How to write a CUE SHEET file
The cuesheet file is the heart of disc-at-once recording. This file defines all of the files to be recorded and the starting time of each track/index. This file gives you complete control over the layout of the disc. You can control the spacing between tracks, plus define subindexes, pregaps, postgaps, media catalog numbers, and ISRCs.
Cuesheet files are standard text (ASCII) files. They can be written with any text editor or word processor such as “WordPad”, “Notepad”, “Microsoft Word”, “DOS EDIT”, etc. However, you must make sure that you save all cuesheet files in “Text” format (do not save in document or any other non-text format). The recommended file extensions are either “.CUE” or “.TXT”.
EXAMPLE #1 - Audio disc from a single WAV file with no “pause areas” between tracks.
FILE “C:\MYAUDIO.WAV” WAVE
TRACK 01 AUDIO
INDEX 01 00:00:00
TRACK 02 AUDIO
INDEX 01 05:50:65
TRACK 03 AUDIO
INDEX 01 09:47:50
TRACK 04 AUDIO
INDEX 01 15:12:53
TRACK 05 AUDIO
INDEX 01 25:02:40
TRACK 06 AUDIO
INDEX 01 27:34:05
TRACK 07 AUDIO
INDEX 01 31:58:53
TRACK 08 AUDIO
INDEX 01 35:08:65
EXAMPLE #2 - Audio disc from multiple source files (one track per file) with no "pause areas" between tracks. Note: You can “mix and match” different audio filetypes within the same cuesheet (WAVE, AIFF, MP3, etc).
FILE “C:\TRACK1.WAV” WAVE
TRACK 01 AUDIO
INDEX 01 00:00:00
FILE “C:\TRACK2.WAV” WAVE
TRACK 02 AUDIO
INDEX 01 00:00:00
FILE “C:\TRACK1.AIF” AIFF
TRACK 03 AUDIO
INDEX 01 00:00:00
FILE “C:\TRACK2.AIF” AIFF
TRACK 04 AUDIO
INDEX 01 00:00:00
FILE “C:\TRACK1.MP3” MP3
TRACK 05 AUDIO
INDEX 01 00:00:00
FILE “C:\TRACK2.MP3” MP3
TRACK 06 AUDIO
INDEX 01 00:00:00
The files will be recorded continuously with no gaps between them. However, if any file is not an exact multiple of the CDROM sector size (2352 bytes), then the last sector will be automatically padded with zeros. This could result in a gap between tracks with a maximum length of 1/75th second.
EXAMPLE #3 - Audio disc using multiple data files (multiple tracks per file) with no "pause areas" between tracks.
FILE “C:\TRACK1.WAV” WAVE
TRACK 01 AUDIO
INDEX 01 00:00:00
TRACK 02 AUDIO
INDEX 01 05:50:65
TRACK 03 AUDIO
INDEX 01 09:47:50
TRACK 04 AUDIO
INDEX 01 15:12:53
FILE “C:\TRACK2.WAV” WAVE
TRACK 05 AUDIO
INDEX 01 00:00:00 Note: All times are
relative to beginning of current file
TRACK 06 AUDIO
INDEX 01 02:31:40
TRACK 07 AUDIO
INDEX 01 06:56:13
TRACK 08 AUDIO
INDEX 01 10:06:25
You still have to make sure the tracks themselves have no gaps at the beginning or end - use an audio editor like Cooledit to do that. I use Acoustica Internet Audio mixer cos that way you can still put in individual track markers and save all the tracks as one continous file. You shouldn't have to do this for multi track mix CDs like the Cream albums for instance, but always worth checking anyway.
You can choose when editing the tracks whether to join them altogether and use method #1 or whether to leave them unjoined and use method 2 but I recommend method 1 since that way there is no gap at all. Obviously you can use a file saved as MP3 instead of a WAV.
*talr1 (azury-team's member) note:
you can do all of these things for no gap at all, or using Easy Cd Creator Disk-at-Once
The cuesheet file is the heart of disc-at-once recording. This file defines all of the files to be recorded and the starting time of each track/index. This file gives you complete control over the layout of the disc. You can control the spacing between tracks, plus define subindexes, pregaps, postgaps, media catalog numbers, and ISRCs.
Cuesheet files are standard text (ASCII) files. They can be written with any text editor or word processor such as “WordPad”, “Notepad”, “Microsoft Word”, “DOS EDIT”, etc. However, you must make sure that you save all cuesheet files in “Text” format (do not save in document or any other non-text format). The recommended file extensions are either “.CUE” or “.TXT”.
EXAMPLE #1 - Audio disc from a single WAV file with no “pause areas” between tracks.
FILE “C:\MYAUDIO.WAV” WAVE
TRACK 01 AUDIO
INDEX 01 00:00:00
TRACK 02 AUDIO
INDEX 01 05:50:65
TRACK 03 AUDIO
INDEX 01 09:47:50
TRACK 04 AUDIO
INDEX 01 15:12:53
TRACK 05 AUDIO
INDEX 01 25:02:40
TRACK 06 AUDIO
INDEX 01 27:34:05
TRACK 07 AUDIO
INDEX 01 31:58:53
TRACK 08 AUDIO
INDEX 01 35:08:65
EXAMPLE #2 - Audio disc from multiple source files (one track per file) with no "pause areas" between tracks. Note: You can “mix and match” different audio filetypes within the same cuesheet (WAVE, AIFF, MP3, etc).
FILE “C:\TRACK1.WAV” WAVE
TRACK 01 AUDIO
INDEX 01 00:00:00
FILE “C:\TRACK2.WAV” WAVE
TRACK 02 AUDIO
INDEX 01 00:00:00
FILE “C:\TRACK1.AIF” AIFF
TRACK 03 AUDIO
INDEX 01 00:00:00
FILE “C:\TRACK2.AIF” AIFF
TRACK 04 AUDIO
INDEX 01 00:00:00
FILE “C:\TRACK1.MP3” MP3
TRACK 05 AUDIO
INDEX 01 00:00:00
FILE “C:\TRACK2.MP3” MP3
TRACK 06 AUDIO
INDEX 01 00:00:00
The files will be recorded continuously with no gaps between them. However, if any file is not an exact multiple of the CDROM sector size (2352 bytes), then the last sector will be automatically padded with zeros. This could result in a gap between tracks with a maximum length of 1/75th second.
EXAMPLE #3 - Audio disc using multiple data files (multiple tracks per file) with no "pause areas" between tracks.
FILE “C:\TRACK1.WAV” WAVE
TRACK 01 AUDIO
INDEX 01 00:00:00
TRACK 02 AUDIO
INDEX 01 05:50:65
TRACK 03 AUDIO
INDEX 01 09:47:50
TRACK 04 AUDIO
INDEX 01 15:12:53
FILE “C:\TRACK2.WAV” WAVE
TRACK 05 AUDIO
INDEX 01 00:00:00 Note: All times are
relative to beginning of current file
TRACK 06 AUDIO
INDEX 01 02:31:40
TRACK 07 AUDIO
INDEX 01 06:56:13
TRACK 08 AUDIO
INDEX 01 10:06:25
You still have to make sure the tracks themselves have no gaps at the beginning or end - use an audio editor like Cooledit to do that. I use Acoustica Internet Audio mixer cos that way you can still put in individual track markers and save all the tracks as one continous file. You shouldn't have to do this for multi track mix CDs like the Cream albums for instance, but always worth checking anyway.
You can choose when editing the tracks whether to join them altogether and use method #1 or whether to leave them unjoined and use method 2 but I recommend method 1 since that way there is no gap at all. Obviously you can use a file saved as MP3 instead of a WAV.
*talr1 (azury-team's member) note:
you can do all of these things for no gap at all, or using Easy Cd Creator Disk-at-Once
