DIY concept album, what program to manage the crossfades and "flow"?

[ToneRanger]

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!

[barthowk]

Wavelab does that.

[Ivo]

Most of the regular cd burning programmes will not allow you to write audio cd's without gaps between the tracks. Nero - sounds like you're on a PC but if you have access to a Mac this program might help:

Waveburner - formerly an Emagic program, now Apple. It's not available separately anymore but if you install Logic Pro you'll also get Waveburner. So basically everyone with Logic Pro also has Waveburner installed as a separate application, only some people don't know it... It lets you manage audiofiles just as on 'normal' audio tracks but you can easily manage crossfades, start ID's, IRSC codes and so on.

Another way to do this is using an audio editor such as BIAS Peak - Peak doesn't burn audio cd's directly (at least, the last version I looked at, this might have changed) but it can create an image of an audio cd which you can burn with programs like Jam.

Now I think of it - to get this gapless-seventies-concept-crossfading-album-experience on the iTunes Music Store is a whole other question... Maybe you should go for a vinyl pressing...

hth,

Ivo W.

[nadumr]

I LOVE wavelab for this purpose. Create a montage file of all your tracks lined up or cross faded according to your liking and just insert the markers where the track changes occur. it's sweet.
what's the band?
adam

[RichS]

If you just want to listen without actually changing the tracks, just load them into iTunes and set it to cross-fade (in the preferences, under playback). You can set anywhere from 1 to 12 seconds. That should do well enough to give you at least a taste of the effect you want.

[chrispick]

Originally Posted by Ivo

Another way to do this is using an audio editor such as BIAS Peak - Peak doesn't burn audio cd's directly (at least, the last version I looked at, this might have changed) but it can create an image of an audio cd which you can burn with programs like Jam.

The current version, Peak Pro 5, burns CDs. it also allows you to manage crossfades and IRSC codes and all that business.

[ToneRanger]

Thanks for the tips guys! I'm on PC, so Waveburner is out of the question I guess.

Is Wavelab available for PC? I'll definately check that out, if it works like you described it will be perfect.

We're also planning to have one, kind of interlude type of instrumental sequence on the minus time of the following track, so it doesn't show on the "time" of the track it follows..

The band is called Daisy, we've released one album here in Finland thru Warner.. Now we're "independent", meaning without a label, just been working really hard on the album to get it finished, and then we'll start looking for someone to put it out. I think it will be totally awesome, and it's really important to get it properly finished before we start "serious label shopping"..

The story goes so that we're a band in 1971 (the album opens with a 70's type of Stones rock, although the song is kind of a miniopera in a way, with brass section and stuff, this also refers to the kind of music we did before), then we visit our friend, the mad scientist Boy Wonder, who's come up with a time transporter which we accidentally turn on and ooops, we're on our way to 1983... Then there's all sorts of drama there (love of course..) and then we'll come back, to '71 ofcourse..

Check out some of the stuff here, www.myspace.com/daisyband
The mixes that are up there are very very raw, they've improved 1000 % since I totally got into GS this July, although the technical limitations have been severe, so the sound we're after is not happening, but I hope the music works anyway.. Will post updated mixes in couple of weeks and ask for some further advice...

Anyway, thanks for the tips dudes!