Burning Live CDs from MP3s

Walter P · 20 Sep 2006

I've had this problem for a long time, so I thought I'd "ask the audience" for advice.

When I try to make CDs of live recordings from MP3, invariably there's a little hiccup at the point where the tracks join. Since this is typically between songs, it's not a huge problem, but I'd love to make things sound more seamless, like the original recordings. In the past I've played a bit with fades in and out, but that's not perfect. Additionally, I've tried converting the MP3s to Wav files, but that doesn't do it either.

Advice?

Ron Rogers · **Joined:** 16 Jan 2007 **Posts:** 263

In your burning program, hopefully you have an option for "pause between tracks". The default will be 2, change all but the first track to 0 and your tracks will blend together as on live CD's.

Walter P · 20 Sep 2006

Ron...thanks for weighing in, but it's more than a track-at-once or disc-at-once issue. From what I've experienced, it's something in the conversion to MP3 that causes a blip when you try to put the MP3s together. Perhaps there's a way around this, but I haven't found it yet.

Linda · **Posted:** Tue Feb 06, 2007 11:49 pm

Instructions from the boys at Hydrogenaudio:

Quote:

Are you starting from MP3? If so, then that's probably the problem. Depending on how they're encoded, the MP3 format can "create" a fraction of silence at the end of the file. CD Wave and CUE sheets can't fix that, only a WAV editor.

If I'm making a live/concert CD or something, here's what I do (it's a pain in the ass but it always works)....

1) Create your WAV files (from MP3, ripping CD, whatever).
2) Load each WAV file individually into a WAV editor (like Cool Edit or something) and zoom in on the WAV (to where you can only see like 2 seconds of audio) and look at the beginning and end of the WAV. If there is any dead space, remove it.
3) Use some program to merge your WAV files into one large WAV.
4) Load that large WAV file into CD Wave and split the file on boundries.
5) Burn DAO.

Geff R. · 27 Sep 2006

A combination of Linda & Ron's suggestions is what works for me. Although, in most cases if you also do what Ron suggested (remove the 2 second delay some cd authoring programs add) you can likely skip #'s 4 & 5 in Linda's post.

SMiLE · **Joined:** 02 Oct 2006 **Posts:** 93

The software I use is Cakewalk Pyro Plus. With live recordings I crossfade (overlap) the tracks. Since most live songs begin and end with audience noise or applause, the crossfading makes for a pretty seamless transition. It costs about $30.00 at Best Buy, or you can download it directly.

http://store.cakewalk.com/b2cus/Product ... PY5.00-20E

Jon Tyler · 24 Sep 2006

I use Cool Edit Pro and do what was suggested in Linda's post (at least steps 1 and 2.) After steps 1 and 2, I then use Nero (in DAO mode) to burn the cd from the corrected WAV files.

I'm not 100% clear why there is a need to separate tracks on boundaries. I've heard FLAC files with the boundary errors (in fact the first live show I shared via BitTorrent had SBE's, adding a nice click between some tracks. Ooops.) On the other hand, I've never had any issues burning CDs from WAVs that I created with Cool Edit and I don't concern myself with sector boundaries (unless I'm creating a FLAC file.) Maybe Cool Edit handles that automatically. Not sure.

Ken Banya · **Joined:** 09 Oct 2006 **Posts:** 137

...I generally use Nero. Set cross fade for about 2 seconds. This also eliminates the hiccup.

Burning Live CDs from MP3s

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