MMH - Split Side Long or Album Length FLACs to Song Files?

[timbre4]

My advice is to not get caught up in trying to create a perfect cue. The cue is just a tool to get the tracks split at the correct time. Focus on each song getting split, and correctly tagging that song with the basic tags, Artist, Album, Track Title, and Track number. I recommend Mp3Tag for the tagging part due to the sorting, numbering, look up features, and file rename all in the same interface.

The perfect cue can be made AFTER all the tracks are split and named if you really want one. Personally, I only keep cue files for formats like MKA that some media players/organizers don't handle the tags well. FLAC tags seem to be completely universal today.

I'm not trying to make the perfect Cue file, just trying to avoid making them like I did when I removed WAV. I use Mp3Tag all the time but I don't see how in this instance until I see legit FLACs land in my album folder. I almost had it right then cobbled up the cue file. If I didn't have to monkey with a Cue file at all I'd be very happy.

 

[himey]

I'm not trying to make the perfect Cue file, just trying to avoid making them like I did when I removed WAV. I use Mp3Tag all the time but I don't see how in this instance until I see legit FLACs land in my album folder. I almost had it right then cobbled up the cue file. If I didn't have to monkey with a Cue file at all I'd be very happy.

If you don't have ANY legit FLACs land after step 1, Split, move on to a different album. This particular method won't work for whatever reason (surface noise?).

One album I did, Jerry Reed and Chet Atkins - Me And Chet, I was able to merge the two sides together, then I loaded the long FLAC file, clicked Split, and it outputted every song perfectly, I then used Mp3Tag to finish the process.

However...The others I finished, I had to do one side at a time. Some songs were perfect and others I had to manually split using Audacity. MMH still saved me time compared to my other method which is using older software on a different computer.

 

[timbre4]

Thanks, my big FLACs project is done except for a half dozen that need to be split.

 

[himey]

Thanks, my big FLACs project is done except for a half dozen that need to be split.

I am down to only a couple more I can do. The others are split. I just need to check the tags. That will probably have to wait till after I sort some compressed Atmos MKA's...

 

[J. PUPSTER]

I consider this Beta testing; but we're getting real close!

Here is a detailed look at my process as of today on a Quad conversion I did with the stealth Quad Gloria Gaynor QS LP "Experience" (Side 2 this time)
* note that I had run this album side through RX8 De-Click & De-Crackle to get the most abusive noise stuff out.

1 - Pulled up the exact LP for approximate times in discogs.com and also opened the Long flac file into Audacity (for fine tuning.)
https://www.discogs.com/Gloria-Gaynor-Experience-Gloria-Gaynor/release/778134
2 - Selected my Preferences (currently at 0.8 sec & -44db.)

3 - In MMH hit the Browse button for the Input File you'll be working on.

4 - MMH automatically scans the file and shows it's "Suggested" splits (this can be edited right in the main MMH window.)

5 - Some of the song breaks suggested in MMH were not necessary and on the pic below I "Removed" tracks 3, 5, & 8 (which is the ending of the track.)

6 - Edited a couple of the breaks manually in MMH from what I saw in Audacity (It seems MMH likes to pick out the first instance of silence it detects per the parameters) -"we'll address that some more later as to potential fine tuning."

7 - Hit - "Get Track Tags From MusicBrainz" and found the 1975 LP. Then adjusted by deleting the first side songs (I noticed MMH wouldn't delete the song in the MusicBrainz window until you clicked on another song.) Also not sure what the "Comments" line in the MusicBrainz widow does because I filled that in with the discogs LP release info, but it didn't show up in the "Comment" line in Foobar2K when viewing the metadata details.

8 - When I was done editing the tags I hit the "Copy Tags" button (in the MusicBrainz screen in the above pic) and the tags filled -below pic (you can also manually adjust the "Start" times on the right, which I did on a couple songs to get them exactly where I wanted them.)

9 - At this point I hit "Save Cue" which saved the Cue file to my folder that the Long File was in. *If I'm understanding all this correctly; the Cue file creation by MMH is only an added bonus extra feature and is not necessary for the the Splits to occur in MMH. It's just the Cue file is created and saved for you to go back to later if need be.

10 - Next- hit "Split" button (lower left in MMH) and it splits the file per the screen information.

11 - Selected all five songs that MMH output in the folder and right clicked to open in Foobar2000.

This all seemed to work good for me today with no errors on anything (here's a pic of my output folder with everything in it.)

The real time saver for me is the included MusicBrainz tagging and the automatic creation of the Cue file, even though MMH does all the split work for you anyway.
It all seems like a longer process than it really is, as it all happens very quickly; and as you get more familiar with a process, I'm sure it will take very little time to get good results.

Now about the split times for fine tuning in MMH.
Like I said MMH seems to find the first instance of silence per your set Preferred parameters; but some of these breaks between songs are much longer than others which also creates extra song break times and are not needed. @HomerJAU; I'm wondering if it would be possible to build in a "mean" silence time within these several silence points in order to get closer to the center area of the overall song breaks. For example in some long song breaks I would have to manually adjust the times in MMH to get it where I'd like to have it closer to the middle area of the break. In the short video below it shows a song break in Audacity, and you can see where I put the marker where I'd like for the split to be (MMH was very close to this time just before it, but in other longer breaks it's way before that mid point.)

 

[HomerJAU]

Thanks for the write up.

There’s a couple things that need improvement:

1. The ‘double silence’ could be fixed by adding a new preference for Max Time between Silence to resolve the issue in Pups last post. MMH could then split the difference between the first and last silent section if more than one occurs within the Max Time setting.

2. To help tag and name the files I’ll add either a ‘Disc No’ or ‘Track No’ text box (or both) so when files are split/tagged:
a. Disc No. Used to tag Disc and prefix the file name: 1.01. First File.FLAC
b. Track No would be used as the starting Track No (useful for Side 2 where first track won’t be 1)

@himey if you can provide any sample file that have either silence finding issues I’ll check them out. Also any cue files that give errors.

THX

 

[HomerJAU]

Here is a new beta, you will need to install this file to get the changes below:

(beta link removed. Now released)

The following are changes giving better results in auto silence detection:

Version 4.2.9 beta 1 (June 22 2021)
-------------
Changes:
Join and Split Audio tool: Added new Silence Interval preference
Join and Split Audio tool: Silence now ignored if within new Silence Interval preference setting
Join and Split Audio tool: Add new (optional) Disc Number property to prefix Split filenames
Join and Split Audio tool: Add new (optional) Start Track Number property to change Split file naming and track tagging

Added a new Preference to resolve the 'double Silence' detection and to remove the last Silence from the detection process (the last silence being after the last track):

The new 'Silence Interval (Max)' preference sets the interval between Silence detection to be ignored as a possible 'between track silence'. The default is 6 seconds. So once a Silence is detected all new Silence will be ignored until an interval between silence is > 6 seconds.

This interval is also used at end of last silence, so a silence at end must be > 6 seconds to be considered as a new track (and sound must exists after 6 seconds)

NOTE: MMH now recalculates the CUE Track start as the mid point between the previous first silence and last silence, if multiple Silences are 'joined' by less than the Silence Interval preference setting (@J. PUPSTER request)

Added two new edit boxes for Disc Number and Start Track No. to help rename/tag tracks from two sides of same album (so each side will have track tags/file names not the same):

See Disc Number in Toolbar on top right:
If Disc Number is not empty then prefix Split file names with the disc number: (example: 1.01. First File name.wav)

Start Track No. above grid near centre top:
Split File names and Track No tags will start generation at this number. Default is 1. For Side two you would use the appropriate number based on LP layout (below if side 1 with 4 tracks, for side 2 users should set the Start Track to 5)

NOTE: Now MMH recalculates the CUE Track start as the mid point between the previous first silence and last. Notice the first track here starts at 0.55 seconds not at 00:00:00 due to the long needle drop lead in time.

Any further questions/ideas. Please fire away.

 

[neil wilkes]

I create my 5.1 FLAC files straight out of my DAW (Nuendo).
Tagging is then done using mp3tag, which is freeware.
The only problem with mc flac is with live albums as almost all players glitch at the track point.

You can also rip DVD/DVDA/Bluray to FLAC using DVD Audio Extractor, although for copy protected Blu-ray this requires the use of Red Fox AnyDVD HD as well. Works beautifully.

 

[himey]

I create my 5.1 FLAC files straight out of my DAW (Nuendo).
Tagging is then done using mp3tag, which is freeware.
The only problem with mc flac is with live albums as almost all players glitch at the track point.

You can also rip DVD/DVDA/Bluray to FLAC using DVD Audio Extractor, although for copy protected Blu-ray this requires the use of Red Fox AnyDVD HD as well. Works beautifully.

Are you saying only live albums have this glitch or are you talking about how most albums have silence between tracks so it doesn't matter? If it is the latter then you are using the wrong software player because the good ones playback gapless. My two goto test albums for gapless are Dark Side of the Moon and Abbey Road.

 

[himey]

Thanks for the write up.

There’s a couple things that need improvement:

1. The ‘double silence’ could be fixed by adding a new preference for Max Time between Silence to resolve the issue in Pups last post. MMH could then split the difference between the first and last silent section if more than one occurs within the Max Time setting.

2. To help tag and name the files I’ll add either a ‘Disc No’ or ‘Track No’ text box (or both) so when files are split/tagged:
a. Disc No. Used to tag Disc and prefix the file name: 1.01. First File.FLAC
b. Track No would be used as the starting Track No (useful for Side 2 where first track won’t be 1)

@himey if you can provide any sample file that have either silence finding issues I’ll check them out. Also any cue files that give errors.

THX

Cool. I will try the beta first and if doesn't detect anything I will send you the file. Thanks.

 

[HomerJAU]

I thought I'd post info on a problem LP rip sent to me by a user today. This may help others with similar problems where MMH was not showing any 'tracks' (silence between tracks) after loading into the Join and Split tool:

I first looked at the waveform in Audacity and I could see the LP rip was quite noisy. Here is the Audacity waveform ('Silence' is relative, not absolute on vinyl rips):

It was a bit of trial and error using the Discogs web page showing the track times as the times I was wanting to get and filter out others. But I could have used other preference settings and deleted the ‘tracks’ that MMH found for other quiet times it found. Here is the Discogs release page:

So I set the ‘Noise Level (Max)’ preference in MMH higher (at -29 db) than for a quiet rip (I’ve generally used around -40db previously). I kept changing the Noise level preference higher, then re-loading the file until I started seeing ‘tracks’ in the grid. Go too high and all the quiet passages become 'tracks', so its a balancing act.

I could get the exact track times as shown on Discogs using these preference settings:

The key here is that 'Noise Level' needs to be set based on the source level (gain) and the real 'silence' level. On an old vinyl recording with crackle and pops this may need to be set a lot higher than a pristine cleaned audiophile recording only played a couple of times.

I hope this helps.

After playing with this I'll update MMH tomorrow to auto-reload the current input file every time the Silence Preferences are changed to make this process a little easier as MMH will auto-scan for Silence every time a user changes there settings.

EDIT: Link to Beta version (4.2.11 beta 1) with above change (changing Silence Prefs auto-reloads the current Input file and rescans for Silence using changed Prefs):
https://reva.blob.core.windows.net/mmh4/Beta/MMHInstaller.msi
THX
Garry

 

[Ninecats]

Wow very handy update! I have some unfinished rips where I didn’t care for manually split in audacity, very time consuming. This is great!

 

[paligap]

After much fiddling with the preferences, I was able to get all but two of my long flac files split into separate songs. For those last two, I played them, noted the start times, edited cue files, and used Foobar to split them. Mission accomplished!

 

[par4ken]

I just saw this thread and only quickly skimmed over it but my suggestion is to use CD Wave Editor. Years ago I had trouble splitting files manually. CD's burned from such files produced a loud click between selections as the files were not split with exactly the proper number of bits or frames. While newer burning software may have fixed that problem CD Wave Editor is still an excellent way to split your files where you want them split. It now works with 24 bit files as well and is free!

https://en.freedownloadmanager.org/Windows-PC/CD-Wave-Editor.html

 

[himey]

I just saw this thread and only quickly skimmed over it but my suggestion is to use CD Wave Editor. Years ago I had trouble splitting files manually. CD's burned from such files produced a loud click between selections as the files were not split with exactly the proper number of bits or frames. While newer burning software may have fixed that problem CD Wave Editor is still an excellent way to split your files where you want them split. It now works with 24 bit files as well and is free!

https://en.freedownloadmanager.org/Windows-PC/CD-Wave-Editor.html

Does it edit an already existing cue?

 

[par4ken]

Does it edit an already existing cue?

I don't use it that way but I just tried it out. Loading the cue sheet opened the file showing all the splits. So yes you can edit them and then save the new cue.

 

[HomerJAU]

What is that doing MMH is not? Did I miss something?

 

[par4ken]

What is that doing MMH is not? Did I miss something?

Possibly nothing, I'm not familiar with MMH. Looks like you are using it to scan for tracks, CD Wave Editor can do that too, but I like to select my split points manually.

 

[HomerJAU]

MMH allows editing of the split times