Classical music and CUE sheets?

MCSmarties · Post by **MCSmarties** » Tue Jan 24, 2006 7:36 pm

Hi everybody,

I just learned from the forum about so-called "CUE sheets" but am quite confused as to what they can actually be used for.

I am not interested in burning CDs with my collection, but I wonder if I could use these CUE sheets to listen to classical work in MM?

Let me explain: currently, after I rip a classical CD I merge the various tracks forming one work together.
This is so I can listen to the entire piece while still being able to shuffle it with other things in my playlist.
The downside of course is that I can't directly skip to a particular movement
(I write the corresponding times in the tag so I can manually forward to a particular spot, but this is far from satisfying!)

Now, I wonder - could I keep the tracks separate and somehow link them with a CUE sheet?
The idea is that I could somehow play these tracks together without having to merge the files first.

Sorry if I'm confusing the issue. Here's a concrete example: Vivaldi's Four Seasons.
On a CD featuring the complete work, you will likely find 12 tracks:

1 La Primavera: I. Allegro
2 La Primavera: II. Largo e pianissimo sempre
3 La Primavera: III. Danza pastorale: Allegro
4 L'estate: I. Allegro non molto
5 L'estate: II. Adagio
6 L'estate: III. Presto: Tempo impetuoso d'Estate
7 L'autunno: I. Allegro
8 L'autunno: II. Adagio molto: Ubriachi dormienti
9 L'autunno: III. Allegro: La caccia
10 L'inverno: I. Allegro non molto
11 L'inverno: II. Largo
12 L'inverno: III. Allegro

Currently I merge all these tracks to one "Four Seasons" MP3 file but I don't like this solution.

Is there a way to use CUE sheets as follows:
- keep individual files for each track
- write a CUE sheet keeping all these movements in sequence (can I do that using relative paths, eg. using just the file name of each part?)
- somehow (?) force MM to load the CUE sheet whenever I add "the four seasons" to a playlist
- play all these tracks in sequence, being considered as "one" file.
- be able to skip to a particular movement while the overall work is playing
- if I shuffle the playlist, "the four seasons" still play as ONE piece.

Is this scenario possible or is my (poor) understanding of CUE sheets fundamentally wrong?
In that case, does anyone have a suggestion how to solve my problem?

I would much appreciate if anyone could enlighten me, many thanks in advance!

Bex · Post by **Bex** » Tue Jan 24, 2006 8:58 pm

Hi MCSmarties,

I understand you completely. Most of the things you ask for is not acheivable. At least not all together. However I have some suggestions to you. But first i'd like to give you my understanding on how these cue sheets works:

A cue sheet is basically a small text file which main purpose is to give instructions to burning software how to burn a CD.
It contains information about:
- File (or files) to burn
- Start and stop time of every song
- Album
- Album artist
- Artist
- Title
+ more
The information can also be used to burn CD-text onto the CD if the burner supports it.

Actually it is very common to rip a CD into one big music file with an accompanying cue sheet for backup purposes. Since this is the best way to replicate the CD compared to replicate it from individual files. Doing so is also a good idea to add the music file to your music collection (MM) especially when you can use the great Cue Reader Script to see the individual songs. The name of the cue sheet is irrelevant to its function to burn the CD but is essential to make the Cue Reader work. Since the Cue Reader only works if the cue sheet and the music file have the same name. However, to be able to use the cue sheet, whatever its name is, to burn a CD, the file name within the cue sheet, after the FILE command, needs to be the exact name of the of the music file.

Another very common reason why to rip a CD into one file is to achieve gapless playback of the CD which isn’t always supported by many mp3 softwares/players if you have individual files. When you then play the file in MM there won’t be any gaps in it. It is however already possible to achieve gapless playback in MM with individual tracks.

The downside with one big music file is that the file is treated as one track with one tag by MM. So you lose information about the individual tracks. You can for example not search for the individual tracks which would be the case if you had ripped the CD into individual tracks. But to create a "perfect" gapless copy of the CD is not always possible to do from individual tracks.

To sum up:
Rip into one big file with an accompanying cue sheet:
- Gapless playback in all softwares and portable players
- Plays all tracks in sequence even if playlist is shuffled
- See the individual tracks and skip to whatever track you want with Cue Reader
- Easily create a “perfect” replicate of the CD
- Unable to search the individual tracks

Rip into individual tracks:
- Gapless playback only in softwares and portable players that supports it (MM does)
- Tracks not played in sequence if playlist is shuffled
- Very easy to see what track is playing and to skip to whatever track you want
- A “perfect” replicate of the CD can’t be created. (But for most people it's "perfect".)
- Easily search the individual tracks

So now you only need to decide what you want. I suggest you to go with the big files! It sounds that it will fit your needs best.

Tip!
Since MM currently not support ripping into one file with accompanying cue sheet.
I suggest you to use EAC (Freeware). By many seen as the best ripper there is:
http://www.exactaudiocopy.org/
And a usable quick start guide:
http://users.pandora.be/satcp/eac-qs-en.htm

/Bex

Teknojnky · Post by **Teknojnky** » Tue Jan 24, 2006 9:34 pm

What would be cool is, if MM could store the 'cue sheet' in the database and a MM specific id3v2 tag, and could then successfully navigate these whole album tracks!

trixmoto · Post by **trixmoto** » Wed Jan 25, 2006 4:32 am

@McSmarties: I have written a script which does the opposite of this. If you have one large file, it allows you to write a CUE sheet which points to the different movements within the song, allowing you to skip straight to them.

My Cue Reader script allows you to easily navigate all the tracks within one large music file.

MCSmarties · Post by **MCSmarties** » Wed Jan 25, 2006 10:32 am

Thanks everybody for the information.

Bex's post appears to confirm my thoughts about CUE sheets but has made it all much clearer for me.
I knew about EAC but have never managed to get it to run - until you showed me that tutorial!
I didn't realize that I had to copy WNASPI32.DLL to the installation directory.
I knew I had a working ASPI layer (I got Nero) and couldn't understand why it didn't work...
Of course the file was only in the Windows\System32 directory! What an idiot I have been!

Teknojnky: Yes, that's exactly what I am talking about!
Is that what the CUE reader script is doing?

Trixmoto: Guess this entire thread is really about you

or more accurately, your CUE reader script. Looks like I had understood it the wrong way around:
I thought a CUE sheet was "linking" INDIVIDUAL files together! So I really need one big file to start with? Great, that's what I have right now!

How does your script work in conjunction with a playlist? Does it only pop up automatically whenever I choose to play a file with an accompagning CUE sheet?
In other words, do I have to open the CUE sheet manually or can I just pick the big file, add it to the playlist and get "CUE functionnality"?

trixmoto · Post by **trixmoto** » Wed Jan 25, 2006 10:43 am

The CUE sheet that you create should look something like this (performer and title commands are not necessary, but obviously useful - file track and index commands are essential):

Code: Select all

PERFORMER "Album Artist"
TITLE "Ablum Title"
FILE "A:\Music\Track.mp3" MP3
 TRACK 01 AUDIO
   TITLE "Track One"
   PERFORMER "Artist One"
   INDEX 01 00:00:00
 TRACK 02 AUDIO
   TITLE "Track Two"
   PERFORMER "Artist Two"
   INDEX 01 01:02:03

Save it as the same filename (and location) as your big music file, only .cue instead of .mp3 (or whatever). Install the script and restart MM. Now when you play the music file the script will automatically start running and popup a window.

Bex · Post by **Bex** » Wed Jan 25, 2006 11:00 am

Lol. You changed the post didnt you? I didnt understand a thing when I quoted it and found text I hadnt seen before. Well a refresh explained what was going on.

In addition to trixi's post I just have to say that I dont think you have a valid cue sheet accompanying your music file since you say you had merged individual files to one file. So just use EAC and rip your CD's again and EAC will create valid cue sheets along with the music files. Then Trixi's great Cue Reader script will work flawlessly!

PS The EAC guide as very good indeed

/Bex

MCSmarties · Post by **MCSmarties** » Wed Jan 25, 2006 12:15 pm

Bex Was your comment about me?
LOL yes I changed my post. I read the instructions about EAC again and realized I was asking something stupid

Trixmoto Wow, what a great script! :rocks:

After some tinkering around, it's finally working exactly the way I had hoped!

I got a few comments/questions/rants about the whole thing

The thought of writing a CUE sheet from scratch bugged me, so after some searching I found a nifty little piece of freeware called cuemaster.
It generates a cue file for you, just fill in the fields.

This is the cue sheet I got:

Code: Select all

TITLE "Klavierkonzert Nr. 1 in d moll, Op. 15"
PERFORMER "Ludwig van Beethoven"
REM Time  : 36:37:00
REM Length: 2197 seconds
REM Year  : 1983
REM Genre : Concerto
REM DiscID: 27089303
FILE "Beethoven - Klavierkonzert Nr. 1 in d moll, Op. 15.mp3" MP3
  TRACK 01 AUDIO
    PERFORMER "Ludwig van Beethoven"
    TITLE "i. Allegro con brio"
    PREGAP 00:02:00
    INDEX 01 00:00:00
  TRACK 02 AUDIO
    PERFORMER "Ludwig van Beethoven"
    TITLE "ii. Largo"
    INDEX 01 15:36:00
  TRACK 03 AUDIO
    PERFORMER "Ludwig van Beethoven"
    TITLE "iii. Rondo Allegro"
    INDEX 01 27:50:00

One thing that bothers me a bit is that I had to adjust my internet explorer ActiveX control security for your script to work.
Is there no way to avoid this? I'd rather not have to surf around with "allow ActiveX from untrusted sources" enabled!

Also, the script window I get looks kind of bleak (sorry

)
Searching in the forum, I found comments about being able to add album art and suchlike.
How do I add this to my CUE sheet to make it look nicer?

I also found that cuemaster allows to export a CUE sheet into the ID3v2 tag of an MP3 file. Could your script somehow use that for input?
It would avoid having to lug a separate file around!

In fact, - and maybe people have said that before - I think it would be awesome if CUE sheet read/write functions could be integrated in MM
(ideally with a way to add the information directly into the tag as discussed above).
Besides the known advantage for listening to (and later burning) live albums/remixes , I believe classical music would benefit tremendously from it.

I can think of several benefits for classical music enthousiasts (and judging from the forum, there are many of us):
- the CUE reader would look nicer

(could mimic the "now playing" window)
- would allow to jump to a particular movement in the work (as I'm doing now)
- but most importantly, it would solve a major tagging problem!!

"Track title" would be simply the piece as a whole ("album" could still design the CD containing the piece - maybe along with others).
The individual movements would be then named directly in the CUE sheet.
Even information such as performance details could probably be added to the sheet, freeing up "custom fields" in the tag for other things!

Any thoughts about this? IMO, CUE sheet integration should be a high priority for the next update of MM.

Teknojnky · Post by **Teknojnky** » Wed Jan 25, 2006 12:49 pm

MCSmarties wrote:Any thoughts about this? IMO, CUE sheet integration should be a high priority for the next update of MM.

Ideally (imo), cue sheet support should start from mediamonkey storing cue sheet information from cd's we rip with MM to the library/tags.

Configurable support of external cue sheet import/exports like:
managing/renaming/moving associated external cue sheets, ability to import-dont modify ext cue, import-modify/update ext cue, import-absorb(delete external cue sheet).

All the way to supporting burning with cuesheet info from the embedded cue information in the library/tags or external cue sheet files.

As to priority, well I'm not sure it should be the highest, but it seems like a pretty cool feature. I can definately see it used in several types of 'album' files besides classical.. (pink floyd the wall, rush 2112, greatest hits albums, etc)

With this type of support, I'd be inclined to rip most all albums this way (or at least the ones that I like to listen to as whole album instead of just specific tracks)

trixmoto · Post by **trixmoto** » Wed Jan 25, 2006 4:10 pm

With regards to my Cue Reader script:

1) There is no way around the security issues. This is a Microsoft thing.

2) You can anything you like to the Cue Reader script by editing the source code. However, I don't plan to add album art and stuff, this can be seen in MM. My script is only designed to allow you to navigate the internal tracks, not become a complete player.

3) I might research how cuemaster stores the information in the tags and it's possible that I'll be able to implement this - no promises though!

With regards to Cue integration with MM:

It's on the cards. The development team are considering possibilities. There's no promise that'll be done, it depends whether it's feasible or not. At least, this is how I understand the situation.

rtliner · Post by **rtliner** » Thu Jan 26, 2006 5:43 am

Thanks to all for explaining all this. I never understood how cue files worked and I have a ton of music in FLAC with cues that, using EAC, I can burn into audio cds!!!!!
yeah MM!

rt

Bex · Post by **Bex** » Thu Jan 26, 2006 6:46 am

MCSmarties wrote:One thing that bothers me a bit is that I had to adjust my internet explorer ActiveX control security for your script to work.
Is there no way to avoid this? I'd rather not have to surf around with "allow ActiveX from untrusted sources" enabled!

I've set mine to ask but then you must hit OK everytime you play a file with a cue sheet. But I can live with that!

MCSmarties wrote:Also, the script window I get looks kind of bleak (sorry )
Searching in the forum, I found comments about being able to add album art and suchlike.
How do I add this to my CUE sheet to make it look nicer?

Actually I want it smaller! All other info already exist in MM and can be made visible beside the cue reader window!

rtliner wrote:Thanks to all for explaining all this. I never understood how cue files worked and I have a ton of music in FLAC with cues that, using EAC, I can burn into audio cds!!!!!
yeah MM!

Nice to hear that the info was usable to you!

/Bex