CD Audio : Index Points ?

[Badtz]

Greetings,

When using index points to sort out the track numbers on an Audio CD ...

are you suppose to have ONE long track, and have the index points point to where the track numbers are?

or are you suppose to pre-split the tracks up in your mixing software?

where is the information for the index points stored on the CD?


Thanks for any help!

[Blue Bear Sound]

TRACKS - differentiate songs themselves.
INDEX POINTS - can be used to locate specific passages in TRACKS.

It is pretty rare to see index points on CD for anything other than classical music, where different passages are indexed.

For popular music (the genre, not the musical style), indexes are very rarely used, if ever. I have well over 1000 CDs of popular music and not one has indexes.

[geet73]

Well, for soemthing like an epic band.. the indexes would come in handy.

Or maybe even for having two songs blend together.. I've dont it before. I didn't know how to do the index points, so I just split in the software and made sure the pause was off on my burner.

Just make sure there's no pause when you burn it and you're fine.

[Massive Master]

I think the bigger issue is that there are relatively few CD players out there that read index points.

Even when mastering classical (probably 1/3 of my masters) I just use track markers between movements.

John Scrip - www.massivemastering.com

[Badtz]

Originally posted by geet73
Well, for soemthing like an epic band.. the indexes would come in handy.

Or maybe even for having two songs blend together.. I've dont it before. I didn't know how to do the index points, so I just split in the software and made sure the pause was off on my burner.

Just make sure there's no pause when you burn it and you're fine.

Usually that's how I would do it also [break up the songs beforehand and put zero second pause gaps] .....


is this the best way though? Let's say if you're putting a DJ Mix together, and you recorded it into one big audio track and don't want to spend the time to split up the audio track into smaller tracks ........ could index points be valid to use then?


also, where does the index point information stored on the CD for the player to read?

[thanks for all the help so far ]

[Blue Bear Sound]

Apparently, you completely disregarded what both John and I mentioned.

Tracking-inserts with a zero-gap are the way you want to do it.

Index points are not often used and as John pointed out, many current CD-players don't even have index features.

[Badtz]

Originally posted by Blue Bear Sound
Apparently, you completely disregarded what both John and I mentioned.

Tracking-inserts with a zero-gap are the way you want to do it.

Index points are not often used and as John pointed out, many current CD-players don't even have index features.

what's the advantage/disadvantage of doing index points? [i know they're less commonly used, but i would like to know how/why they're used instead of breaking up the one audio track]

[Blue Bear Sound]

That's my point, they AREN'T being used anymore..... they're so not being used that many new cd players don't even have index-jump features.

TRACKS are what you want to use.

Indexes were a mechanism intended for subdividing tracks into sections - it only ever got used with classical music to jump to different passages or movements, but no one really ever bothered with them.

[Chibi Nappa]

Originally posted by Blue Bear Sound
Indexes were a mechanism intended for subdividing tracks into sections - it only ever got used with classical music to jump to different passages or movements, but no one really ever bothered with them.

Well.....not strictly classical CDs. Aerosmith's Pump uses them for the little musical interludes sprinkled throught the disc, but that's the only one I've ever seen.

[Massive Master]

Yes, I believe that the "Index Point" has moved into the esoteric world...

Some day, I'd like to use index points to jump to certain words that would then make a secret message... Some day...

John -