[kj] OT: Burning live CDs (no gaps)?

[Bo Krogsgaard]

PRAEst76 wrote:

> Sounds like your source mp3s have gaps in them. Probably because they got 
> ripped using naff software.

Here's an untested theory:

1) Strip ALL tags from the files, be they RealPlayer, APE, ID3vWhatever,
MusicMatch and all that stuff. There are also a way of embedding images
and lyrics into mp3 files, remember to strip that too. www.mp3tag.de has
a very very nice program that can do that, and it's absolutely free.

2) Copy the mp3's together in one huge file. Listen to the mp3. If there
are gaps then there's either still tags left in your separate mp3 files
or they're simply broken. This can be done with a tool from
musicutter.host.sk (if it still exists, else Google for musicutter).
This program is also free.

3) Generate a cue sheet. musiCutter can do this for you during step 2.

4) Burn with Nero, CDRWIN or whatever can handle mp3's in cue sheets,
and make sure you burn as audio CD and in Disc-At-Once (DAO) mode
(although TAO mode won't make sense in this scenario).

The cue sheet will allow you to skip between tracks on the resulting CD,
DAO mode will make sure the laser doesn't go off and on between tracks
while burning, meaning no 2 second gaps, and stripping all tags and
other crap from the mp3 files makes sure that whatever audio decoder
you're using won't see a tag as a bad frame and give you a silent frame
instead of no frame (a frame is 1/70th of a second).

As said, it's only a theory, but it saves a lot of time compared to
using a sound editor, and if you have a rewritable, it won't cost you a
dime to test it out either. I would test it for you, but i don't have a
computer with a functional CD writer around.

I used a similar method on an mp3'ed bootleg recording once and got a
perfect result out of it. I decoded to WAV between steps 1 and 2, though.


Good luck!

b