. Its the 1st option, its the default. For the sake of simplicity
- IF, someday, you decide to detect gaps before extraction to play with the gap settings, and perhaps select a different setting, the "CUE -> Current Setting" will always give you the right CUE for your current gap setting. So, when creating a CUE Sheet, it doesnt matter if you detected gaps or not, it doesnt matter of you changed the gap settings or not,"current gap settings" will give you the CUE that matches whatever you have done with gaps. For the sake of safety

PS: Pio, how do you quote multiple messages? If I use (Quote)xxx(/Quote) I cant fill in the quote's date and author.

I strongly dont reccomend you doing so! For several reasons:

- Unless the gaps in your CDs are only silence, you will LOSE actual music content. Dreamliner came in with a nice example:

So, in that album, the 2 seconds gap were NOT silence! And if you "copy with left out gaps" this instrumental intro will be LOST from the wavs! When you burn you CD-R "copy", 2 seconds of pure silence will be there instead. Yes, MP3 is lossy compression, but thats a bit too much, dont you think?

- If in the original CD Dreamliner listened 2s of instrumental intro, and in the CD-R Copy done the way you do he would listen to 2s of silence, this means that definetly this way of copying is everything but "like the original file on the CD". For the sake of fidelity to original content, dont leave out gaps

You may say: "Ok, Dreamliner have a neat example. But this is an exception, not a rule. 99.8% of gaps in mainstream albums ARE digital silence, not fancy instrumental intros or intro speeches. Besides, for the sake of security, I have used EAC's powerful "Action -> Test Gaps on Silence" on every CD in my collection to make sure 100% of *my*gaps are silence. and they are. So the 2s of silence will be the same as the original, and I'll have 100% perfect copies."

Well, *if* you indeed Tested Gaps On Silence, I am forced to agree with you. Your copies are 100% perfect. Arrest my case. But... may I highlight a thing?

- Why do you leave out gaps? To save HD space by trimming wavs? We are talking about gaps of length between 0 to 2s, among several minutes tracks. We are talking about less then 1% saving space. Such a small saving would be pointless by itself. And, if you burn the copy right after creating the image, and then delete it, then there is absolutely no reason for saving space in a temporary image!

- But, if you keep the image, perhaps because the CD was borrowed and you mp3 encoded it so you can listen with Winamp later, then the trimmed songs will sound really awful when played in sequence. Because the gaps are only in the CUE Sheet, not in the wavs/mp3s itself. You'll listen one song immedialty after the other, abruptely, with no pause whatsoever. This sounds bad, at least for me, and its definetly not worth the 0.8% disk space saving.

(not to mention the boring effort of testing gaps on silence on every album)

I am sorry for the perhaps "over-sarcastic" tone. Maybe I misunderstood you, and and you actually have a nice reason for leaving out gaps. Its just that I cant realize why would this option be useful in any circusntance. But if you just do it that way just because you were told to, or because "it fits", please dont do so! Take my sarcasm as a way of emphatising my message:

Dont leave out gaps!. It can lead to non-perfect copies. It takes some extra effort to make sure copy will be 100% perfect. Sometimes it wont be possible to leave them out and get a perfect copy. You get nothing by leaving them out, except for a mediocre <1% space saving that will make your wavs sound terrible by trimming the so necessary pauses.

Dont leave out gaps, and be happy

PS: Again, sorry for the crappy English

Just to clarify, the track I was talking about is actually a 2 min intro, so I would lose a whole hell of alot more than a 2 sec intro

Oh, my, you're right,.. -01:59 stands for almost 2 *minutes*, not seconds!

This is perhaps the best song example against "leave out gaps" method... what is the tracks's name, album and author?

Would be fun to burn such CD with left out gaps and then listening to 2 whole minutes of pure digital silence! LOL!

Have no clue why.. perhaps because of term "corrected" misleads them. the same way the term "Noncompliant" seems to scare people away



And, as far as I can see, it is indeed meant to that situation. At least, if you look at the generated CUE Sheet (its plain ASCII format), it clearly shows that the gaps (indices 00) are meant to be at the beggining of each file, matching the "append to next track" situation.



Could you explain what do you mean by "Convertible" ? Maybe the situation where you have wavs created with the standard way (gaps appended to end of previous track), but the CUE Sheet created using "corrected gaps", an now you want to convert this CUE to the "noncompliant" format so it matches the files? Well, there's no way to automatially convert the CUE. But you manually open the CUE Sheet using Notepad and edit the file so it matches the wavs. The CUE Sheet format isnt hard to understand, and all the info you need is already there. If you want a help on that subjct, just drop a line.

Why?



They're are not really smart, not even smart. They are dumb. "Dumb" because they do what they're told to do. If you feed it with a CUE that says that the first 2 seconds of the file "xxx.wav" are a gap, it will make it so.

Actually, once the gap is appended to a file, no matter if to the end of the previous or to the begging of the next, there's no way to tell the gap from the original song. Rembember that gap cant be silece, but can also be anything else. So the burner *needs* the cue sheet to tell it where is the gap location within the wav file.

The CUE meant for corrected gaps dont consider the *two* first seconds of each track as a 'gap'. It considers the first xxx seconds of each track as a 'gap', xxx being the actual gap lenght found on CD, which can vary from track to track. but Yes, it will consider it a gap even if you apeended the gaps somewhere else, eg in the end of the previous track.

But this is NOT bad! I mean... this is what you meant when you created such a CUE. You were giving a direct order to the burner: My gaps are in the begging. If you appended the gaps somewhere else, this is not the burners or the CUE's fault

and before you say so: No, burners CANT detect gaps within a wav file. Simply because a gap can be anything.

Thanks for answering, MestreLion!

[Q]QUOTE MestreLion: Why?[/Q]
I think you must have misunderstood my qestion, because in the lines afterwards you answered that question:



Pio says the same thing:



So this is very bad news
Very bad: if you burn with a Cue, and then select a track, the index 0 will not be played, so tracks will lose their first 2 seconds.

So this is not the correct way to make a compliant CUE sheet with default gap settings ('append to previous'). Is there another way? Probably just a matter of correctly editing the Non-compliant CUE sheet...

By 'convertible' I meant -like you describe- manually editing the CUE sheet. To me that seems impossible, since all indexes are indicated differently (different times!)
So to me it seems there is no way of going back. Or am I mistaken? (let's hope so )

Topic splitted : http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....=ST&f=17&t=4585



I've got another one :
Artist : 300 000 VK
Title : Also sprach Johann Paul II

This is a continuous mix. Gaps are
1 - 2.0 seconds
2 - 50.3 seconds
3 - 3.0 seconds
4 - 11.7 seconds
5 - 17.5 seconds
6 - 25.7 seconds
7 - 9.7 seconds
8 - 0.0 seconds

Exept the first, they all contain music. They mark the transition parts between the tracks, when the main theme has ended, and only the background instruments are running, waiting for the next track theme to begin.

Another examples : classical music. I've got very few, but on the three I've checked, two had gaps, and the gaps of both CDs contain the natural noise of the acoustic recording between the tracks. We can hear the performers moving in some gaps.

Wait, wait, wait a sec!

Not, this is not bad news. Not if you actually created the wavs in such a way the gaps were appended to the beggining of each track! Then the CUE will tell the burner that the beginning of each wav will should considered as the gap, which is indeed true!

The only bad news is if you append the gaps to the end and create a CUE that says the gap was appended to the begging. But then, hey, what do you expected??? You must match the CUE with the way the wav was created.



First, lets try to avoid terms like "correct" and "compliant". See this post to see why

Be careful. In EAC's Create CUE Sheet menu, the word Noncompliant means something completely different. Its about the Cue Sheet format being compliant (ie, accpected, recognized, supported) by burners like CDRWin and Nero.

For gaps and CUE, I think the right word would be "match". A CUE Sheet must match the gap settings used when extracting the wavs/mp3s. Thats it, no more, no less. I will assume that you used the words "compliant" and "non-compliant" meaning "matching or not" the gap settings used, ok? Translating your words (correct me if im wrong):



Yes, this is not the correct way. If the wavs were created with the default gap settings, the right CUE Sheet to use is the "Multiple WAVs with Gaps (Noncompliant)", or, for the sake of simplicity and security, "Current Gap Settings"



So you mean your wavs have the gaps appended to the end, but your CUE was created using the "Corrected Gaps" option, thus reporting the gaps incorrectly as being in the begging of the file? It may take a little of patience and work, but its perfectly possible to manually edit the CUE, "converting" it to the "Multiple WAVs with Gaps (Noncompliant)" format, so it matches your wavs.

You really want to know how to manyally edit the CUE Sheet? I started a new thread to discuss the CUE Sheet ASCII format... jump here

I will follow that link immediately, it would highly interest me since to me it seems impossible to convert one type of CUE sheet into another one (in general), since times are different!

There is something I'd like to mention, MestreLion. You are very kind in helping this thread ahead, but I do have some comments.


That's what I meant. Do you realize that most people are doing this? I have seen several guides teaching people to do it this way! I recently started doing this too (stupid me ) - but since I had my doubts, that's why I am here now



I am sorry, you are wrong
'compliant' means adapted to other burning programs. So this has nothing to do with 'matching'. What I meant was 'is it possible to make a normal CUE (gaps appended to previous) that will be accepted by other burning programs too? (It should be, probably just a matter of some editing work)

That's what I meant. You didn't quote me correctly:



That should have been "WAVs with Gaps noncompliant"

Anyway, thanks for your good will

I had a look at the thread

Making several CUE sheets and opening them in notepad, and comparing them is something I have done.
Give me a random CUE and I am able to tell you what kind of CUE sheet it is (not so difficult, you might be able to do that too)




But IMHO it is not possible to convert a "WAVs with corrected gaps" CUE sheet into a "WAVs with gaps" one, due to the different times!

Look at the times and you will see what I mean.

hmmmm... wait! It might be possible to do so (to convert), if you know the exact lengths of the tracks, so that you can start calculating... Not a funny thing, and we must be aware not to make any mistakes...

MestreLion: That is probably what you came up with at the end of your post in that new thread you have been writing (you are talking about 'gap lenghts')

Good work BTW! but I dont think I will be soon converting my CUEs into each other...

Actually the new thread was exactly a tutorial on how to do that, so not only me and you are able to do it, but every newbie on the planet!

But... can you please look at it again? By the moment you were reading it, I was still doing some research, and just "uploaded the final release" now Btw... Ive found some pretty interesting and weird things while researching the CUE's behaviour.

Now for your comments:

Im really sorry I misuderstood you. Now I realize what you mean by compliant and stuff. You indeed used the word Noncompliant the right way (at least the sae way EAC uses). Now I can properly try to help you.

The 1st problem, to convert the CUE Sheet from one format to another, this can be done. And yes, you figured it right: with some calculation, it is possible to find the lenght of the gaps no matter the format you have at hand, and thus it is posible to convert it to any format you want. for such task, the other thread might be helpful..

Now youre able to edit and convert your CUE to the "Multiple WAVs With Gaps (Noncompliant)" format, thus matching the wavs/mp3s you have, we fall in the 2nd problem: how to edit this damn cue so other burners support it?

My answer: I have absolutely no clue

I say a few words about this in the other thread.. its really weird that such a simple format is not compatible with other burners. I dont have CRDWin, and I cant any option in Nero to load CUE Sheets, so I really cant even try to see if they actually reject such a CUE. And, also, Im unable to trial-and-error edit the CUE until they swallow it!

A suggestion: can you create a CUE with CDRWin? This way you could compare CDRWin's CUE with EAC's. The differences may between them may give a clue on why EAC's format is not accepted, and how to adapt it.

Well, as Im using EAC to burn too, I really dont mind if this CUE is not compatible with others... but I understand how puzzling this issue is.

I am not really familiar with CDRWIN.
But I am pretty sure it is not that difficult to convert the noncompliant into a compliant one. I will try to find out...

have a look here, at Wiethoff's comment:

http://www.digital-inn.de/showthread.php?t...ap+noncompliant

Well, as PIO suggested, I just read all the CUE Sheet specification in CDRWin 3.8B Documentation.

And, as far as I can read, our "Noncompliant" CUE is completely compliant to the standard described there! Theres no excuse for any software not supporting that CUE. Actually, the examples shown in the Documentation are far more "wild" then our humble CUE Sheet... things like that are possible:

FILE “C:\MYAUDIO3.WAV” WAVE
TRACK 03 AUDIO
PREGAP 00:01:00
INDEX 00 00:00:00
INDEX 01 00:01:00

Wow! Nice mixing of PREGAP *and* Index 00 from the wav file!
What about this:

FILE “C:\MYAUDIO.WAV” WAVE
TRACK 02 AUDIO
PREGAP 00:02:00
INDEX 01 00:00:00
TRACK 03 AUDIO
INDEX 01 05:50:65
TRACK 04 AUDIO
INDEX 01 09:47:50

So, if this things are possible, how come our CUE to be Noncompliant???

I read Andre's comment, but he only says that CDRWin wont accept the CUE, not telling in details why.

Anyone out there have any working CDRWin version, so we cant test all of this?

BTW.. someone asked me if PREGAP means digital silesnce.. Yes, it does. From CDRWin documentation:

Andre Wiethoff is not very clear, but I am sure Pio will understand his words...



well yes and no, if I am not mistaken CDRWIN means a special kind of pregaps... (maybe added by CDRWIN itself by default?)
It's a bit confusing: EAC's gaps and CDRWIN's pregaps are the same thing! And as you know EAC's gaps are not usually silence!

, dont worry, I know that pregap = gaps = 00 indices, and that they can be anything from silence to a farting rhino. But I was specifically talking about the PREGAP statement used in the CUEsheets when you select the "Multiple WAvs with Leftout gaps" option. It was quite obvious that such tag would fill the gap with silence, but I never actually checked it. Nevertheless, CDRWin documentation gave me the answer, saving me a blank CD!

Btw, sorry for this mess... the question about the pregap was made at another thread. Sorry for the confusion.

Without a gap detection, CUE sheets made with 'current Gap settings...' are NOT ALWAYS the same as the noncompliant CUEs...


I just noticed that a 'corrected gap' CUE sheet was made!
(I hadn't done a gap detection. I have NOT appended gaps to next track last time I used EAC. So what's the matter?)

So I did a gap detection, and what did I see (predictable):
the option 'append to next track' was automatically selected by EAC

When I set back the default ('append to previous track') the 'current gap settings...' CUE sheets was a good one

So I would not recommend using this option. Maybe it is safer for poeple who don't mess with gap detections (unlike me), but you never know...

I made a cuesheet fixer for people who want to burn audio albums from MPCs ripped using PiMP standard, download tool here. Burning using the fixed cue requires MPCs to be decoded into 'Range.wav', this can be done with command "mppdec playlist.m3u Range.wav".
Too bad cue sheet format is so limited, leaving out gaps is out of the question, appending gaps to next track makes listening to tracks horrible if they are not burned and EAC's non-compliant cue is of no use to people who's drive isn't supported by EAC.

What do you mean by 'fixer'. I must fix something, but what?

By fixer I mean a tool that changes cue sheet to produce the results one would expect. Without fixing cues CDs that are not gapless will not have track starts at correct position, after fixing they will be.

If I interpret correctly:

in the situation 'append gaps to previous tracks',
but a 'wrong' CUE sheet that is meant for corrected gaps

Your tool would convert the CUE sheet to a normal one? (necessarily 'noncompliant')

This is meant to correct cues when files have gaps appended to previous track but this doesn't make the cue non-compliant (that format is not good, it can't be burned with any other program as it is invalid). Rather this changes the cue to require one big wav and moves the gaps into correct position.

oh i see. Thanks

Not too fast!
What happens with the gap before track 1 (Session Pregap) if you "Append Gaps to Previous Track"?
Is it included in the first WAV? If so, the Cue sheet doesn't take that info into consideration...

It is lost.
Remeber that Cd Players never read it unless you manually search backwards, so it only matters for hidden tracks.