Pops between CD tracks

[BookSix]

I have noticed pops when my CD's switch from the end of one track to the begining of the gap between songs.

I mastered everything in protools, printing everything to track rather than bouncing by routing everything through an aux track with all my mastering plugins, then to an audio track. I put volume fade in/outs on the aux track at the beginning and end of each song so that when I actually start recording, the volume has a few ms at -infinity and then climbs. Same with the end, the track ends after the volume has reached -infinity. I figured this would guaruntee no pops. I export these files and put them into toast. Burn and check....POPS! Can anyone help? Thanks

[Rail Jon Rogut]

Are you burning using DAO (disk at once)... and have you made sure that your songs (regions or sound files) are all multiples of 588 samples in length?

Rail

[BookSix]

I AM burning using DAO, is that what i should be doing?

As for the multiples of 588, I have no clue, so obviously not. Why?

[Rail Jon Rogut]

As for the multiples of 588, I have no clue, so obviously not. Why?

Previous thread where I explained why.

Rail

[BookSix]

Thanks Rail, but I'm still kinda confused. I'm gonna reread the other post, but I wanted to ask if this only applies to the situation described where a continuous region is used, or if it applies to me too, where I am using a seperate region for each song, then printing the effects through a Aux and then exporting each song seperate. And if it does apply to me, whats the best way to tell if the song ends on a multiple of 588 frames?

[Rail Jon Rogut]

Well there are usually only 2 things which can cause pops.. I've mentioned the first one.. the other is a DC offset - and I've never experienced one while bouncing to disk in Pro Tools.

What you have to do is simply select the region in Pro Tools and display the length in samples and divide that value by 588 if it doesn't divide exactly you should change the length so that it divides without any remainder.

Rail

[BookSix]

Wow, I didn't know so much attention was paid to this. It's seems like a lot to go through.

But anyway, I opened my session, and the only way to see how long it is, is to display length in regions, then switch to samples on the ruler. Then I get start and end points, so I have to subtract the start from the end to get the length (since none of the regions start at 0), then divide by 588. If it's wrong, muliply that number by 588 to get the correct length. Then add that length to the start point, to get my out point, then add the region plau a selection to my new end point and consolidate. Wow, ok..can you even follow that?!? I think I'm missing something....shouldnt there be an easier way?!?

[Rail Jon Rogut]

Actually if you set your timeline to samples and make a selection the length will be displayed at the top of the Edit Window and also in the display if you have the Transport Window opened and expanded.

Simply select a region, look at the value for the length and divide it by 588 - if there's a fraction then just take the whole value and add one and multiply by 588 - enter that value in the length field and the selection will change.. now you can consolidate, separate region (and export region definitions) or BTD and the file created will be the right length.

I've requested a 75 frames per second timeline in a future release so you could use Grid mode hopefully in the future.

Rail

[BookSix]

Ahh!! cool, thanks a million. The best thing I've learned on this board so far!!

[Rail Jon Rogut]

Well.. let's see if that's your problem

You should also allow some time in front of each song for the CD muting circuitry to unmute. Older CD players respond slower... basically when you use the next ID feature the CD mutes its outputs and then unmutes them when it reaches the ID.. if the player takes longer than the amount of space you've left you could have an unmuting issue. Leave some space in front of the song to give it time to unmute.

For an excellent read on all this stuff try and find an old Masterlist CD reference manual. If you don't find it in the technical documents link below post here and perhaps the web admin will add a link for it.

Okay - here's a link to a PDF ( Masterlist CD PDF ) Control+click on a Mac (Right click on Windows) and download the file then open it to read (Don't click directly on the link) -- check out the chapter named "Successful CD Writing".

Rail