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Topic: foobar cue splitting & pre-gap information (Read 3702 times) previous topic - next topic
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foobar cue splitting & pre-gap information

I've used Medieval for this before, using the following settings to get 'correct' tracks:
-Large limit on length of hidden tracks
-Include & invert pause

According to this source http://wiki.hydrogenaud.io/index.php?title=CUETools, foobar isn't able to do this. Quote: "For example, foobar2000 loses disc pre-gap information when converting an album image, and doesn't support gaps appended (noncompliant) CUE sheets."

Is this correct, is foobar not able to handle all kinds of cue sheets?

foobar cue splitting & pre-gap information

Reply #1 –
Well, yes, foobar does not consider HTOA (track 01 index 00, i.e. the audio before the first song begins, usually just a half-second of silence) to be a track when it loads the cue sheet into the playlist, so you don't have the option of playing or converting that "hidden track". It just looks at where the index 01 points are and those are the track boundaries. The effect is the same as if you had an ordinary separate-file-per-track rip.

There's no such thing as a non-compliant cue sheet for an image rip (all audio in one file), so you don't have to worry about splitting a non-compliant sheet. foobar also won't generate one when splitting an image rip. foobar makes a dummy cue sheet for the selected tracks, with only INDEX 01 for each of them...it doesn't try to intelligently convert the original cue sheet like CUETools does.

If you have the audio in separate files, the corresponding cue sheet can only be compliant if there are no pregaps (a.k.a. gaps or index 00 portion) on any track. However, I would say that if you have each track in a separate file, you really don't need a cue sheet at all; you need a proper playlist like .m3u8 or foobar's native .fpl format.

Medieval looses a small number of samples at the track boundaries because it tries to split on FLAC frame boundaries instead of the precise CD sector boundaries, so I can't recommend using that. For splitting, you should be using CUETools if you want to preserve HTOA (it may require toggling something in the advanced settings). It will also write a new cue sheet to match the files you output.

As far as using the split rips in foobar...if the cue sheet is non-compliant, you could modify it to remove all the INDEX 00 lines, as a workaround. But if you go that route, you should save the original unmodified sheet so the gap info isn't lost. Like I said, though, it doesn't make sense to use a cue sheet as a playlist when you have a separate track for each file.

Personally, although I know CUETools can do a more 'perfect' job, I just use foobar's converter to put each track in a separate file, and I don't worry about the HTOA or making a cue sheet that matches. I just keep the original .cue from the image rip. There just aren't that many CDs that ever have anything but silence in track 01 index 01, and if I really want to restore that lost silence and reconstruct the original image, there's enough info in the original .cue to do that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_album...n_in_the_pregap

foobar cue splitting & pre-gap information

Reply #2 –
Quote from: mjb2006 on
Well, yes, foobar does not consider HTOA (track 01 index 00, i.e. the audio before the first song begins, usually just a half-second of silence) to be a track when it loads the cue sheet into the playlist, so you don't have the option of playing or converting that "hidden track". It just looks at where the index 01 points are and those are the track boundaries. The effect is the same as if you had an ordinary separate-file-per-track rip.

There's no such thing as a non-compliant cue sheet for an image rip (all audio in one file), so you don't have to worry about splitting a non-compliant sheet. foobar also won't generate one when splitting an image rip. foobar makes a dummy cue sheet for the selected tracks, with only INDEX 01 for each of them...it doesn't try to intelligently convert the original cue sheet like CUETools does.

If you have the audio in separate files, the corresponding cue sheet can only be compliant if there are no pregaps (a.k.a. gaps or index 00 portion) on any track. However, I would say that if you have each track in a separate file, you really don't need a cue sheet at all; you need a proper playlist like .m3u8 or foobar's native .fpl format.

Medieval looses a small number of samples at the track boundaries because it tries to split on FLAC frame boundaries instead of the precise CD sector boundaries, so I can't recommend using that. For splitting, you should be using CUETools if you want to preserve HTOA (it may require toggling something in the advanced settings). It will also write a new cue sheet to match the files you output.

As far as using the split rips in foobar...if the cue sheet is non-compliant, you could modify it to remove all the INDEX 00 lines, as a workaround. But if you go that route, you should save the original unmodified sheet so the gap info isn't lost. Like I said, though, it doesn't make sense to use a cue sheet as a playlist when you have a separate track for each file.

Personally, although I know CUETools can do a more 'perfect' job, I just use foobar's converter to put each track in a separate file, and I don't worry about the HTOA or making a cue sheet that matches. I just keep the original .cue from the image rip. There just aren't that many CDs that ever have anything but silence in track 01 index 01, and if I really want to restore that lost silence and reconstruct the original image, there's enough info in the original .cue to do that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_album...n_in_the_pregap


OK, thanks again for the incredibly in-depth answer. Just a quick explanation of what I'm doing: I'm always gonna be keeping the original ripped CDs in one .wav file, the splitting & encoding and all that stuff is just for mobile devices and other away-from-home uses. So the perfectionism may really be a bit of an overkill.

Cheers