I'm having trouble figuring out how exactly EAC is interpreting this CUE sheet. I feel I have a pretty decent understanding of how CUE sheets work, as well as gaps and pregaps, but this one perplexes me. First, the cue sheet:


Note: I only included the first 5 tracks to save space. I also ripped out the TITLE and PERFORMER CD-TEXT information Next, this is how EAC reads it:



As you can see, every track on the CD has a pregap. However, after spending quite a while analyzing the CUE sheet itself, I can't figure out where this gap comes from. For example, let's look at track 1.

The very beginning has a 32 sec pregap, which is clearly marked. Then at track 01, index 01 at relative 00:00:00. Next, track 02, index 00 begins at relative 4:43:28, which implicitely means track 01 is 4:43:28 long (also shown in the screenshot).

Now, this is where I get lost. Track 02, Index 01 is 00:00:00, which to me means there's a 0 second pregap for track 02. However, EAC shows a 01:20 pregap before starting track 02 index 01. Where does that gap come from? It varies in each and every track, even through they all have just 00:00:00.

What am I missing here? Thanks.

The pregap of 00:00:32 is not 32 seconds, it is 32 frames (there are 75 frames in a second).

anyhow...

A 01 index always marks the beginning of a new track. The 00 index marks off a section of the audio where the display on a cd player begins counting down to the next track. Even though the time counts down to the next track, it belongs to the end of the previous track.

So for the track lengths:

Track 1 is 4:44:48 = 4:43:28 + 0:01:20
Track 2 is 4:09:15 = 4:07:55 + 0:01:35
Track 3 is 3:07:67
Track 4 is 3:41:53
Track 5 is 2:55:62

The absolute position indicates the time that each index begins relative to the very start of where data begins on the disc.

The relative position is where each index begins relative to the start of the track.

The length is the size of each index. The first track, for example has a 01 index which is 4:43:28 and also includes track 2 index 0 at the end which is 0:01:20. The sum of these two numbers constitutes the time for track 1. The track 2 index 0 is often called the pregap for track 2 (personally I don't care for this terminology but that's a rant that's best left for another occasion).

In your example there is a pregap of 32 frames before track 1. When it comes to determing timing, it doesn't belong to any track, if anything it belongs to the lead-in. This piece of data is often called HTOA (Hidden Track One Audio) as it can sometimes be an entire song which can only be played back by scanning backwards from the begnning of the CD.

Thanks, greynol. That makes sense now. The main thing that was meesing me up was that I though the time reported in the cue sheet was the actual length of the track, not the length the CD player should follow. I thought that pregaps are supposed to be listed separately.

Obviously, I was wrong. Thanks again.