iPod Non-stop mix CDs broken into tracks on iTMS?

[chromex]

Hey guys,

I've noticed a few CDs on the music store which appear to be non-stop mixes, but are broken up into tracks anyways.

As an example, I am pretty sure the Global Phases 1 disc, mixed by Lange, is a nonstop (doesn't make sense to be mixed otherwise), but the tracks can be bought individually.

There are others which are treated as a single track, for example The Politics of Dancing 2, mixed bu Paul Van Dyk.

For those CDs that are broken up into tracks like the Lange disc, does anyone know if they are broken up in a specific manner than would be different than ripping the tracks individually?

I don't want a couple songs that have remnants of other songs in them, if I like the CD I'm going to pay up for the rest of it. But if the songs are modified so that they don't sound right when non-stop (or if they are in fact full length versions as opposed to the mixed versions that appear on the CD, that would be nice to know as well).

I am under the impression I can download all of the songs, burn them to disc, and then put the disc back in my computer and join tracks and burn as a non-stop with no loss of anything. But if these tracks are broken up, that may not be possible.

Anyone have any ideas?

One last note, I assume there isn't a way to join tracks outside of importing from CD? Might be easier than wasting a disc to re-import and burn again...

Thanks in advance for any help!
m

 

[bigandy]

they're put in tracks the same way that CDs are. all music stores do this.

the main difference is that while a track on a CD is only a "marker", on an MP3 or similar, it's a seperate file. i've got countless live albums, and a few mixes like this, and they all come in seperate files. you'll find if you import a mix like that from CD, unless it's only one track it will come out as sepearte files.

you can join MP3s together to create one file, you could look into this if you wanted, or you can tweak the crossfade in preferences when you listen to that particular mix so it takes out the 0.4 second gap, or whatever it is.

 

[croshtique]

One last note, I assume there isn't a way to join tracks outside of importing from CD? Might be easier than wasting a disc to re-import and burn again...

You can use a useful AppleScript called "Join Together" from Doug's AppleScripts for iTunes; although I don't think it will work with iTMS purchased songs. Works great for anything else though!

 

[chromex]

Thanks for the replies guys.

bigandy, so if they are the same tracks just in files, it IS possible to burn them all to CD as separate tracks and then re-import as a single unbroken song using the Join Tracks feature?

You mention "you can join MP3s together to create one file", I assume this is Join Tracks, or is there a separate app that can do this that you could direct me to?

Thanks!
m

 

[NicP]

Thanks for the replies guys.

bigandy, so if they are the same tracks just in files, it IS possible to burn them all to CD as separate tracks and then re-import as a single unbroken song using the Join Tracks feature?

You mention "you can join MP3s together to create one file", I assume this is Join Tracks, or is there a separate app that can do this that you could direct me to?

Thanks!
m

Joining the tracks together is not a good solution. A mp3 files is made up of many frames each a fraction of a second long. It is unlikely that a track length is exactly a multiple of these frames so the final frame almost always gets padded with some silence. Joining the mp3s together will still leave this silence behind where the different mp3s join.

 

[chromex]

When I rip a non-stop CD to put on my iPod, I am able to join the tracks from the CD and get a single track that suits my requirements.

I just want to be sure I can take 10 tracks from the same CD that I buy off iTunes and somehow do the same thing.

Based on all the replies I'm still kind of confused if this can be done as above

Maybe I'm completely missing something

Thanks guys,
m

 

[NicP]

When I rip a non-stop CD to put on my iPod, I am able to join the tracks from the CD and get a single track that suits my requirements.

I just want to be sure I can take 10 tracks from the same CD that I buy off iTunes and somehow do the same thing.

Based on all the replies I'm still kind of confused if this can be done as above

Maybe I'm completely missing something

Thanks guys,
m

Why do you want the join the songs? to get rid of the gap? because that depends on whether or not the AAC codec Apple uses to encode songs supports gapless.