Time offset for track markers?

[MorganN]

you could perhaps look at this thread:

Explain "the offset for the first track"?

[rodhmos]

Thank you for that link. It was informative but I did not find a a clear answer.
If someone would like to comment and share his experience, I would greatly appreciate it.

Besides that, I also have an additional concern:
What about albums that are to be released exclusively as digital downloads?
Is there a need for a time offset of the track indices?

Thank you!

[Coyoteous]

There are two ways to do it - offsets in your CD burning program or manual extra silence. I used to process incoming media for a replication plant and received masters from all over. Times vary greatly from 0 to 2 or more seconds (not pause gap, but silence after start ID - index 1).

I used to do 20 ms on my work, but after some complaints - I went to 200 ms, then later I went to 333 ms or 25 CD frames (manual, no offsets). Some may think this is very long, but I haven't had a single complaint in hundreds of masters. I also like to have 666 ms or 50 CD frames of actual silence (or dither) at the end of the track.

[Cellotron]

I had a brain fart in the post on I had the thread that was linked to - my usual offset is in fact 200ms and not 20ms - forgot to type in a zero. My initial track offset after the very first index point is usually 333ms also. I haven't received a complaint with these timings to date.

Of course with "live" CD's where the audio is continuous throughout the CD, or when there is an index point that occurs at a crossfade - or if tracks are kept extremely close to each other (which is typical of a lot of hiphop and dance records) - then this kind of gets thrown out the window and I usually err on the side of having the PQ point "right" for CD players with quicker unmute times so that the start point doesn't occur during the tail of the previous track - but these things really are best determined on a case by case basis.

As far as digital download files - I still think having an offset helps in case the digital media player also has a slow unmute time coded into it - or if the end user uses the file to burn a CD-R themselves.

Best regards,
Steve Berson

[Coyoteous]

Originally Posted by Cellotron

...
As far as digital download files - I still think having an offset helps in case the digital media player also has a slow unmute time coded into it - or if the end user uses the file to burn a CD-R themselves.

Best regards,
Steve Berson

- agreed

[Andy Krehm]

Originally Posted by Coyoteous

There are two ways to do it - offsets in your CD burning program or manual extra silence. I used to process incoming media for a replication plant and received masters from all over. Times vary greatly from 0 to 2 or more seconds (not pause gap, but silence after start ID - index 1).

I used to do 20 ms on my work, but after some complaints - I went to 200 ms, then later I went to 333 ms or 25 CD frames (manual, no offsets). Some may think this is very long, but I haven't had a single complaint in hundreds of masters. I also like to have 666 ms or 50 CD frames of actual silence (or dither) at the end of the track.

I do mine all manually. My mastering setup up, without using tape, has an approx. 1/3 of a sec. delay as it passes through all my gear so I just use that. If I'm adding tape, the delay is about 400 ms. I do make sure the audio is muted up until the start of the audio so that the manual offset is digital black.

As Barry says, 333 ms or even a bit more is just fine. It's not long at all. I also add 2 seconds to the end of all my CDs so the listener has a chance to flip back before the CD goes to the next one or stops.

[Riccardo]

Originally Posted by Coyoteous

There are two ways to do it - offsets in your CD burning program or manual extra silence. I used to process incoming media for a replication plant and received masters from all over. Times vary greatly from 0 to 2 or more seconds (not pause gap, but silence after start ID - index 1).

I used to do 20 ms on my work, but after some complaints - I went to 200 ms, then later I went to 333 ms or 25 CD frames (manual, no offsets). Some may think this is very long, but I haven't had a single complaint in hundreds of masters. I also like to have 666 ms or 50 CD frames of actual silence (or dither) at the end of the track.

Just about the same here , used to be less but I like it safer especially with nowadays multiple standard players.