What's the latest on burning CD mixouts?

December 3, 2008 4:10 PM

Here we go again on cross-faded CDs... Is there any software for Windows, currently available, and cheaper than, say, CD-Architect (:-), which will let me make up a playlist for a CD, and then individually adjust the amount of overlap between each pair of source tracks, and do all the mixing and cue-sheet work necessary to give me a CD with one big long track, but the proper Q subcode to make the display and individual track selection work properly?

I've looked at the articles in the search, but only a couple of them were looking for this exact thing, and even those weren't written so clearly that you could actually tell... :-)

I'm fairly sure that if you try to do this by using individual tracks, and having something split them from one big mixout at the beginning point in each new song, that you're at the mercy of people's players, and I'd prefer to avoid that.

I don't really wanna spend $mumble on Sony/Vegas, either, though...

posted by baylink to computers & internet (10 comments total)

I think Audacity does all this but, as someone who has no idea what Q subcode is, I may be the wrong person to ask.
posted by Dr.Pill at 4:51 PM on December 3, 2008

Let me just double check that I'm talking about the same thing you are:

You want to take some tracks, mix them somewhat, and make a standard audio cd (not a cdrom) that is a continuous mix but you can skip to track boundaries. Is this correct?

There's a million ways to do this, and I don't think using cd burning software to do all the work will be the easiest way.

If you mix / sequence stuff in audacity, save out a dozen (or whatever) tracks, any cd burning software will allow you to burn a continuous mix. Or nearly any software will let you take a single file and specify offsets into it where each track starts.

What do you mean "you're at the mercy of peoples' players"? Have you seen different players treat mixes differently? The only thing that really can go wrong is your burner will probably default to puting a pre-gap between each track but every player will handle that the same.
posted by aubilenon at 4:53 PM on December 3, 2008

If I'm understanding correctly, I think this will do what you want - http://www.acoustica.com/mp3-audio-mixer/
posted by figment at 7:44 PM on December 3, 2008

> You want to take some tracks, mix them somewhat, and make a standard audio cd (not a cdrom) that is a continuous mix but you can skip to track boundaries. Is this correct?

Functionally, yes, that's correct.

> What do you mean "you're at the mercy of peoples' players"? Have you seen different players treat mixes differently? The only thing that really can go wrong is your burner will probably default to puting a pre-gap between each track but every player will handle that the same.

What I mean is that from reading other people's answers on those searches, I came to the conclusion that if I burned it as actual separate tracks (that is, used something like Audacity to cut apart the One Big Long Mix at the audible beginning of each new song), some combination of stupid burner software and stupid player firmware would conspire to create audible breaks between the tracks, on some unknown percentage of players.

Hence my desire to make it actually *be* just one big long track, and cheat the subcode to make the *players* deal with it correctly.

But maybe I'm stepping on a step that isn't there.

I'll grab Acoustica (which I'd seen recommended before) and see what it does.
posted by baylink at 6:26 AM on December 4, 2008

And just from looking at the UI, I'm pretty sure the person who said it would do what i want its absolutely correct. Thanks, Figment.
posted by baylink at 6:28 AM on December 4, 2008

On further inspection, apparently it will just let you set the cut points, and do the splitting for you after it mixes out. I'll give that a try anyway, and see how it works out for me.
posted by baylink at 6:42 AM on December 4, 2008

MixMeister is quite a good application for doing crossfading of various tracks (amongst other things). About $50.

The results can be turned into one long MP3 or separate MP3's per track depending on how you wish to burn them to CD. Hell, it may even have a one click burn directly to CD option - I can't remember.
posted by mr_silver at 6:45 AM on December 4, 2008

Well, Acoustica looked whizzer... but after I added track 16 it crashed, and it now will not open either copy of my album file without triggering whatever we're calling Dr Watson this year.

So, on to MixMeister... which is actually more than I need, but perhaps *it* won't crash...
posted by baylink at 3:02 PM on December 4, 2008

It didn't. No gaps.

Amazingly, MixMeister Express 6 really does just do what it says it's going to do, and get out of your way when you want to tweak things a bit.

Paid the money, burned the final. Noice.

Happy Chriskwanzukkah.
posted by baylink at 9:51 PM on December 5, 2008

Oh, and yes, it *does* burn the disk for you. You just need to get the start points of the tracks in *exactly* the right place when you're editing.

For the archives:

1) set the outro sprocket exactly where you want the new song to start

2) slip the new song til it starts there

3) crop the head of the new song until it's right at the beginning of the sound.

The demo comes without help, and the little movie doesn't seem to tell you this either, but what the hell can you do?
posted by baylink at 9:53 PM on December 5, 2008