Continuous songs on studio albums

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sixer2007

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Hey all,

Often times studio albums have tracks that end, and another begins without the listener noticing that it's a different tune. I notice it most with drums.. The drummer will play something at the end of one song that melds perfectly with the intro of the next song. In terms of mastering, I think I know how to accomplish that, but what I don't understand is how the CD production process keeps it intact.

If you rip a CD onto your computer (Seemingly no matter what software you use whether iTunes, Windows Media, etc) and then go to burn that onto a blank CD, there will always be a gap between the songs, and that transition i just mentioned will no longer be seamless. Does it take different software when producing the albums to make that happen? Is the whole album exported by the mastering engineer as one track and then the manufacturer (knowing the times noted by the M.E.) somehow make the CD change the track count? :confused:

This is just a curious question I've been wondering about for a while...
 
With those programs they are inserting a 2 second gap, I believe you can change that with iTunes so it doesn't burn with a gap, but I am sure there are professional programs that let you modify that with each track
 
If you use a professional PQ editor, that won't happen. If you *copy* the CD (as opposed to ripping it and then assembling it in a consumer authoring program), that won't happen. And even some consumer programs allow that gap to be "0" (although I've heard more than a few that may randomly have a very slight gap, click, pop or other anomaly at that point).
 
sixer2007 said:
Excuse my ignorance, but could you elaborate on what a PQ editor is, and what they're used for?
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A PQ editor is a tool for laying out all the audio, track markers, index markers and for doing the other necessary tasks for the given type of CD.
 
Ok, so if you don't have one and don't know how to us it, you can never really make legit mastered albums at home, even if you can master the audio...?
 
sixer2007 said:
Ok, so if you don't have one and don't know how to us it, you can never really make legit mastered albums at home, even if you can master the audio...?
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If your goal is mass produced CDs then you need to do it right. I don't know if any consumer disc burning software does PQ editing. Nothing's keeping you from getting the software and doing it yourself, but it might be worth leaving it to a pro if you ever do a mass produced release. For small releases on CD-R it may not matter much.
 
Yeah, I'm not planning on doing anything like that, but I just wonder how things work. I'm an "ask a million questions just to learn new stuff" type of guy. Thanks for your help!
 
sixer2007 said:
Ok, so if you don't have one and don't know how to us it, you can never really make legit mastered albums at home, even if you can master the audio...?
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There are programs you can buy that don't cost an arm and a leg to assemble legit red book cd's.

Wave Editor $79
Wave Lab Essentials $99
CD Architect $110

You can also set the preferences in iTunes for no gap although I wouldn't trust that to burn a master for anything serious.
 
You can also set the preferences in iTunes for no gap although I wouldn't trust that to burn a master for anything serious.
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It's non-compliant. Can't remember the specific issue(s), but I can certainly tell you that when you put an iTunes disc in a professional player, it's dumb luck if it actually plays properly -- or plays at all -- or plays every time. Seemingly totally random. Same with WMP and a small horde of other consumer apps.

I'm told that Nero writes to spec in the background (the proper pre-gap, TOC, etc.). But (A) I'm just "told" that and (B) unless it will produce a frame-accurate PQ log that I can verify, it isn't (even if it is) compliant.
 
Most burning software I've used lets me burn "DISC AT ONCE". No two second gaps and starts and stops are where you want them. I can make a disc with songs that cross fade in and out of each other with no hicups.
 
Track Rat said:
Most burning software I've used lets me burn "DISC AT ONCE". No two second gaps and starts and stops are where you want them. I can make a disc with songs that cross fade in and out of each other with no hicups.
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I was going to say I have used Nero "Disc at Once" (or was it disc copy?) and never had a problem, In fact I tell bands that want to make copies at home to use Nero "Disc at once" and to say away from itunes (them: Oh we can copy this disc for our friends with Itunes! Me: Nooooooooo). I don't use nero as a master CD burner but for making quick copies it's fine.

Alan.
 
I use Sony's CD Architect and it does everything I want - I simply export one long continuous .wav from my album project in Sonar, open it in CDA and insert track markers wherever I want, then burn.
 
I am new to the "computer way" of ripping and burning copies and have just learned recently how fast and accurate it is to just use plain ole Windows Media....never had a problem with any of this stuff ya'll are talking about :wtf:
 
Dumb n00b* answer, in case anyone reading the thread doesn't know this factoid yet: Make sure you're burning from wavs and not mp3s. The lossy compression on mp3s will create gaps and pops even on a gapless disk.

* Not to say that people who needed this are dumb per se; you just didn't know yet.
 
TASCAM MAN said:
I am new to the "computer way" of ripping and burning copies and have just learned recently how fast and accurate it is to just use plain ole Windows Media....never had a problem with any of this stuff ya'll are talking about :wtf:
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Really? WMP will burn disc-at-once CDs with no gaps between tracks?
 
Just because it's DAO doesn't mean it's up to spec -- WMP disc fail for me all the time.
 
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