How to make a gapless album

[outbreak525]

Hey friends, my curiosity of the day is how to make a gapless album.
I've got a 5 song EP I'm working on and a couple of the tracks are meant to just flow right into each other. I want it to flow gapless when listening through iTunes and other digital media applications.
How does one go about achieving this in the mix and mastering process, and end up with a successful result?

 

[lolzgreg]

You either need to mix/master all the songs in one project, and crossfade one song into the other (or butt it right up against it and quick crossfade, if that's the better option, or mix all the songs separately, and then master them all in one project and crossfade them. What you're talking about is GENERALLY done by the mastering engineer.

Every media player will work differently (some fade songs/go directly into the next), and CD burning programs have different options. Your master CD has to have no gaps between songs.

 

[Scott C.]

I use steinberg wavelab for this. make an audio montage and you can crossfade between tracks and insert cd markers where needed.

 

[Toseben]

Also really easy to use alternative for OSX. Wave Editor by Audiofile Engineering (quite confusing name as there are many apps with the same name).

 

[OneDaySky]

I use steinberg wavelab for this. make an audio montage and you can crossfade between tracks and insert cd markers where needed.

^^^^^Me too! Wavelab 4 (old but still does the job)

 

[raisedfist]

Wavelab, Cd Architect or Audition all do this.

I would say cd architect is better if you have seperate tracks as crossfading is a bit more visualwithin the software, and audition if you have bounced your EP/LP down as one file from your DAW with all the fades already there.

Either way I think I would still go with audition or wavelab as cd architect is just a bit annoying.

 

[RedDog]

Reaper lets you use markers to mark the beginning of a new track when rendering to CD image. Crossfades within the project, check your phase and render. done deal.

 

[fade_2_black]

I use steinberg wavelab for this. make an audio montage and you can crossfade between tracks and insert cd markers where needed.

+1

Wavelab is great pretty much just for marker placement and CD burning.

I generally master in PT and then take the mastered files into wavelab to do CD layout and any last simple things that may need to be altered - fades, etc.

 

[Sloan]

I mix my songs down to separate tracks without master buss BULLSHIT, then I arrange those stereo files together in a new project and automate volume betwixt tracks and any desired fade ins, chop ups, or what not between tracks. Drop markers where I want the actual track to start and render the thing as a disc image. burn it to disc, put it in a chicks car to test it, then get laid.

 

[Melodeath]

What I've done on a few albums is master any tracks that need to be gapless in the same project. Then render. Then split at a zero crossing between the songs.

 

[Trevoire520]

Reviving an old thread, there's a sale on DSP Quattro just now which can create gapless cd's, only $40!

https://deals.cultofmac.com/sales/easily-edit-your-audio-with-dsp-quattro-4?rid=383328

EDIT: Mac only btw

 

[bryan_kilco]

Reaper lets you use markers to mark the beginning of a new track when rendering to CD image. Crossfades within the project, check your phase and render. done deal.

But how would there be phase problems if you're just splitting the tracks?

I have to check into this CD image in Reaper because I will need to know how to do this myself fairly soon.

 

[ChrisTanakaCanwell]

Reviving an old thread, there's a sale on DSP Quattro just now which can create gapless cd's, only $40!

https://deals.cultofmac.com/sales/easily-edit-your-audio-with-dsp-quattro-4?rid=383328

EDIT: Mac only btw

How does Quattro compare to Wavelab? Is Wavelab worth an extra $460 to a non-mastering studio that only needs to generate pre-masters a couple times a year?

 

[RedDog]

But how would there be phase problems if you're just splitting the tracks?

I have to check into this CD image in Reaper because I will need to know how to do this myself fairly soon.

Only when you're crossfading tracks with different kicks and low end and stuff. For tracks with gaps no problem.

 

[RustyNotes]

i didn't had to do some crossfades when i mixed our debut album. I just bounced down the tracks so the first one stop at the first bar of song 2.
So you basically get:

"song 1"...................... "song 2"
|----------------------||-------------------

Take a listen to the first track and the second track from this album.
See how it overlaps directly into track 2?

http://open.spotify.com/album/6pBmrOWdWck2jMmdfIEtgZ

 

[ForHerDeadEyes]

Burn the CD/Media with the option disc-at-once, it should make it gapless.

 

[LeSedna]

Reaper can do it, using 1 marker per track. Reaper is almost a viable mastering solution now, there are some features missing that were in progress (6 months ago at least) but I guess by the time Reaper 5 is released, it should be fully implemented.

 

[mickrich]

Waveburner which was part of logic studio.

Lets you crossfade tracks and put start ID wherever you want.
You can also set how long the gap between tracks is.

 

[FischmungaXTR]

Master & export the album as one whole continuous track, then learn how to use .cue files to place your track markers, names & ISRC codes.

 

[kaomao]

I did it with itunes and it works great.