I've downloaded some cd's that are ripped into seperate FLAC files, but they all lack a cuesheet.

If I simply select these files and burn them files as a cd (with CDBurnerXP), I get a very slight but audible 'crack' in between the tracks that are designed to flow into eachother.

I've found a cuesheet for most of the albums, but these are designed for one big file with all the tracks in it, and so they seem useless.

For some of the cd's, I have a TOC with data on the exact length of the tracks. Does it make sense to attempt to create a cuesheet manually based on this information?

Do I even need a cuesheet? Or is there a way to correctly burn these files to ensure a crackless/gapless cd?

Many thanks in advance!

The cdrdao package includes a utility called TOC2CUE which will automatically convert TOC disc indexes to CUE format. That might work better with your burning software. TOCs are always indexes to a single disk image file, however, which means you'll also have to convert your multiple FLACs into a single PCM WAV.

thanks for the advice!


what is the best way of doing this?

Just to make sure we're on solid ground, you are talking about live concerts by taper-friendly bands... correct? Good.



Sounds like the tracks may not have been cut on a sector boundary. Try using shntool to re-align the tracks, which should correct the problem and allow you to properly burn the discs even without a cue sheet.

- M.

You can also use shntool to generate a cue sheet and rejoin the tracks (shncue, shnjoin).

Tried out both suggestions, but shntool tells me the files are already sector-aligned. And when I combine them into a single WAV, the 'clicks' remain... Thanks again/

shntool cue *.flac
shntool join *.flac

doubleclick joined.cue


else it is a bad rip and you need to edit the wav data which I don`t recommend

I wonder if you could fix this by 'zero crossing' the starts and finishes in Audition or CoolEdit?

Sounds fishy... Maybe a mp3-transcode. Check with auCDtect or Tau analyser.

A CD ripped to separate FLAC files should not have any clicks when burned to a CD. I have 1000+ of these, and not one has any clicks.

Something was done wrong during the rip. It will most likely have to be fixed manually.

Clicks at the end of live tracks that are sector aligned probably means the following:

At some point the files were not sector aligned, but were burned to CD. During burning, padding was added to the end of each file. The tracks were then ripped from that CD, and you downloaded those tracks. Consequently they are now sector aligned but with silent padding at the end of each incomplete sector, thereby causing the clicks.

You have to fix this problem manually. Convert each track to wav format, then zoom in on the last sector with wave editing software and snip off the silence found at the end of each sector. (You don't have to bother doing this on the last track).

To burn a new CD use shntool to sector align the new tracks you create, or just create a cue sheet and join the files together into one wave file. Shntool can do this too.

Have fun :-)