Creating audio files for Red Book Masters – gaps or not?

  • Thread starter Thread starter AstraLeadGuitar
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AstraLeadGuitar

AstraLeadGuitar

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Hello, guys and gals.

The last time I sent in a CD-R to a professional mastering engineer for embedding ISRCs and creation of a Red Book CD Master, the audio files had gaps as part of the song, i.e., 1.5 seconds at the beginning and 2 at the end. He didn’t say anything. However, I was wondering what the standard thing to do is? Should the files be cut close to the music and the gaps be added by the CD-burning software, or is it perfectly acceptable not to burn gaps and have them as part of the song?

Your comments appreciated!
 
I (nearly always as a matter of course, very rare exceptions) tend to keep the gap after the track as part of the track no matter the length. That's part of the song, IMO. I don't use additional index points and pause markers except for the occasional goofy thing (hidden tracks, extended live recordings, etc.).

As far as the head goes, it's pretty rare (IMO/E) that the space between the track marker and the first purposeful oscillation should be more than maybe 25 frames or so. Again, there are exceptions to that. But 1.5 seconds (~110 frames) seems rather excessive for almost anything other than maybe certain classical compositions. Typically, I use maybe 10-12 frames and rarely less than 7 or 8 (about 100ms -- really, just enough for older players to ramp up volume).

All of that combined also makes for "iFriendly" files when ripped to MP3's and what not...

And hopefully obviously, the 150 frame gap before the first track's start marker, which is required for compliancy, isn't played by the CD player or attached to the file when ripping to another format.
 
Hi, John,
Thanks for your reply. So, if I wanted 3.5 seconds between tracks, it should go at the end entirely. Regarding the older player issue, some places on the web have said that the first track on a CD should have about 1 to 1.5 seconds at the beginning to allow for older CD players to catch up but it seems you think that's no longer relevant and 100 ms is now the norm? Is that right?
 
I've seen cases where soft players would "swallow" that first few milliseconds of music when the 1st song was right at the start...so I've been giving it 1 second just to be safe. I have not experimented with what is the shortest safe space that could be used without that happening, and it only happens occasionally with soft players...especially when the music is streamed.

But like John....I was using as little as 15 frames without any issues on actual CDs, and 25 frames is more than enough.
 
Ok - I understand. That's great. Thanks for your reply and input, miroslav.
 
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