Hi,
I recently posted a question about setting a constant appearent listening levels on the songs on a CD, whereby some comments went on to discuss the appropriate inter-track silence.

Today's question refers to getting a nice inter-track silence in a digital download only distribution.

Should I add on a few seconds of silence to each track, or is it best to end the track the instant the song is finished.

Regards,
Adrian.

Well that is an interesting one because I have been referring to burning CD's and the silence is actually inserted in that process.
 
If you are concerned that digital downloads are going to be played end to end eg butted right up against each other then the obvious place for the silence is at the end of each track. The only issue is that if you decide to burn a CD with these tracks that have silence at the end of them you will need to make sure no silence is inserted when burning the CD.  So the tracks do play end to end but the silence at the end of the tracks will create the silence between.
 
 
 
 

AdrianNewington
Should I add on a few seconds of silence to each track, or is it best to end the track the instant the song is finished.

It would be good to know if makes any difference at all for digital distribution??? I would suspect that there is some sort of auto trimming functionality that digital providers / streaming services would employ to cope with receiving different files from different sources, especially these days when also DYO mastered songs are submitted that don't necessarily follow any traditional mastering / delivery standards.

I think it's common practice to insert a little silence at the end for downloads. I've just had a look at a sampling of songs I'd downloaded from Amazon. I don't have many, as I usually buy CDs and rip them. But all the ones I looked at had about 3 seconds of silence at the end.

Apple's stuff about "mastered for itunes" may be useful reading -

http://www.apple.com/uk/i.nes/mastered-for-itunes/

Digital downloads are usually ripped from the CD.  The silence at the ending of the track from the pause marker to the next track is usually added up at the end of the mp3 file.  
There will usually be a pause between songs, especially with streaming, due to the time it takes to load and buffer the next track, one reason I hate mp3 downloads. This will add even more time if you wish to listen to tracks back to back.  If you are able to master directly to mp3, it would be best to judge how long you want the next track to come in and subtract a couple/three seconds from the silence.  Just a thought.

Hi Daniel,
I use CD Baby to distribute my music to online vendors, and I wont be sending them a CD anymore as I'm not going to create these anymore.
The process is to upload each WAV file of the album, so I'm still unsure as to whether to tack on 3 seconds of silence or not. I've also sent an email to CD Baby support to get their advice.
 
Cheers.