Hello all,

I'm trying to create a Red Book master in CD Architect and I'm stumped when it comes to putting 3 second breaks between each track.

I have seen others adding a 3-second silence at the end of each wav file but wouldn't this show as part of the actual track time?

Is there a simple way to add breaks between tracks? Is 3 seconds the best length to leave between tracks?

Thanks guys.  

I believe that there is not set solution re the time between tracks. If a tune has had a slow fade out or a slower ending you don't need as much time between that and the next track compared to a tune or song that ends quickly or abruptly. For those you sometimes need a longer break. 

There is more to this than meets the eye. I find a good way is to set the break times, burn a test CD and just listen to get an overall feel. You will get a sense if the break is too short or too long but 3 to 4 seconds is a pretty good start. 

Danny's post is excellent below and highlights the issues in terms of headphones, speakers and monitoring levels and he is so right with all of his points. Try and monitor in a typical situation at a typical level to get the most accurate impression of the break times.  

I use Nero my CD burning software to insert the time between tracks. You must be able to do it in CD Architect as well, it may be that you just have not found yet how to set that. Keep looking! Check the manual and also go on line and do a search there too.

I just downloaded the manual and it is on page 78. It is a secured pdf so I could not select and copy and paste that part into this post.

Manual download is here but I am sure you would have it anyway.

http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/download/manuals/cdarchitect

Just to add to Jeff's great post if I may? He's correct in saying there is no set time. The default for most programs and users is 2 seconds in between songs. That doesn't mean you have to use it though. :)

Like Jeff says, there are times when a song that has a fade, would have a smaller gap between the next song. A song that stops dead, would be better with a 2 second gap into the next song.

That said, there are 4 things to keep in mind here that are extremely important in my opinion.

1. You will make different decisions on how long or short your gaps will be if you do this procedure using headphones.

*In headphones, you hear each fade-out in full because they are right in your brain. This will not be the case in real monitors. This can cause you to make gaps longer while making this decision with headphones on.*

2. You will make different decisions on how long or short your gaps will be if you do this procedure with monitors.

*In real monitors, even at loud volumes, you will not hear the entire fade the way you will in headphones. So if you made the gap decision listening on headphones and processed it, when you listen through real monitors or car speakers, the gaps may appear too long when in reality, your fade out are still going on...you just can't hear them.*

**It is best to find a happy medium for 1 and 2. Don't rely on one listening environment to help you make the final decision. Use both headphones and monitors to find that happy gap medium.

3. You will make different decisions on how long or short your gaps will be if you do this procedure after listening to the material at a loud volume.

*When you listen to music loud for 30 minutes, you lose high end frequencies as well as some sensitivity. Make sure you take a break for about 2 hours before you proceed with any finalizing.*

4. Gaps that are too short between songs can cause what we call "album listener fatigue". Though this is nothing super serious, when gaps are too short one song sort of runs into the next and sometimes a nice little break for tension in an album is a good thing.

Gaps that are too long can make an album slow moving and boring. When you have a song that has a long fade-out, the gap for the next song should be shorter at around 1 second or 1.5 seconds. Depending on the length of the fade, you may even need a half a second or somewhere in between a half a second and 1 second.

As for your CD Architect question, you should be able to click on the song and slide it in increments away from the song before it. You have a time-line there and each song should have markers on it. When you slide the song, the markers move with it. It's been a long time since I've used that program, but that's how I remember it to be. Hope this helps...best of luck. :)

-Danny

In CD Architect you can specify the amount by going to
Options/ Preferences/ Editing / default time between tracks.

I usually prefer 'no gaps' masters myself. Instead I leave time at the beginning of each track to allow for itunes+mp3' to start, if too short they can get cut off. 

Red Book requires 2 seconds before the first track, but does not say anything about gaps between tracks.

One of the reasons for gaps is that CD players aren't very precise about positioning, typically with a resolution of + or - 1 second. So if you want to make sure that when the listener hits the Next button it always lands on silence, then 2 second gaps are recommended.

Personally, I prefer to set gaps by ear. Some gaps might end up being 2 or 3 seconds, others less or none at all.

I just had a bad experience with a duplicator who inserted 100ms gaps because explicit instructions were not given to make it gapless. Why on earth they decided it need 0.1 second gaps is a mystery, but I'll know better next time!

I assemble album material inside Sonar, setting gaps as necessary by sliding the individual tracks to where they should be.

Then I export the whole long wav and import it into CD Architect

From there it's easy to insert your "next song marker" simply by looking at where the gaps are.
As Bitflipper rightly says, you MUST ensure song 1 starts precisely on 2.00 seconds or you'll get a burn error.

Now, talking about 'burn errors'! 


I am/was almost there. Everything worked out fine, figured out how to adjust the 2 second gap (when necessary), triple-checked everything, inserted a blank disc, pressed BURN CD and . . . . scanning for CD drives . . . none found.


Tried on two different PCs - same result. It simply will not burn my Red Book master!  


Help ! ! !


P.S. Thanks guys for all the above advice, most helpful.

Of course you don't need no stinking silence between tracks, but can fade one song into another - even in pyro.  That makes setting the next song marker exciting, but can be worth it.  Or leaving a track marker out for your last song (along w/ lots of silence between) for a "hidden" track.  I always found that bogus, but it is doable. 

I still have some old comp CDs (mostly from vinyl) where I was off on my marks.  Now some songs that I've put on my mp3 player start w/ the outro of a different song, or end abruptly.  So use the marker function wisely - I really don't feel like re-recording all those LPs just to get the fade out of "These Boots are made for Walking" out of the "I'd love to change the world."

@

Cheers, I've sussed the silences problem, now I just need to burn (see above please)

I had that problem with CDA 4.0, but not with the current revision. I am on 5.2b, but the current build is 5.2d. The release notes say it includes a fix for some drives not being recognized.