How do I create CD Track Numbers for a long recording

[Jon-Luke]

Apologies if this subject has been covered before - I did a search and came up empty...

I have a long recording that I would like to transfer to CD and I would like to have track numbers so that I can skip to various parts of the recording. Is this possible? what is the best way of doing this?

Ideally I would like there to be no breaks in the recording if I listen the whole way through but it would be good to be able to jump to different parts of the recording. I have Garage Band and Quick Time Pro as well as Toast. I'm not sure if one of these programs can do the job.

Thanks

 

[wrldwzrd89]

Essentially, what you're trying to do is insert multiple bookmarks into an audio file, no? I don't know of a way to do this on a regular audio CD. However, I know that you can make AAC and Apple Lossless files "bookmarkable", which makes the file remember where it left off when last played. This is quite useful, but isn't quite what you need.

The only solution I know of isn't perfect, but does the job... if the CD player supports gapless playback, which all CD players made since 1990 (just a guess, not sure when this feature was added - but I know it's before 2000 since my car's CD player from 1997 supports it) support. Getting this to work right also involves changing one burning setting.

1. Split the audio file into as many segments as you want tracks.
2. Tell iTunes (or Toast, if you're going to use that) to put a gap between songs of 0 seconds.
3. Burn the split audio to CD, and test it.

 

[Jon-Luke]

1. Split the audio file into as many segments as you want tracks.

This seems like a good plan and to be honest its what I have been trying to do but whats the best way to go about splitting the audio file into segments?

 

[wrldwzrd89]

This seems like a good plan and to be honest its what I have been trying to do but whats the best way to go about splitting the audio file into segments?

This isn't too hard. Download the latest Audacity version. Open the source audio file. You might have to play with the zoom settings to get the selection exactly right, but once you have the part you want selected, choose Export Selection... from the File Menu. Export it as a WAV file. Do the same thing for all the other segments.

 

[Fishrrman]

RE:
"I have a long recording that I would like to transfer to CD and I would like to have track numbers so that I can skip to various parts of the recording. Is this possible? what is the best way of doing this?
Ideally I would like there to be no breaks in the recording if I listen the whole way through but it would be good to be able to jump to different parts of the recording. I have Garage Band and Quick Time Pro as well as Toast"

Here's what I'd try:
1. Import the entire recording into GarageBand.
2. Move your cursor (editing point) to the first location you wish to "divide".
3. Make sure the track is selected (click on it with the cursor). Then, from the Edit menu, choose "Split" (or, type "command-T").
4. Repeat as necessary at the other locations you wish to divide.
5. You will now have several "clips" of audio (whereas before you had one single track). But - if you play them in GarageBand - you will notice there is no "audible indication" that the tracks are split. That is to say, when played, all the clips play contiguously.
6. Now, export the clips from GarageBand. I believe you must export them into iTunes, but, once that's done, you can dig into your iTunes folders and identify and move the tracks to anywhere you wish.
7. Now open Toast and choose to create an audio CD. Drag the tracks into Toast (in their proper order). MAKE SURE that Toast is set up so there are "0 seconds" between the tracks. NOTE: The very first track on an audio CD always has 2 seconds preceding it, this is normal.
8. Burn the CD. You should now have a CD with several tracks but no breaks between them while they're playing. You can name the segments as you wish, and move between them as you would individual songs on a CD.

- John

 

[Jon-Luke]

Thanks for the help...

I ended up using audacity http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ a free audio editor to split up the track, what was good about Audacity is that you can select the split sections and export the selection into the format you want.

I then created a gapless CD using itunes and it worked great.

Thanks again