i record a lot of bands live, and i would really like to be able to put all of the in-between song banter in the pre-track gaps.

is there an easy way using EAC to put a separate wav file as the pre-track gap?

eg. if i have a set of files 1a.wav, 1b.wav, 2a.wav, 2b.wav, etc.

track 1 = 1a.wav
pre track gap of track 2 = 1b.wav
track 2 = 2a.wav
pre track gap of track 3 = 2b.wav

can this be done? i'd rather split the tracks beforehand rather than using a cue sheet to split each track into track/pre-gap as it's being burnt.

ie. i don't want to have to do this:

1.wav(1a.wav+1b.wav appended), 2.wav(2a.wav+2b.wav appended)

i'd rather leave them separate if that's possible.


also, this is not as important, but it would also be nice to have the ability to do the same with the pre-track gap before track 1. i understand this wouldn't be playable on all CD players, but i'm interested in it as an option.

thanks for any suggestions,

trev.

Yes, though "easy" will always be a subjective description. It sounds like you're needing to create some cue sheets. Depending on how many I was planning on doing, I'd either make them by hand or write a script to automate the process.

Are your recordings just one big file or are the tracks already split? I can't tell based on what you've written because you first posed a question as if they were already split into individual indices but then go on to speak as if they had not been split.

My suggestion to you is to take a disc that has pregaps between tracks and rip it as a single-file wave + cue and then use EAC to cut that image into individual indices. It will create a new "-cutted" cue sheet. Open it up to see what it looks like and you'll probably find your answer.

I'm not sure about that, but it is true that this data can't be extracted by all optical drives.

I've never heard anybody saying pre-gap tracks are cool. They're a pain to seek to (you can't jump right to them with either standalone or software players), they're a pain to rip. They aren't cool.

I strongly suggest you make every track a track. If you don't, most of the time they will get appended to the previous track when ripped, and most people won't even rip the pre-gap track before track 01. And by the way, "hidden songs" appended to the last track after x minutes of silence aren't cool either.

From what I've read, you actually can jump right to them in standalone players when they're playing from a programmed list or our running in shuffle mode. As for SW players, you just rip them how you want them.


...not to you perhaps

You could load all the files into foobar in order, and then use foo_cuesheet_creator to create a multi-file cuesheet.

This would create a cuesheet with all files as INDEX 01 tracks, but would be an easy way of getting the frame values. You then just open the file in Notepad and jiggle it around.

foo_cuesheet_creator output:


... converted to:


If I understand correctly this format is non-compliant. EAC will burn it, and Burrrn may burn it, but others won't. The alternative is to use foobar's "Convert to Album Images with Cuesheets or Chapters", to create a single file from the individual files, with a cuesheet that could be similarly adapted, but would be valid.

foo_cuesheet_creator output:


... converted to:


Disclaimer: I've just woken up.

Edit: Amended initial examples to be valid

NB: As an alternative to foobar to generate the frame values you may prefer the command line app shntool.

If they have been recorded live I can only assume that it starts as one file. If so I would personally just stick with one file, and create a cuesheet to specify INDEX 00 and INDEX 01 points using WaveRepair or GoldWave. Splitting them up then using a cuesheet to burn doesn't make much sense. Keeping the set as one WAVE file may appear cumbersome, but to me it allows you the most flexibility.

Maybe I'm wrong and you split as you record. You'd get more accurate indexes if you did it afterward in an editor though.

awesome! thanks for the quick and helpfull replies everyone, got it going with eac cue sheets now, very similar to the foobar method advised above.

note - yes my live recordings start as one big file, but i've already tracked hundreds of them and was looking for a way to put gaps in those old tracked sets without causing too much pain. this way i only need to split a few wav files (into parts a and b) and then can whack part b into the pre-track gap.

haven't played with pre-track gap of track 1 yet, but got normal pre-track gaps working fine, and tested.

i'm not sure why you mentioned all of this, it has very little to do with what i'm doing.

i record bands playing live. they play a song. then there is between 2 seconds and 2 minutes of non-musical "stuff" (talking, tuning, feedback, crowd noise, etc.) that is sometimes entertaining, mostly boring, and sometimes aggressively annoying. then they play another song.

i don't want to permanently delete anything from the set, to preserve it in a completist view. but i listen to these recordings more than anything else, i record them because i love to listen to them, and it would be great to have certain "gaps" easily removed from a playlist.

if i separate these gaps into separate tracks, i can do that. but i was worried about the hassle of having to append each "split" track back together again before buring to CD (for the band, or for myself, or for others)

but now i can put these "gap" files in the pre-track gaps when i burn, which is far easier than wave editing, and more convinent when playing a CD on random (where it skips the gaps). if the owner of the CD want to hear or rip the full thing, they still can.

seems like a perfect solution to me.

Glad it's working.

You still don't actually need to split the tracks. You could use Goldwave or WaveRepair - or even a calculator - to find the frame value for the pre-gap, and then create a cuesheet in EAC's infamous non-compliant format:

You probably already know this, but make sure the tracks you've already split were cut on frame boundaries (1/75 of a second or multiples of 588 samples"). This is not a problem when dealing in the realm of cue sheets.

thanks, i do know about this, but i only learnt about it in the last year or so. i have since been using shntool to fix sector boundary errors on my previous splits.

Make sure that shntool isn't correcting this problem by simply padding these tracks with silence.

no it doesn't luckily, it actually carries over data from/between two neighboring tracks to align the split on the nearest sector boundary, and pads only the last file.

what you are warning of is unfortunatley the only way flac's sector boundary align function works at the moment. i was excited at first to hear flac could now do this and save me a step, but unfortunatley not so, for now anyway.

I'm not sure I understand. I don't see how it will help to burn them to CD-R? Does your player of choice allow you to skip pre-gap tracks when playing CDs sequentially? Putting the chatter into separate tracks would be the most convenient and most compatible thing to do. What's so great about pre-gap tracks? Is it only the random playback feature skipping them that interests you?



--sector-align

well, i don't burn them to CDR unless i need to, i deal in flacs normally, for both storage and playback.

but when i do want to burn a CD, it is going to be easier to just add the "gap" bits as pre-track gaps rather than re-join each pair of files before burning with no gaps. i don't think there is a way you can seamlessly burn 2 separate files as the one track can you? that would be another solution if it were possible. but i like putting the un-needed between song bits in the pre-gaps.

the shuffle feature is an added bonus, it's very anoying to always hear intro's to certain songs that never get followed through, eg: "this next song is a song we haven't played before...it's called 'new song'" and then it skips to an old song!

hmm, i tested the flac sector align function, i was very excited to hear about it. i could not get it to do that, it padded each individual file...i then tested the same wav's with shntool and it definatley aligned them properly, there was a difference.

has anyone had any luck getting flac's sector align to work? i'll go and test some more. i'm using multi frontend if it matters.

edit - i think it's because multi front end treats each file entry on a new command line, so it's sending lots of separate files to be sector aligned rather than the list.

Yes. See my example in post #9. This is EAC's non-compliant format: two files for one track, one for the pregap (INDEX 00) and one for the track itself (INDEX 01). There is a fuller example in the wiki.

I have a feeling I'm missing the point though - this thread is beginning to confuse me.

maybe this will clear things up. example of what i have now with my old recordings:

01.intro.flac
02.first song.flac
03.second song.flac
04.third song.flac

how i might like to re-organise them:

01.intro.flac
02a.first song.flac
02b.gap.flac
03a.second song.flac
03b.gap.flac
04a.third song.flac

so that in winamp for listening i can just load:

02a.first song.flac
03a.second song.flac
04a.third song.flac

but to burn to CD, i have 2 options:
-either re-join the parts a+b of those files (eg. 02a.first song.wav + 02b.gap.wav = 02.first song.wav) for a no-gap CD

track1 index 01 = 01.intro.wav
track2 index 01 = 02.first song.wav
track3 index 01 = 03.second song.wav
track4 index 01 = 04.third song.wav

-or burn the CD with pre-track gaps

track1 index 01 = 01.intro.wav
track2 index 01 = 02a.first song.wav
track3 index 00 = 02b.gap.wav
track3 index 01 = 03a.second song.wav
track4 index 00 = 03b.gap.wav
track4 index 01 = 04a.third song.wav


sorry, i meant to ask if you can burn/join two separate songs as the same track and index. essentially just joining them on the fly during the burning process.
such as:
track2 index 01 = 02a.first song.wav + 02b.gap.wav


sorry to be a pain and be confusing, i tend to go on the net only right before bed or right when i wake up, my brain is not the best at these times. i have learnt a lot and it has been helpfull.

What would be wrong with this?

track 01 index 01 = 01.intro.wav
track 02 index 01 = 02.first song.wav
track 03 index 01 = 03.chatter.wav
track 04 index 01 = 04.second song.wav
track 05 index 01 = 05.chatter.wav
track 06 index 01 = 06.third song.wav

Then you could make a playlist with just:

01.intro.wav
02.first song.wav
04.second song.wav
06.third song.wav

It would be much easier to manage.

well it would mean when listening to the CD on random, you might get a few different chatter bits in a row, which would be even more anoying.

and i'd have to write the tracklist like that, which would be double the size of a normal tracklist. this would be a CD i'd give to the artist too, and i don't know what they would think about having every second track "useless" to them, as they would just care about the songs, on first listen anyway. they might get annoyed skipping a song, assuming the next song is coming, and instead hearing 1 minute or so of "chatter".

i sort of do that sometimes at the moment anyway; introductions, big breaks, and parts surrounding encores and the like i set up as separate tracks on the CD. but i'd prefer to have each song in the set run one after the other. pre-track gaps for "chatter" seems to look like the best solution for me.

If it's of any interest, I like the pre-gap idea. To me, live albums are the main use for the pre-gap.

I would use the pre-gap for the chatter. As I've previously said though, I would work with single WAVE's and cuesheets.

Fortunately for you, you are not me.

Synthetic Soul already showed you how to do that, though his inclusion of a pregap before track 1 might be causing confusion(?). Maybe the fact he decided to call the cue noncompliant is giving you trouble instead (or in addition to?); I really don't know. It would have been better to call them cues based on individual indices instead of using a term (which I believe to be technically correct) that is usually used to describe a specific type of cue sheet which is different from the one that you want.

Similar to the example Synthetic Soul already gave, the cue that you want should look like this:

Don't let the fact that (for example) Track 3 Index 00 is created from the file, "02b.gap.flac". This is actually correct, since the pregap to track 3 actually belongs to the end of track 2.

...or do you want the intro to be included as a hidden track before the first song? In which case I'd have to present you with an example that is much closer to the one that was already given.

As for skamp, he has made his point very clear that he doesn't like pregaps; but instead of helping you do what you really want, he's determined to have you do things the way he wants. I wouldn't bother answering him.

Sorry for stating my opinion. I thought I'd argue the merits of pregaps, when the original question was really about how to do something - my bad. I take offense a little of your wording though.

Here's how the CUE would look if "01.intro.flac" were hidden in the pregap before track 1:

*note that this is not my first intention, this is a side note brought up from skamp's suggestion of burning CD's with no gaps*

that last question was not about pre-track gaps, but regarding using 2 separate file sources for the one track and index on a CD. something like:

FILE "02a.first song.flac" WAVE +
FILE "02b.gap.flac" WAVE
TRACK 02 AUDIO
INDEX 01 00:00:00

so if "02a.first song.flac" is 2 mins long, and "02b.gap.flac" is 30 sec long, i'd want a CD with no gaps at all and track 2 would be 2:30 in length, sourced from 2 separate files.

i'm guessing the solution (if possible) would be look different to what i have above, i'm just trying to express the question in a way that might be understood easier.

Again, my confusion. I don't know, when you say "gap", whether you mean an INDEX or two seconds of silence.

Essentially, having another INDEX is really of little practical value, and will not generally affect playing.

Therefore, depending on your requirement, you could use multiple indexes to 'join' the two files - whether you use INDEX 0 or not.

We have already provided various examples using two files for one track using INDEX 0; however, if you were not to use a 'pre-gap' (INDEX 0) you could instead join using INDEX 2 or more:


I'm not sure what systems will pay attention to INDEX 02; I've never tried this myself. In theory it is sound though. You can have up to 99 indexes IIRC.

There aren't all that many CD players that are able to do index scanning, though the first one I ever bought, an old Fisher from 1986? was able to and the most recent one that I bought from Yamaha (from the mid-90s) is able to as well.

To my knowledge you cannot combine separate files into one track without using this method, though I could be wrong and it certainly doesn't hurt to try.

But Synthetic Soul is absolutely right, when using indices you essentially do combine multiple files into a single track. When ripping these discs using the most standard method, the separate indices will automatically be concatenated.

EDIT: Well I just fed EAC the following CUE and it didn't barf:

Burning the disc resulted in Track A2 being replaced by silence. I may try this again later, but the results don't look very encouraging.

whenever i have said gap so far, it has been either referring to the pre-track gap on a CD (negative time display) with data content (NOT silence) or about the "chatter" parts of my recordings. i shall use "chatter" from now on to avoid confusion, apologies.

oh, ok. so if you use indexes from 1 onwards on a particular track they won't affect the playing of the tracks, and they won't create any pre-track gaps (negative time) on the CD? that sounds like the solution then, thank you. i assume the transition between indexes (say - track 05 index 01 and index 02) is perfect?


just to wrap up so far, i'm currently planning on cutting all my recordings into "songs" and "chatter" files, allowing me to create "song" playlists easily, but still lets me burn either type of CD:

-one with "chatter" pre-track gaps (index 00's)
or
-one with no pre-track gaps at all (using indexes 01 and 02)

both will seamlessly join the audio data and file transitions, and both methods include all the audio data from all files onto the CD.

let me know if i have anything wrong. thanks for your help and patience everyone.



(edit - grammar and wording of "gaps")

Only 00 indices cause negative time.
That is correct.
Yes, both will give seamless transitions without discarding any data.

I was going to perform a test using INDEX 02, but after going into EAC's CD Layout Editor I noticed the menu item "Layout" > "Append File As New Index", which creates an INDEX 02 (or 03, or 04, ...) just as I had suggested. I can only assume that EAC will happily burn this layout then.

If you do use this method to create your cuesheet note that the "Add 2 Second Gap On Append" menu item only appears to be relevant for appending tracks, not indexes.

well for the first time since i started this thread i found myself trying to burn a CD using this threads ideas, and i had to check back here to figure it all out again. but it worked! so thanks again to all who helped, i really appreciate it. i didn't really think i'd be able to make CD's like this, it makes it a lot more professional, i'm very happy with it.

i was asked about a week ago by one of the bands i record if i could get them a copy of each show back to them from now on as soon as possible, they wish to use them as part of rehearsals to find and fix up common mistakes.

just to show the result, this is the cue sheet i made with EAC: (i don't know how to insert code here, if a mod sees this and can fix it for me that'd be great)


FILE "D:\trev\music\transfers\blm\dd-2007-12-13 23_16\blm-20071213-01.intro.wav" WAVE
TRACK 01 AUDIO
FLAGS DCP
INDEX 00 00:00:00
FILE "D:\trev\music\transfers\blm\dd-2007-12-13 23_16\blm-20071213-02a.stop doing the world a favour.wav" WAVE
INDEX 01 00:00:00
FILE "D:\trev\music\transfers\blm\dd-2007-12-13 23_16\blm-20071213-02b.(gap).wav" WAVE
TRACK 02 AUDIO
FLAGS DCP
INDEX 00 00:00:00
FILE "D:\trev\music\transfers\blm\dd-2007-12-13 23_16\blm-20071213-03a.sister friend.wav" WAVE
INDEX 01 00:00:00
FILE "D:\trev\music\transfers\blm\dd-2007-12-13 23_16\blm-20071213-03b.(gap).wav" WAVE
TRACK 03 AUDIO
FLAGS DCP
INDEX 00 00:00:00
FILE "D:\trev\music\transfers\blm\dd-2007-12-13 23_16\blm-20071213-04a.angle.wav" WAVE
INDEX 01 00:00:00
FILE "D:\trev\music\transfers\blm\dd-2007-12-13 23_16\blm-20071213-04b.(gap).wav" WAVE
TRACK 04 AUDIO
FLAGS DCP
INDEX 00 00:00:00
FILE "D:\trev\music\transfers\blm\dd-2007-12-13 23_16\blm-20071213-05a.her reserve.wav" WAVE
INDEX 01 00:00:00
FILE "D:\trev\music\transfers\blm\dd-2007-12-13 23_16\blm-20071213-05b.(gap).wav" WAVE
TRACK 05 AUDIO
FLAGS DCP
INDEX 00 00:00:00
FILE "D:\trev\music\transfers\blm\dd-2007-12-13 23_16\blm-20071213-06a.sucess.wav" WAVE
INDEX 01 00:00:00
FILE "D:\trev\music\transfers\blm\dd-2007-12-13 23_16\blm-20071213-06b.(gap).wav" WAVE
TRACK 06 AUDIO
FLAGS DCP
INDEX 00 00:00:00
FILE "D:\trev\music\transfers\blm\dd-2007-12-13 23_16\blm-20071213-07a.apol.wav" WAVE
INDEX 01 00:00:00
FILE "D:\trev\music\transfers\blm\dd-2007-12-13 23_16\blm-20071213-07b.(gap).wav" WAVE
TRACK 07 AUDIO
FLAGS DCP
INDEX 00 00:00:00
FILE "D:\trev\music\transfers\blm\dd-2007-12-13 23_16\blm-20071213-08a.please don't deconstruct.wav" WAVE
INDEX 01 00:00:00
FILE "D:\trev\music\transfers\blm\dd-2007-12-13 23_16\blm-20071213-08b.(gap).wav" WAVE
TRACK 08 AUDIO
FLAGS DCP
INDEX 00 00:00:00
FILE "D:\trev\music\transfers\blm\dd-2007-12-13 23_16\blm-20071213-09a.know this one.wav" WAVE
INDEX 01 00:00:00
FILE "D:\trev\music\transfers\blm\dd-2007-12-13 23_16\blm-20071213-09b.(gap).wav" WAVE
TRACK 09 AUDIO
FLAGS DCP
INDEX 00 00:00:00
FILE "D:\trev\music\transfers\blm\dd-2007-12-13 23_16\blm-20071213-10a.cover.wav" WAVE
INDEX 01 00:00:00
FILE "D:\trev\music\transfers\blm\dd-2007-12-13 23_16\blm-20071213-10b.(gap).wav" WAVE
TRACK 10 AUDIO
FLAGS DCP
INDEX 00 00:00:00
FILE "D:\trev\music\transfers\blm\dd-2007-12-13 23_16\blm-20071213-11.hazelwood.wav" WAVE
INDEX 01 00:00:00
FILE "D:\trev\music\transfers\blm\dd-2007-12-13 23_16\blm-20071213-12a.soft toy.wav" WAVE
TRACK 11 AUDIO
FLAGS DCP
INDEX 01 00:00:00
FILE "D:\trev\music\transfers\blm\dd-2007-12-13 23_16\blm-20071213-12b.(gap).wav" WAVE
TRACK 12 AUDIO
FLAGS DCP
INDEX 00 00:00:00
FILE "D:\trev\music\transfers\blm\dd-2007-12-13 23_16\blm-20071213-13a.sonar.wav" WAVE
INDEX 01 00:00:00
FILE "D:\trev\music\transfers\blm\dd-2007-12-13 23_16\blm-20071213-13b.(gap).wav" WAVE
TRACK 13 AUDIO
FLAGS DCP
INDEX 00 00:00:00
FILE "D:\trev\music\transfers\blm\dd-2007-12-13 23_16\blm-20071213-14.tea.wav" WAVE
INDEX 01 00:00:00
FILE "D:\trev\music\transfers\blm\dd-2007-12-13 23_16\blm-20071213-15.outro.wav" WAVE
INDEX 02 00:00:00

end result is each track, and 01 index, is a song. intro is hidden behind track 1, pre-song banter is in the pre-track gaps, and the outro is appended to the last track.

with eac, i used append file as new track, then append as new index for each pair (gap+song). but doing so defaults to this:

FILE "D:\trev\music\transfers\blm\dd-2007-12-13 23_16\blm-20071213-06b.(gap).wav" WAVE
TRACK 06 AUDIO
FLAGS DCP
INDEX 01 00:00:00
FILE "D:\trev\music\transfers\blm\dd-2007-12-13 23_16\blm-20071213-07a.apol.wav" WAVE
INDEX 02 00:00:00

note the index numbers. so i had to go through and manually change each 01 to 00, and each 02 to 01.

FILE "D:\trev\music\transfers\blm\dd-2007-12-13 23_16\blm-20071213-06b.(gap).wav" WAVE
TRACK 06 AUDIO
FLAGS DCP
INDEX 00 00:00:00
FILE "D:\trev\music\transfers\blm\dd-2007-12-13 23_16\blm-20071213-07a.apol.wav" WAVE
INDEX 01 00:00:00

not sure if there's an easier way, but at least it worked and wasn't too much of a pain to do.

hope all this info might help someone else in my position in the future too.

thanks again to everyone for the help and advice.

-trev.