Can't get a seamless transition between CD tracks

[Amo Audio]

I need to do the old trick of having a song seamlessly flow into another song on a CD. This seemed to be an incredibly simple task before i actually tried it.

I started by bouncing both songs down from their session files and then importing them into a new session for mastering and to create the fade between them. Then from here i bounced both halfs of the now single audio file accurately to the nearest sample (eg. from sample #0 to sample #100000, then from sample #100001 to sample #999999) making sure that the waveform was at an amplitude of zero at the transition point.

The first thing i noticed was when i bounced it this way there was some dead samples at the beginning of the second song, which obviousely made the transition useless. I thought this was pretty weird.

Next i tried bouncing the whole thing as one file and then importing into Bias Peak to do the split... this just turned out to be a bitch because i couldn't figure out how to locate to samples (only seconds and milliseconds).

Finally i tried to consolidate the two songs together in ProTools and then create the split, then consolidate both halfs again. Then from the audio files menu i chose "Export selected files as..."

I thought for sure this last method was fool-proof, but sure enough, when i burned the cd there was still an artifact during the transition. even when i bring both files into the quicktime player and paste one after the other, the artifact is there (so i know its not the cd player or the burning process). Strangely enough, when i do the same thing in Peak, or ProTools, there is no artifact and the transition is seamless....

Someone please help cuz i am approaching my deadline...

P.S. I also tried all the above with overlapping samples (eg. sample #0 to #1000 then #1000 to #9999). didn't change anything...

[LeGato]

Create two separate stereo tracks, one per song. Line up the songs so they are in the place where you like it. This way you can fade into the last song or cut into the next song by editing out the parts the arent hapnin, just mess with it until it sounds right. Using the fade command or drawing volume changes between both tracks should help out. Then bounce down the whole thing.

hope this helps,

RS

[Rail Jon Rogut]

Do a search of the DUC for the phrase "588 samples" for the last 3 to 5 years.

Also see this PSW thread

Rail

[Guerrilla Tech]

bounce with handles and crossfade in Jam

[Amo Audio]

Do a search of the DUC for the phrase "588 samples" for the last 3 to 5 years.

Also see this PSW thread

Rail

I did the search but couldn't find anything helpful... do you know the title of the thread? I read that thread on the other forum and i'm not sure if that is my problem because even if i copy and paste the two tracks back to back in quicktime the glitch is still there during the transition... so i don't think its really a cd player issue...

[Rail Jon Rogut]

Thread 1

Thread 2

Thread 3

Thread 4

Thread 4 (includes exporting region defs).

... there are more.

Rail

[ggunn]

I do this kind of thing all the time, and pretty simply.

In a recent case, I started with one long continuous file that was a recording of a live show, which I imported into a stereo track in PT. I cut and pasted each song as a separate region into a new stereo track, zooming all the way in on each edit point so there were no gaps or overlaps (I set markers so I could get back to the exact same spot). Then I selected all the new regions and did an "export as files" operation. Then I used Roxio Toast to burn the CD, specifying a 0.0 second gap between tracks. It worked like a charm; the sound is continuous and the track numbers roll over at the top of each tune.

I have done this with crossfades, too. It's only a little more involved; I set up the crossfade between two songs and then do a bounce to disk to make them combine into a single track. Then I cut it up as I described above with the edit point wherever I want the track number to roll over.

One caveat: your CD burning software must support "disk at once" technology; if it doesn't (and that may well be your prob), then you'll get a little dead spot between each track even if you spec a zero gap. The "Lite" (free) versions of Toast (at one time, anyway) did not do "disk at once", and this very issue was what prompted me to ante up for the full blown version.

Good luck,

[yOkO]

The "Lite" (free) versions of Toast (at one time, anyway) did not do "disk at once", and this very issue was what prompted me to ante up for the full blown version.

[/QUOTE]

you need jam (in toast) for that

[ricupad]

Toast Lite has DAO, but it still makes gaps; I just tried this with a classical recording I purchased from the iTunes Music Store...

R.

[ggunn]

The "Lite" (free) versions of Toast (at one time, anyway) did not do "disk at once", and this very issue was what prompted me to ante up for the full blown version.

you need jam (in toast) for that

[/QUOTE]

I don't know from Jam. I think it may have come with the version of Toast (Titanium 5, I believe) I bought, but I have never fooled around with it. If it's necessary to use Jam for seamless CD's (no gaps), then Toast is doing it all on its own; I never invoked Jam and my CD's have no gaps.