Burning an absolutely gapless audio-cd on a mac

2007-02-02 00:15:50

Hello everyone,

I'm a dj and I've made a mix-cd that I would like to burn in splitted tracks without absolutely any gaps between tracks.

The thing is I only have access to macs, I have tried iTunes 7 and Toast Titanium 6, both set at the 0 second between tracks gap mode and DAO in toast for the burn mode, but both programs burned the mix with a really small gap (like a tenth of a second) between tracks and this is really ruining the transitions between tracks, especially if you have 35 tracks like I do....

I've made sure that there are absolutely no gaps in the mp3 files of my mix , and the playback in itunes is perfect (no gaps at all) .

I'm really helpless with this , none of the people to whom I've talked about this knew what to do and I was beginning to lose hope until I've found this site, I really hope someone here has a hint for me, I have also read a lot of the archives, but please keep in mind I need a solution compatible with mac (no bootcamp).

I've also wondered if maybe burning my audio mix as a .cue or a .pls playlist would be a solution to my problem, if someone could give me more info on burning audio cds in separate tracks from one mp3 mix, that would maybe be another solution to my problem....

Thanks a lot to anyone who took the time to read this and I hope I've explained my problem correctly, I've been trying to do this for weeks, so this is my last try before I give up, I'm sure there must be a way.....

Thomas.

Burning an absolutely gapless audio-cd on a mac

Reply #1 – 2007-02-02 06:49:37

I don't think Toast supports gapless burning for MP3; I don't think it has any "guess" logic (or LAME encoder header support) to remove the padding used on all MP3 encodes.  (Remember, MP3 wasn't designed to be gapless initially.)

But, it should work with iTunes.  I just tested with fairly recent Mac.  I ripped a constant mix CD with iTunes 7 to both Apple Lossless and AAC... and burned the tracks to an Audio CD, with gap set to 0 seconds.  Seamlesss transitions between tracks on the burned Audio CD, from both Apple Lossless and AAC files.  It should act the same for files ripped to MP3 from iTunes 7, too... though I didn't test that.  (I don't ever use the iTunes MP3 encoder.)

Anyway, when working on creating audio discs... it's better to rip & work with uncompressed (or equivalent lossless) files.  AIFF, etc.  Don't introduce audio compression for maximum audio quality.

Burning an absolutely gapless audio-cd on a mac

Reply #2 – 2007-02-02 11:45:56

Are you sure that you had cross-fading OFF when you checked for gaps in iTunes playback? If your source is OK (no gaps with cross fading off), then I would advice converting to AIFF using iTunes- select AIFF in the Importing options. Then burn with Toast.

Burning an absolutely gapless audio-cd on a mac

Reply #3 – 2007-02-02 11:52:48

the playback in itunes is switched off, I've also double checked my mp3 files for gaps and they are clean.

I'll try burning the .aif files one Toast now, sounds like a good idea...

Thanks for the help, I'll keep you updated on how it went...

Thomas.

Burning an absolutely gapless audio-cd on a mac

Reply #4 – 2007-02-02 12:16:54

Well Jido, You've just made my day !!!!

Finally, it's working perfectly, thanks so much to you for helping me out, this is really great !!

You The Man Jido !!!