encoding music and CUE files (1 Viewer)

[Colin-H]

Here is my ultimate goal:

I would like to build a music server and rip all my CDs to that server in the following way:

For popular music CDs, one song = one file, with notable exceptions like albums that are designed to be played as an album (DJ sets, etc.)

For classical music CDs, one composition = one file. I would, however, like to preserve the original movement breaks in a CUE file. This makes a lot more sense for classical music (and any type of music that is intended as one long composition.

For example: Say I have a CD with 8 tracks: tracks 1–4 are Beethoven 1, movements 1–4; tracks 5–8 are Beethoven 3, movements 1–4. I would like to create two files—one for each symphony—from this CD, but within those files, I would like to have the breaks between the movements preserved in a CUE file, so if I wanted to burn a CD of Beethoven 3 and Tchaikovsky 6, for example, the track breaks between movements would still exist.

I haven't found much info on CUE files, except for using them to rip one CD as one file, and then burn that one file to CD with the track breaks preserved.

I was wondering if anyone around here might know a little more, and might be able to tell me if what I want to do is even possible.

The music server is pretty far down the road, and by that point, it'll probably have evolved into a full-fledged HTPC, but it'd be nice to get an idea of whether or not I can even think about putting the CDs away in boxes.

 

[Nigel McN]

If I read the above correct then nothing that you want to do sounds impossible (or even difficult for that matter) cue files can be used with mp3s just like they can with wav files (it is just timing information in text format). I don't know what the situation is with winamp3 but for winamp2.x I use a plugin called mp3cue which detects embedded cue files (they can be hidden inside the mp3) or auto loads blah.cue when I load blah.mp3 which (can if you want) open another window similar to the playlist window detailing the 'chapters' in the file.

For example I have a file called Fross-Convergence7-full.mp3 which is 80 minutes long and has an accompanying file called Fross-Convergence7-full.cue, when I double click on the mp3 winamp opens with an extra window and I can jump forward or back to which track within the mix I want ( I could also embed the cue file now if I wanted or extract it, if it had one already).

To me this sounds like what you are asking about?

 

[Colin-H]

Yeah, that's pretty much it. I'm less worried about the end result and more worried about how easy it will be to achieve that result.

Is there any CD ripping software that will allow me to rip any subset of tracks into one continuous file and automatically write a cue file for that subset? That's the big thing… If not, it's going to take a lot of manual labor to write the cue files.

 

[Nigel McN]

I am pretty sure EAC allows you to do that, but I haven't done it myself to tell you how easy it is.

 

[Colin-H]

After playing with EAC a bit, I can only get it to create a cue sheet for the entire CD, not just the selected range. I wish there was some sort of documentation, but it's free, so I can't complain too loudly.