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A quick guide to making a CUE sheet for mixes


Steve

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This is just one way to do it. I prefer to do it this way because you're actually burning a test CD to make sure the mix is split correctly and your CUE sheet will be based on that CD, rather than typing all the information out manually where you may make a mistake.

What is a CUE sheet?

A CUE sheet is simply a text file that contains information about each track in your mix. It contains time stamps for each track, which means that with the correct burning/playback software, you can burn/play a mix that's one long MP3 as if it was split into separate tracks, so, for example, if you burn a CD using a CUE sheet you'll be able to skip through the tracks in the mix.

Step 1 - Split your mix

Even though you're going to have your mix as one long MP3, you still need to split it as part of this process. Make a copy of your completed mix to use for splitting. Leave it in WAV format for now.

Here's a guide to splitting a mix with Audacity: -

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/help...=files&i=split

Export the split files as WAV files to a folder, so when you're done, your mix will be split into a bunch of WAVs, with each WAV being each separate track.

Step 2 - Burn your mix

The next step is to burn the split mix to a CD. Make sure you use software that allows you to remove the default 2 second gap in between each track. Once the CD is burned, it should play back seamlessly, with no clicks/gaps between songs. Test it to make sure.

Step 3 - Create a CUE sheet

For this, you can use Exact Audio Copy, which is available free here: -

http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/en/inde...rces/download/

Install it and run through the initial set up, then insert your mix CD and go to Action - Detect Gaps. EAC will then quickly run through the CD checking the gap settings between each track. That only takes a few seconds, so once it's done, go to Action - Create CUE Sheet - Single WAV File... which will instantly create your CUE sheet.

Step 4 - Rename the CUE sheet

The CUE sheet should have the same file name as your MP3 file, only with a .cue extension instead of .mp3, so for example if your mix is called this: -

Sigma - My Funky Mix.mp3

Then your CUE sheet needs to be named like this: -

Sigma - My Funky Mix.cue

Step 5 - Edit the CUE sheet

The CUE sheet not only contains information related to where each track starts, it also contains artist and track title information for both the album artist and each individual track. If you make sure this information is correct, it will be displayed in compatible playback software and it can be used for CD Text with compatible burning software too.

Open your CUE sheet with Notepad or another text editor. At the top you'll see some lines that start with REM, which you can ignore as they're just comments. Underneath the REM lines you will see PERFORMER and TITLE, which will probably say "Unknown Artist" and "Unknown Title" next to them. Edit these lines to include your DJ name and the title of your mix, for example: -

PERFORMER "Sigma"
TITLE "My Funky Mix"

Underneath those lines is FILE. This must match the name of your MP3 file exactly and you must also change WAVE at the end to MP3, so with my example mix, it would look exactly like this: -

FILE "Sigma - My Funky Mix.mp3" MP3

The final step is to edit the TITLE and PERFORMER info for each individual track. Obviously, here you are entering in the artist and song title for each song in your mix.

Once you're done, save the file and place the MP3 and CUE sheet into a new folder. Job done. Your mix can now be burned and played back as separate tracks, even though it's one long MP3.

But what if I don't use MP3?

That's fine. Just edit the FILE line accordingly, so if your mix is in FLAC format, it would look like this: -

FILE "Sigma - My Funky Mix.flac" FLAC

If you use WAV, then it would look like this: -

FILE "Sigma - My Funky Mix.wav" WAVE

Note that in the quotation marks you put the exact name of the mix including the .wav file extension, but following the quotation marks you must put WAVE and not WAV.

And that's basically it.

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  • 1 month later...

No worries mate. You can actually just make a CUE sheet by typing it out manually in Notepad (or any text editor) if you prefer.

 

It takes this format: -

 

PERFORMER "Sigma"

TITLE "79"
FILE "Sigma - 79.mp3" MP3
TRACK 01 AUDIO
TITLE "79 Intro"
PERFORMER "Imhotep Gary Byrd"
INDEX 01 00:00:00
TRACK 02 AUDIO
TITLE "Family Rap"
PERFORMER "Family"
INDEX 01 00:15:38

 

etc.

 

So the top 2 lines are the performer and title of the actual mix or album, then you have the file line, then there's 4 lines per track.

 

The only real downside to just typing it out manually is getting the times absolutely bang on. Even though the CD method is a more lengthy process, if you want the times to be absolutely perfect it's usually quicker to do it that way.

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