Custom Click Tracks - Gapless playback for audio CDs and audio files

Custom Click Tracks

Format Details

Audio CDs play with no gaps between tracks.

You can start playing your Custom Click Track audio CD at any track, and it will play continuously through the tracks to the end of the current song, with no gaps, pops, or clicks between the tracks. There is a pause before all extra tracks. You can put pauses between songs or between any two tracks. Note: The minimum track length for an audio CD is four seconds, and the maximum number of tracks on an audio CD is 99.

Gapless playback of audio files?

Audio files in formats such as WAV, AIFF, WMA, and Ogg Vorbis can be played by a computer or by small portable players. Unfortunately, every player does not play every format, and few players allow you to play a series of audio files without gaps from one to the next.

I have created four pairs of audio files that you can use to test your player's gapless playback capability.
Each file contains three seconds of a 440 Hz test tone. Download the Tone 1 and Tone 2 files for each file format that your player supports. For each of those formats, set your player to play Tone1 followed immediately by Tone 2. Listen closely for a click, pop, gap, or any break in the continuous tone. Make sure that you play Tone 1 first. If your player supports gapless playback, you should hear the tone fade in, remain steady for five seconds, then fade out.

WAV	Tone 1	Tone 2	To download the Tone 1 and Tone 2 files, right-click (control-click on a Mac) any of the links, then choose your browser's "Save Target As" or "Save Link As" or similar option from the pop-up menu that appears.
AIFF	Tone 1	Tone 2
WMA 9	Tone 1	Tone 2
Ogg Vorbis	Tone 1	Tone 2

Here are some links to players.
These links will open in a new window.

Players
Windows Media Player
QuickTime
Winamp

Ogg Vorbis players
Ogg Vorbis hardware
Ogg Vorbis software

Pocket PC programs that play MP3, Ogg Vorbis, or WMA files
Pocket Player (also plays WAV)
PocketMusic Player Bundle

Even if your player does not support gapless playback, there is still a way to play your music at any of your starting points, then have it play continuously to the end of the current song. For you to be able to do that,
I make your audio files so that each one begins at its designated starting point and ends at the end of the current song instead of at the next starting point.

The first line in the following diagram shows how I would divide a song into four CD tracks or into four audio files for gapless playback. The other lines show how I would divide the same song into four audio files for pseudo-gapless playback. The numbers represent starting points and the X's represent the end of the song.

Audio CD tracks -->  1------2---------3---------4------X
    audio file #1    1---------------------------------X
    audio file #2           2--------------------------X
    audio file #3                     3----------------X
    audio file #4                               4------X

Some portable players support bookmarking, which allows you to set bookmarks anywhere in your music.
Using bookmarks, you can quickly find and play any section of your music.

What about MP3s?

If you need MP3s, you can make them from WAV or AIFF files.