2 seconds between songs ... or ....?

mjbphotos

Moderator
When I finish edited/self-mastering my songs, I have 2 seconds of silence after the final fade-out. Should I also have a '2 second pause' between tracks on CDs?

Listening to a trial CD, the 'extra' 2 seconds isn't really noticeable. Wondering why this '2 seconds of 'pause' is the 'standard'?
 
Depends on the software as to how you do this, I end the track right on the end of the fade, then adjust the gap to what I want. Usually 3 to 4 seconds, but I find if the song has a very long fade I may make the gap shorter maybe 2 seconds. When the Album is mastered, the gap becomes part of the song (like inserted silence) up to the start of the next song which is why when you rip a CD track it has the silence on the end of the track.

Alan.
 
It depends on how you want it to feel like as an album. Time to breathe between songs, or go right into a heavy riff.

If not creating a DDP master file for replication, then it doesn't really matter.
 
There is no standard. Always by feel. I assume anything with a stock setting (like 2 seconds) is just giving you a starting point of sorts.
 
Two seconds is the default in many applications - you can change it, but it dates back to the seek time on the original CD players. Less than two seconds would cause issues with some players back then - Philips CD100 being very reluctant to play CDs that had been recorded by duplication at home rather than replication in the factory. The Red Book standard only requires a pre-track delay on the first track. I'm not sure that it was ever needed for subsequent tracks, and some CDs of course are continuous playback with incremental tracks rather than markers. I suspect now we don't need to worry.
 
timely post. i was recently gifted a CD of originals by a friend's band. i immediately noticed the short space between tracks. the music is complicated and in fact i thought the first song was still going, thought it had a dramatic stop. but soon realized it was track 2. still don't like the short space but im used to this CD now. but as a listener i know i prefer more than 2 seconds to at least contemplate what i just heard before having to re-focus.
 
I have mastered albums that have no space or a 1 beat space between songs to keep the groove going. On one of the albums I released I had a happy accident where I overlapped 2 songs and when they played the last few bars of the first song and the first few bars of the 2nd song made an interesting dis-chord, so I had a cross fade, placed the start ID of the second song at a point where the dis-cord sounded right for the start of the second song for radio play purposes.

Another trick is the make the first beat of the second song the last beat of the first song, making the second song almost the next movement (in classical terms) of the first song.

Basically there are no rules, as in most recording techniques.

Alan
 
I set the gap lengths by ear depending on the relationship between the songs and the desired effect. I often count the beats of the preceding song and bring in the next song after a nice sounding gap on what would be a "one". Having said that, bringing it in early creates a surprise. Other times the preceding song needs to hang in the air.
 
The gap I leave between tracks depends on what comes before and what comes after. If it is more of the same and you want to preserve the mood, you keep the gap short. If it a contrast, the gap can be bigger to allow the listener to deal with first before moving on to the second. You can build this breathing space into the end of the track itself, or by adjusting track gap.
 
I very often time my gaps to the beat of the track. I like to have about a beat of silence before the actual start of the track and something like a measure at the end. Of course I listen and go by feel when assembling a full album, but for singles I just do that and for albums it's always my starting point and usually doesn't need much tweaking.

It has the added benefit of making it work reasonably well in a shuffle or playlist situation, which is more common than listening to the full album as sequenced anyway. Interminably long silences at the end of a track just suck for that, and nowadays should almost just be another track.
 
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