Track Separation On Audio Cd

[Lefa]

Hi! When I make a mix and burn it as an audio CD, it makes one long track of 1+hrs. long. My friends get frustrated that they cannot forward or rewind tracks throughout the mix. Is there a simple way to create "forward tabs" at the end of each song, or at a minimum every 5 minutes? Thanks in advance for your help.

 

Lewis

[tsantee]

Your mix is a single audio file so that is what it is unless you break it into multiple files. You can do that with QuickTime Player. Set the gap in Toast to zero seconds and you'll have what you want.

 

In the future you could use crossfades in Toast so you do the mix from multiple files in Toast.

[Lefa]

I read about breaking into multiple files and it seemed like a lot of work (I also worried about breaking the seamlessness of the mix). I do use crossfades in Toast (that's how I create my mixes), so can you tell me a bit more about how that give listeners the ability to forward tracks? Thank you in advance for your help.

[tsantee]

I read about breaking into multiple files and it seemed like a lot of work (I also worried about breaking the seamlessness of the mix). I do use crossfades in Toast (that's how I create my mixes), so can you tell me a bit more about how that give listeners the ability to forward tracks? Thank you in advance for your help.

I'm a bit confused now because if you are using Toast to create crossfades then you already have individual CD tracks and not one continuous track. In the Toast window you should see each of your tracks. You've set the gap at zero seconds (starting with track 2). You've made the crossfades you want. When you burn the audio CD each of the tracks are separate but play without any break. To skip to the next track the listener does the same thing they do with any audio CD: click the track advance button.

 

My sense is you are somehow joining tracks together into a single audio file. This certainly gives you a lot more creative options than just crossfading from one track to another, but you lose the start and end points you get with individual tracks. If you did split an audio file using QuickTime player or some other application, when you put them in Toast as adjoining tracks and set the gap to 0 seconds, it will play seamlessly and now have a place where you wanted a new track to be selectable.

[Lefa]

Confused also because what you described should allow me to make cd's the way I'm looking for. Here's step by step, can you find the flaw?

 

- turn on Toast & import songs

 

- use crossfades so the entire playlist is mixed together (Pause is set to 0 sec)

 

- In case it matters, for each track, under Effects (AU), Effect # is always 1, Effect is set to "None" and "Enabled" box is checked.

 

- I save as Disc Image and import into ITunes

 

- In iTunes I have to make an MP3 version of the mix for some reason (otherwise it doesn't show up on my devices)

 

- I then burn an audio CD using iTunes

 

Please let me know where I'm going wrong! Thank you.

[tsantee]

Confused also because what you described should allow me to make cd's the way I'm looking for. Here's step by step, can you find the flaw?

 

- turn on Toast & import songs

 

- use crossfades so the entire playlist is mixed together (Pause is set to 0 sec)

 

- In case it matters, for each track, under Effects (AU), Effect # is always 1, Effect is set to "None" and "Enabled" box is checked.

 

- I save as Disc Image and import into ITunes

 

- In iTunes I have to make an MP3 version of the mix for some reason (otherwise it doesn't show up on my devices)

 

- I then burn an audio CD using iTunes

 

Please let me know where I'm going wrong! Thank you.

I see the problem. iTunes will always import the .sd2f file as a single track. So you need to do the import differently. The easiest thing to do is to burn the audio CD using Toast. Then import the burned CD into iTunes to make the mp3s.

 

Below are the instructions from iTunes help on joining the CD tracks for playback in iTunes:

 

]Join CD tracks

 

When you import songs from a CD into iTunes, you can group songs so they always play together (even when you’re shuffling songs).

• 
  Insert an audio CD into your computer’s CD or DVD drive, and click No in the window that appears.
   
  
• 
  When the songs on the CD appear in the iTunes window, hold down the Shift key to select the ones you want to join.
   
  
• 
  Click near the top-right of the iTunes window, and choose Join CD Tracks.
  
  

Edited January 10, 2013 by tsantee

[Lefa]

Awesome, thank you so much!