Gearslutz.com - View Single Post - DIY concept album, what program to manage the crossfades and "flow"?

ToneRanger · 1st November 2006

This is kind of long, sorry...

We've been recording our bands second album now for three years, and within that time our studio has burned down, we've been dropped by our label etc, but now it's finally all coming together! We're doing quite a production, a real (we've really worked hard for this, there will be lots of "conceptual" stuff, several reprises, the lyrics all match, believe me!) concept album about time travel (yeah, too much ELO and other 70's bands on the cd player...)

So, the mixing will be done in couple of weeks and after that we'd really love to try and hear how the album will sound. The first four tracks will be all crossfaded and just continue onto each other.. Then a little break and after that the next 5 tracks will be crossfaded again etc.

Ofcourse this will be done by the ME in the final stages, but we'd really have to create some kind of a solution for us now, to hear the thing before it's too late for changes, and to shop for labels, to represent the album as whole, as it was designed from the get-go.

So is there a program that allows to manage the gaps between songs? I couldnt find anything in Nero that would do this.. I'm planning to create a project in Cubase (our choice of DAW) where I'll gather all the songs and match the leves and do the crossfades there. From then on it's a mystery to me. Should I bounce the whole album as one track and then use some cd burner software to divide up the tracks and control the thing so that there is no "minus times" or gaps between songs. It's really important for me to hear the thing just flow together to get the picture if our planned running order etc. really works or not.

Another option would be to create the crossfades and "flow" in the giant DAW project, then bounce each track separately and to program the cd burner software to just play them continously. Or is this even possible?

Okay, any idea? Thanks, this is really important for us!

1st November 2006	#1
ToneRanger Gear addict Join Date: Jul 2006 Posts: 323 Thread Starter	DIY concept album, what program to manage the crossfades and "flow"? This is kind of long, sorry... We've been recording our bands second album now for three years, and within that time our studio has burned down, we've been dropped by our label etc, but now it's finally all coming together! We're doing quite a production, a real (we've really worked hard for this, there will be lots of "conceptual" stuff, several reprises, the lyrics all match, believe me!) concept album about time travel (yeah, too much ELO and other 70's bands on the cd player...) So, the mixing will be done in couple of weeks and after that we'd really love to try and hear how the album will sound. The first four tracks will be all crossfaded and just continue onto each other.. Then a little break and after that the next 5 tracks will be crossfaded again etc. Ofcourse this will be done by the ME in the final stages, but we'd really have to create some kind of a solution for us now, to hear the thing before it's too late for changes, and to shop for labels, to represent the album as whole, as it was designed from the get-go. So is there a program that allows to manage the gaps between songs? I couldnt find anything in Nero that would do this.. I'm planning to create a project in Cubase (our choice of DAW) where I'll gather all the songs and match the leves and do the crossfades there. From then on it's a mystery to me. Should I bounce the whole album as one track and then use some cd burner software to divide up the tracks and control the thing so that there is no "minus times" or gaps between songs. It's really important for me to hear the thing just flow together to get the picture if our planned running order etc. really works or not. Another option would be to create the crossfades and "flow" in the giant DAW project, then bounce each track separately and to program the cd burner software to just play them continously. Or is this even possible? Okay, any idea? Thanks, this is really important for us!