hello everyone... i've been a long time reader of the forums here and have gotten tons of valuable info. first, thanks to the author(s) of the wonderful CUETools, I have been looking for a piece of software like this for ages and I'm excited to have it now.
Although I have tried to read up and learn as much as possible, I am still having trouble wrapping my head around a few concepts... one of them being offsets. I have tried reading and searching through this thread, but it's simply too many pages to read through.. and my girlfriend has already been bitching at me enough to get off the computer when I start getting into these and reading them. I just need someone with a clear understanding of this to lay this out to me in a simple enough manner where I can grasp the concept.
I will give this example. These are the calculations from a 13 track CD, file-per-track FLAC files; this is the first table under the "disc id" line. I assume this is the actual calculated CRC of the input tracks that i am verifying...? (please correct me if i'm wrong) Obviously, something isn't matching up, since there are no matches showing:
Track [ CRC ] Status
01 [213508d0] (00/23) No matches
02 [90b36db6] (00/23) No matches
03 [1152ecdf] (00/23) No matches
04 [6e1252ab] (00/23) No matches
05 [d3591909] (00/23) No matches
06 [2cf2a748] (00/23) No matches
07 [2b7fa67c] (00/23) No matches
08 [81453f47] (00/23) No matches
09 [ea507b41] (00/23) No matches
10 [3d4ba5bd] (00/23) No matches
11 [c1f5c908] (00/23) No matches
12 [370b551f] (00/23) No matches
13 [40fd1bea] (00/23) No matches
I have gathered that what is wrong is the offset, because there are several more tables underneath of different "pressings" using different offsets, for instance:
Offsetted by 6:
01 [05b7cf72] (15/23) Accurately ripped as in pressing(s) #1
02 [829d6f3f] (15/23) Accurately ripped as in pressing(s) #1
03 [5d639b34] (15/23) Accurately ripped as in pressing(s) #1
04 [a6c7db40] (15/23) Accurately ripped as in pressing(s) #1
05 [3c021a2a] (15/23) Accurately ripped as in pressing(s) #1
06 [b77a7c94] (15/23) Accurately ripped as in pressing(s) #1
07 [8c789ccc] (15/23) Accurately ripped as in pressing(s) #1
08 [2ad60b8d] (15/23) Accurately ripped as in pressing(s) #1
09 [973462dd] (15/23) Accurately ripped as in pressing(s) #1
10 [14e882c3] (15/23) Accurately ripped as in pressing(s) #1
11 [16bc618d] (15/23) Accurately ripped as in pressing(s) #1
12 [51ca571e] (15/23) Accurately ripped as in pressing(s) #1
13 [3e2ef5aa] (15/23) Accurately ripped as in pressing(s) #1
I see that my tracks with an offset of 6 applied, matches pressing #1. I realize that if I select my files, choose Encode or Encode and Verify and put in 6 as a manual offset, then after encoding, my tracks will match up and then BAM, all is good... the FLAC files test out in both CUETools and TripleF.
I am assuming that I have modified the data in the FLAC files and maybe.. shifted the samples over +6 or something? I am trying to understand:
1) To me it seems that in a file-per-track rip, if i change the offset by so much, I am effectively either cutting "X" amount of audio off of the end of track or the beginning of the track (depending if the offset is positive or negative)...?
2) Am I going about this the wrong way by re-encoding?
3) By adjusting the offsets, am I losing audio data? For instance, if there were a huge sample offset, and I change it to that, is it possible it could cut off the first or last second(s) of audio in the track?
4) If I recall correctly, if i take this "corrected" version from the Converted folder, and create a dummy CUE file for it, using a ripping program like EAC or dbPowerAmp, the disc shows up as absent from the AR database or fails. Any idea why?
5) When fixing the offset (if this is OK to do), is it best to choose the smallest offset difference (so as to limit the "difference" between the original and fixed, or is it best to fix the offset according to the pressing with the most confidence? smaller offset vs. more confidence
Ultimately, from these questions, is the main point: When I have a FLAC set with no cue or log, and it does not match AR entries because of an incorrect offset... and I fix the offset, am I removing audio or destroying the integrity of the tracks or am I doing no harm?
Thank you to anyone who can help explain!