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Tracking at Sector Boundaries
 
Paying attention to a simple technical issue during tracking can make a noticeable difference in seed quality. Each track of a standard audio CD is composed of "sectors" or "frames" that are each 1/75 second long (also expressed as 2352 bytes or 588 samples long). If a track is properly cut on a multiple of 1/75 second, it is "sector aligned", or cut "along sector boundaries." When it is not properly cut, the last sector is like a ragged end, which CD burning software just fills in with silence. Listeners will hear a click or pop between tracks because of the music -> sub-second silence -> music transition. This is extremely annoying and easily avoidable. Here are some sector boundary tips:
 
* To avoid sector boundary errors (SBEs), just use the right tool in the right way to do your track splits. The simplest and best tool for tracking a show is CD Wave, for Windows. The program's sole purpose is to split .wav files into proper CD sector-aligned tracks. The interface is very simple and easy to use. CDWave does not delete your original wav file; instead, it generates a separate set of tracks. Also, you can save a cue sheet with the split points for the tracks. This allows you to generate a set of split tracks and see how you like them, and if you decide to make changes you can go back and generate a new set of tracks from the original long wav file.
* Most audio editing programs (e.g., Sound Forge, Cool Edit, etc.) do not automatically cut files along sector boundaries. Either change their settings to force them to split .wav files correctly (to cut on a 1/75th second CD sector boundary), or avoid them for CD tracking.
* For the Mac, there is no direct equivalent of CD Wave. Dave Mallick notes, "SoundEdit 16 is quite capable of splitting a transferred DAT into tracks. Just set ruler units to frames, set 1 second = 75 frames, and have at it. As long as you enter a whole frame value into your selection box, you get perfect sector boundary cuts every time." This is also the case for Felt Tip Sound Studio.
* Do any editing or "mastering" before doing your track splits. Never add fades or edits to .wav files after you track them. Doing so can push them out of alignment.
* An easy way of checking for sector boundary errors is by use of shntool's len function. If you see a -b- flag next to the listing, that indicates a boundary error. For more discussion of how to detect and repair SBEs and seek tables using shntool and shorten (with command lines or batch files), see this etree forums thread.
* For Linux (UNIX), there is a program called wavbreaker that will allow tracking on correct sector boundaries.
* For Unix, there are two programs called cdrdao and gcdmaster for tracking CDs. gcdmaster comes in handy because writing toc/cue files for cdrdao with a text editor, by hand, is usually slightly boring at best and frustratingly tedious at worst.
* If you are reseeding, recent versions of FlacFrontend have a working "align on sector boundaries" feature which can repair improperly cut files.
* SBEs will sound louder or softer depending on the CD player. They may be very loud and annoying for some listeners, even if they are not noticeable on your own system.
* For an example of strong feelings on the SBE issue, and more description, see SectorBoundaryDiscussion