Feature Request: CUE + FLAC for true gapless recording

[vovchykbratyk]

The Issue:

Currently, it is not possible to perform true, gapless recording on webminidisc pro. Many albums are meant to be listened to continuously, where the entire album is mixed in such a way that one track fades seamlessly into the next.

The Feature:

Support dragging and dropping a .cue file onto webminidisc pro, which will then burn a linked source file (Most commonly FLAC, but also WAV), creating T-marks at each track expressed in the .cue file

Other info:

A good exemplar album that is continuous is Harry Nilsson's 1971 album, The Point! The music overlaps from track to track with spoken narration between and is meant to be listened to with no gaps. I keep albums like this stored as a single FLAC file with a cue file that contains each track's time markers. This allows a CD-like experience of switching between tracks while not performing any file loading (only seeking) in the middle of the album.

Currently my options for burning this to MD are:

Option 1: Split the FLAC into tracks using something like fre:ac, burn to MD via WMDP. Each track by default has about a second, maybe a bit less, of silence between it which wrecks the listening experience.

Option 2: Leave the single FLAC as is, and burn it as one track to MD. Then, go back later and add new T-marks in MD edit mode. This works but is not efficient.

Option 3: Burn the FLAC to CD using the cue file (or, use the original media) and go direct from CD to MD using a hardware deck. This will create the MD properly without gaps; then use WMDP to edit the track names later. This is probably the most efficient workaround and what I do currently, but not everyone has a CD-->MD deck.

Ultimately adding support for CUE to drop T-marks on a single FLAC would be a welcome addition to the WMDP feature set because it would allow many audiophiles who keep music archives in CUE+FLAC to discover and enjoy the MD culture without any degradation of the listening experience. Thanks for considering!

[Airell]

I'm not the developer, but I have spoken with him about this feature about a month ago.
I believe option 1 is not possible with standard MD disks (more specific the ATRAC(3) encoding). HiMD (with ATRAC3+, this should not be an issue). Option 2 is how NetMD Wizard works and probably the best option. Option 3 lacks the option of splitting tracks, which could be done in one go (all splits as once), but manually splitting I believe was an issue, because of 'no feedback' from the device if a TOC is written or something.

I would prefer Option 2, as it does not involve any other recording device and can be done 'in one go'.
-- also a fan of continuously music, like Vangelis, Jarre, etc...

[reillyeon]

I have been looking at this as well and the important thing to keep in mind is that the NetMD protocol does not include a "split track" command. To my knowledge the only automatic option is utilizing the TOC editing capability unlocked by the "factory mode" on portable Type-R and Type-S devices. I believe this is what NetMD Wizard does. Web MiniDisc Pro could implement a similar feature, locked behind the existing warning that is displayed when entering "homebrew mode".

I've done this TOC editing manually by uploading an album as a single track with Web MiniDisc Pro and then using the scripts here to edit the TOC and re-upload it to the disc. I'd love to develop a more automatic process and it's on my todo list if I decide to tackle a larger contribution to this project.

As an aside, there is one device I've found which does officially support a computer issuing a "split track" command and that is the MDS-E12, which has an RS-232 control port. However this isn't a NetMD device and so you'd need to first record the entire disc in real time via an optical audio interface before you could split and name the tracks. It should be possible to automate this but it will be slower than using a NetMD-capable device.