> > I set the inter-track pause to 0, but there are still "hickups" betwee=
n
>> tracks when I try to play the whole thing through. I was hoping that it
>> would play through as one long piece.
>>
>> Is there a trick to doing this using my setup? Is there another method
>> or software package that would be more appropriate?
>
>A quick way, which I think Peak LE can do is to put a short fade in and
>fade out on each track. This insures no click. The click is usually a
>oddly truncated soundwave created during editing, not a problem of the
>burning software. Though some burning software can mess up too. Using
>the fade you insure this won't happen. The fade can be as short as a
>tiny fraction of a second. Will not be noticed as a gap.
It's perfectly possible to make gapless CD track points, it's my
normal mode of operation.
There are at least two different ways to make cross-faded transitions
between tracks. One is to edit the "songs" as separate pieces, then
stitch them together with crossfades in the mastering software.
Another is to put together the whole production in the editing
software and then export perfectly-sliced chunks that when burned to
CD will be continuous. I prefer the latter method because it enables
me to audition my final product and make changes without having to
stage to another program.
I assemble a CD on four tracks (two stereo pairs) in Pro Tools.
What's called "A-B roll editing." I never make a butt cut. Every
region has a fade-in and fade-out, even if it's only a 30 ms fade
(equivalent to the diagonal splice on 1/4" tape). That assures there
are no editing pops. I start on the A pair with the fade-in. The next
track goes on the B pair, so I can slip it back and forth to get just
the right timing, and it's easy to revise that later. If the sound is
continuous (what I usually do in my nature recordings) I'll make an
equal-power cross fade at the transition: A going down, B going up.
And so on, through the piece.
When the whole piece plays through as I like it, I drop markers at
where I think the track points ought to be. This isn't necessarily at
the boundary of any region, the points are chosen by how it will
sound when someone starts at the track point. Beginning and ending
points are needed, too. Then I highlight the areas between the
points: Position to the start marker. Hold down shift, and click on
the second track marker in the directory window. Now track 1 is
highlighted. I bounce to a separate folder in the session folder
called "Name CD" and I name the file "01 name" so that the tracks
will always show up in order in a Finder window. So on for all tracks.
Then I go to Toast and make a disk-at-once audio cd of the file
collection, specifying a 2-second gap for the first track (required)
and no gap for all the rest. After burning I save the toast set-up
into a file in the "Name CD" folder with the bounce files so the
makings of the CD are all tidily together and can be archived to a
CD-ROM "mother" archive, convenient for future reproduction.
Note that at no time have I paid any attention to cutting at waveform
zero crossings. It doesn't matter. Pro Tools will bounce sound up to
a marker and from a marker onward so that the files will butt
together perfectly, no gap, no click. Toast will concatenate those
files perfectly.
-Dan Dugan
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