EAC CD Burning Guide

5. Appendix: Split Image/Single Files

5a. Introduction

As you may know, EAC can also be used to create a copy of a CD by choosing "Copy Image & Create CUE Sheet" (or preferably "Test & Copy Image & Create CUE Sheet") from the Action menu. When this option is used, the whole CD is ripped as one large single file. The track information is, of course, preserved in the cue sheet.

The creation of image files may seem to be an attractive alternative to ripping to separate tracks and using a noncompliant cue sheet in order to re-create the CD from those separate tracks. One advantage with image files is that the image file cue sheet, unlike the noncompliant one, works with common burning software such as Nero. There are disadvantages, though: storing the CD as a single file on a computer means that you either have to manually search through that large file if you want to listen to a specific track on your computer, or use a player (such as Foobar2000) in which you can load the cue sheet.

If you want to burn a CD from a cue sheet for a single file, you simply need to load the cue sheet in EAC, or in any other program that you use for burning CDs (that is capable of utilising cue sheets).

But, maybe you are now convinced that you would rather have separate files for the different tracks?

You can use EAC in order to split an image file into separate tracks. A noncompliant cue sheet will be created in the process, so you can convert a single file rip into a multi-track "rip" that can be used to re-create a copy of the CD the same way as detailed in EAC CD Burning Guide, step 3.

If you use EAC, you have to "manually" decompress the file to .wav before splitting it, and then compress the new files to FLAC after the split.

If you have created image files in APE or FLAC, you may want to use CueTools for splitting them instead. It will decompress the files in the background, perform the split, then re-compress into your chosen format, all with one click after loading the cue sheet (and setting it up properly - see below). And, it will create a noncompliant cue sheet for you, too.

The separate files created by splitting with EAC ("with gaps") or CueTools match the files created with an ordinary rip to separate files with EAC. That can not be said for the result when using some other tools for splitting image files; in other words, other tools may leave you with less perfect results from the split.

Note that it is not a good idea to use EAC or CueTools to split lossy image files, since you would in the end have to commit a lossy-to-lossy transcode in order to have separate files in that lossy format. You would have to convert the lossy file to .wav for the split and then convert it once more after the split. (See Spectral Comparisons for an explanation of why lossy-to-lossy as well as lossy-to-lossless transcoding should be avoided.) If you have a single mp3 file that you want to split, it is better to use a splitter application such as mp3splt if you are not afraid of command line tools (there's some help on this Manpage). There are also tools with GUIs: mp3DirectCut and Musicutter. They split lossy files without decoding and re-encoding them keep the header intact (which can't be said for all splitter tools out there).

5b. Splitting an Image/Single File with EAC

• The single file and the cue sheet need to be in the same folder. (Or, the cue sheet should contain the correct path to the file - it is easier to keep paths out of it and simply put them in them in the same folder, though.)

• The single file needs to be in .wav format in order for EAC to be able to split it, so if your image file was saved as a FLAC file (or, perhaps, an APE file), the first step is to decompress it to .wav. You can use the FLAC frontend for FLAC files, or use some other converter (such as dBpoweramp) that will also decompress APE and other formats to .wav.

Note to Vista users: if you choose to use FLAC frontend you may need to run it as administrator.

• You may want to open the cue sheet for the single file and check the track names before splitting the image file. The tracks that result from the split will be named the way they are in that cue sheet. (No changes are or will be applied to this example cue sheet, precisely in order to illustrate that fact.)

• Also, if the cue sheet has been edited so that the referenced file has the .flac or .ape (or another format) extension, you need to edit it back to ".wav". In other words, the line that starts with FILE should end with .wav" WAVE

REM GENRE Classical
REM DATE 1986
REM DISCID 2008D703
REM COMMENT "ExactAudioCopy v0.95b3"
PERFORMER "Tchaikovsky"
TITLE " Piano Concerto No.1 (Pogorelich, Abbado, LSO)"
FILE "Tchaikovsky -  Piano Concerto No.1 (Pogorelich, Abbado, LSO).wav" WAVE
  TRACK 01 AUDIO
    TITLE "Piano Concerto No.1 in B flat minor -I- Allegro non troppo e molto maestoso -..."
    PERFORMER "Tchaikovsky"
    INDEX 00 00:00:00
    INDEX 01 00:00:33
  TRACK 02 AUDIO
    TITLE "Piano Concerto No.1 in B flat minor -II- Andante semplice - Prestissimo - Tem..."
    PERFORMER "Tchaikovsky"
    INDEX 00 23:18:58
    INDEX 01 23:21:58
  TRACK 03 AUDIO
    TITLE "Piano Concerto No.1 in B flat minor -III- Allegro con fuoco"
    PERFORMER "Tchaikovsky"
    INDEX 00 31:04:08
    INDEX 01 31:05:08
			

• Open EAC and choose "Split WAV by CUE Sheet ... With Gaps" from the Tools menu.
  Note that if there happens to be a hidden track on the CD, it will be contained in the single file rip. In order to have it included with the split, you need to use "Split WAV by CUE Sheet ... Individual Indices" too. See Splitting an Image/Single File with a Hidden Track below.

• Browse to and select to open the .wav file that you want to split.

• Next, browse to and select to open the corresponding cue sheet.

Once you have clicked "Open", EAC will immediately start splitting the image file. The time it takes depends on the file size and the number of tracks embedded in the image file. Larger file size and more tracks equal somewhat longer time but it is still just a matter of minutes.

When the image file is split, you will find the separate track files along with a new cue sheet, named the same way as the one for the image file with the addition "-cutted", in the folder. This is a noncompliant cue sheet, that can be used with the separate track files the way described in EAC CD Burning Guide, step 3.

PERFORMER "Tchaikovsky"
TITLE " Piano Concerto No.1 (Pogorelich, Abbado, LSO)"
FILE "E:\Music\Tchaikovsky -  Piano Concerto No.1 (Pogorelich, Abbado, LSO)\01 Piano Concerto 
No.1 in B flat minor -I- Allegro non troppo e molto maestoso -....wav" WAVE
  TRACK 01 AUDIO
    TITLE "Piano Concerto No.1 in B flat minor -I- Allegro non troppo e molto maestoso -..."
    PERFORMER "Tchaikovsky"
    PREGAP 00:00:33
    INDEX 01 00:00:00
  TRACK 02 AUDIO
    TITLE "Piano Concerto No.1 in B flat minor -II- Andante semplice - Prestissimo - Tem..."
    PERFORMER "Tchaikovsky"
    INDEX 00 23:18:25
FILE "E:\Music\Tchaikovsky -  Piano Concerto No.1 (Pogorelich, Abbado, LSO)\02 Piano Concerto 
No.1 in B flat minor -II- Andante semplice - Prestissimo - Tem....wav" WAVE
    INDEX 01 00:00:00
  TRACK 03 AUDIO
    TITLE "Piano Concerto No.1 in B flat minor -III- Allegro con fuoco"
    PERFORMER "Tchaikovsky"
    INDEX 00 07:42:25
FILE "E:\Music\Tchaikovsky -  Piano Concerto No.1 (Pogorelich, Abbado, LSO)\03 Piano Concerto 
No.1 in B flat minor -III- Allegro con fuoco.wav" WAVE
    INDEX 01 00:00:00
			

• Compress the separate tracks to FLAC using, for example, FLAC frontend. Choose compression level 8 and check "Verify". You can try and let the frontend tag the files for you, but check the tags and correct them, if necessary, using a tag editor such as Tag&Rename or mp3Tag (freeware, that will handle FLAC tags/Vorbis comments, too, in spite of its name).

The original image file remains untouched. You can choose to discard it after checking that the separate tracks are OK, or keep it as an archival copy.

5c. Splitting an Image/Single File with CueTools

CueTools can be downloaded from here - note that you need to have .NET 2.0 installed, too, and that you may have to install an update for Microsoft Visual C++ 2005.

CueTools will automatically perform the de/compressing steps that you do "manually" when you split with EAC. That means that you can split a FLAC or APE file without decompressing it to .wav first, and you can have the new files re-compressed to FLAC (or some other lossless format) after the split. It has some additional useful features such as the option to verify the files against AccurateRip, too.

CueTools makes it easy to split single files, but you need to configure it before starting to use it. CueTools will remember your settings, so you will not have to re-do the settings every time you use it.

• Click the small arrow beside the folder in the "Input" box in order to show the file browser. Here, I have selected the "Folder browser" in order to select one single cue sheet/CD. Note that there is also a "Multiselect browser" that you can use for splitting a batch of CDs. Browse to and check the respective cue sheets for all the CDs you want to split in one go; CueTools will split them one after the other.

• You need to decide the output path. It looks like it is just for the cue sheet, but will actually decide where the files go, too. I have chosen a template that ships with CueTools (you will find it in the "Template" drop-down menu) that saves the split files and the new cue sheet in the original folder and adds a [unique] number to the new cue sheet if needed. Click the small arrow beside the icon in the "Output" box if you want to browse to another folder for saving the new files.

• For "Action", select "Encode". Leave it at "default" (unless you want to fix offset or set verification conditions for encoding, see the "AccurateRip" settings below).

• For "Mode", select "Tracks". This will make CueTools split the single file into separate tracks, using the information from the cue sheet. That is unless you check one or both of the boxes beside the icons for MusicBrainz and Freedb: if you do, CueTools will search for matches to your CD in those databases and give you the option to utilise that information as the tracks are split off and encoded instead of using the cue sheet information.

Note that you can also use CueTools to create a single file with appropriate cue sheet from a set of separate files (with cue sheet) by selecting Image + Cue.

• The "Audio Output" is of course up to you; here I assume that the goal is to create separate FLAC files, so you select "Lossless", then "FLAC" and the "libFLAC" encoder. For best compression (smallest file size), set the pointer at "8".

• Next, click the grey cog-wheel icon top right in order to get access to the advanced settings. Most of them will be a matter of preference, but I will comment on some of them so that you know your choices.

The first tab is for CUETools settings:

First section, "General":

• I have chosen to reduce process priority to "Idle" so that CueTools will not unduly affect other applications I may have running on the computer. Encoding uses a lot of CPU resources.

• As the tool tip for the option says, presence of 4608 extra samples is typically an encoding error. It should not happen if you rip your files properly and encode with FLAC as described in the guides, but it will do no harm to keep this checked.

• "Create .cue file even if embedded" will make CueTools create a text file (that you can edit, etc) if the information that normally goes in a che sheet has been embedded instead.

Second section, "Gaps handling":

• Important: Select "Gaps Appended" unless you are about to split an image/single file that contains a hidden track in the first pregap. If that should be the case, select "Gaps Appended + HTOA" instead (see Splitting an Image/Single File with a Hidden Track - CueTools below).

The second tab is for "Tagging":

All the settings in this tab are up to you - they will not affect file quality as such. I have chosen to check "Extract log file" on the off chance that it means that an embedded log file wll be extracted and written to a text file. One day I shall figure out if that is what this setting actually does...

• "Write basic tags from CUE data" will make EAC fetch tags such as "Title" and "(Track) Artist" from the cue sheet.

The third tab, for "AccurateRip", is the last one in which an ordinary user may want to apply changes:

• For both "Verify" and "Encode and verify": check "Write AccurateRip log" in order to get a text file that details not only comparison with AccurateRip results (if the CD is in the database), but also CRC values with and without null samples the way EAC calculates them. I prefer not to store logs in tags, which explains why that option is unchecked here: personal choice.

Checking "Verbose" for the AccurateRip log (the .accurip file) will result in a slightly larger but easier to read file. The difference lies in how AccurateRip database matches for different pressings are presented.

You can choose to have the file split to separate tracks only if the tracks match AccurateRip results to a certain degree that is chosen by you. This setting only takes effect if you select "encode if verified" in the "Action" section of the main window.

You can also choose to have the offset "corrected" under the condition that a certain percentage of the tracks would be verified with a certain confidence. Personally, I hesitate to use this option; it may cause the files to have an incorrect offset if the CD was ripped with a correct offset, but the pressing is uncommon. If the rip should have been made with the wrong drive offset, well, you do not really make it "accurately ripped" by fixing the offset. You just add or subtract some inaudible samples in order to make it match results submitted to the AccurateRip database, so that it will appear "perfect". But, again - it is a personal choice. This setting only takes effect if you select "fix offset" in the "Action" section of the main window.

When all the settings are done, you are ready to actually split that single file into separate tracks.

• You may want to check the file names in the cue sheet before splitting, as mentioned in the EAC instructions above.

• Just load the cue sheet for the single file into the "Input" box and click "Go". (The cue sheet and the file should be in the same folder.) After a number of minutes you will have separate files and a new noncompliant cue sheet.

• Check the file tags and correct them, if necessary, using a tag editor such as Tag&Rename or mp3Tag (freeware, that will handle FLAC tags/Vorbis comments, too, in spite of its name).

The original image file remains untouched. You can choose to discard it after checking that the separate tracks are OK, or keep it as an archival copy.

5d. Image/Single Files with Hidden Tracks

On most CDs, the first track starts at sector 0, and no pregap will be shown for that track in the cue sheet (no "INDEX 00" present, "INDEX 01" starts at 00:00:00):

REM GENRE Rock
REM DATE 1975
REM DISCID 9B0A250C
REM COMMENT "ExactAudioCopy v0.99pb4"
PERFORMER "Queen"
TITLE "A Night At The Opera"
FILE "01 - Death On Two Legs.wav" WAVE
  TRACK 01 AUDIO
    TITLE "Death On Two Legs"
    PERFORMER "Queen"
    INDEX 01 00:00:00
  TRACK 02 AUDIO
    TITLE "Lazing On A Sunday Afternoon"
    PERFORMER "Queen"
    INDEX 00 03:43:52
FILE "02 - Lazing On A Sunday Afternoon.wav" WAVE
    INDEX 01 00:00:00
    
    (...)
      

Some CDs have a very small first pregap that you can safely ignore - there is no hidden track here, for example:

REM GENRE Classical
REM DATE 1986
REM DISCID 2008D703
REM COMMENT "ExactAudioCopy v0.99pb5"
PERFORMER "Tchaikovsky"
TITLE "Piano Concerto No.1 (Pogorelich, Abbado, LSO)"
FILE "Tchaikovsky - Piano Concerto No.1 (Pogorelich, Abbado, LSO).wav" WAVE
  TRACK 01 AUDIO
    TITLE "Piano Concerto No.1 in B flat minor -I- Allegro non troppo e molto maestoso -..."
    PERFORMER "Tchaikovsky"
    INDEX 00 00:00:00
    INDEX 01 00:00:33
  TRACK 02 AUDIO
    TITLE "Piano Concerto No.1 in B flat minor -II- Andante semplice - Prestissimo - Tem..."
    PERFORMER "Tchaikovsky"
    INDEX 00 23:18:58
    INDEX 01 23:21:58
    
    (...)
      

However, if the first gap looks suspiciously large, it probably contains a hidden track:

REM GENRE Blues
REM DATE 1998
REM DISCID 810BDF0A
REM COMMENT "ExactAudioCopy v0.99pb4"
PERFORMER "David Gray"
TITLE "White Ladder"
FILE "David Gray - White Ladder.wav" WAVE
  TRACK 01 AUDIO
    TITLE "Please Forgive Me"
    PERFORMER "David Gray"
    INDEX 00 00:00:00
    INDEX 01 01:59:00
  TRACK 02 AUDIO
    TITLE "Babylon"
    PERFORMER "David Gray"
    INDEX 00 07:31:30
    INDEX 01 07:34:20
    
    (...)
      

5e. Splitting an Image/Single File with a Hidden Track - EAC

• If you use EAC for splitting the file, you need to choose "Split WAV by CUE Sheet ... Individual Indices" in order to have that hidden track split off:

• The rest of the procedure is the same as for splitting with gaps; choose the .wav file to split, choose the cue file, wait while EAC splits the file.

However, splitting according to individual indices makes EAC create small files for all the pregaps. This is messy:

• You need to discard all the split files (and the cutted cue sheet, too) except "01.00 File name". That is the hidden track, so keep it.
  The actual tracks are slightly smaller than the separate tracks would be if split "with gaps" because the pregaps are not appended to them. The cutted cue sheet that EAC supplies would of course work, since it includes the "gap files" as well, but it is messy indeed.

• Then split the single file again, using the "normal" option "Split WAV by CUE Sheet ... With Gaps" as decribed above.

• Finally, edit the new cutted cue sheet to include the hidden track as described here.

• Compress the separate tracks to FLAC using, for example, FLAC frontend. Choose compression level 8 and check "Verify". You can try and let the frontend tag the files for you, but check the tags and correct them, if necessary, using a tag editor such as Tag&Rename or mp3Tag (freeware, that will handle FLAC tags/Vorbis comments, too, in spite of its name).

The original image file remains untouched. You can choose to discard it after checking that the separate tracks are OK, or keep it as an archival copy.

5f. Splitting an Image/Single File with a Hidden Track - CueTools

It is easier to deal with hidden tracks with CueTools since it has an option that will make it split off only the first pregap and do the rest of the file split the standard way ("with gaps").

• If you spot one of those large pregaps for the first track, click the cog-wheel in order to access the "Advanced Settings" and check "Gaps Appended + HTOA" for Gap handling. (HTOA stands for "hidden track one audio".)

The result is the same as for the two-step procedure with EAC (without the need to "manually" decompress the single file to .wav and compress the split files to FLAC): the hidden track "01.00" is there along with all the ordinary tracks from the CD:

• Check the file tags and correct them, if necessary, using a tag editor such as Tag&Rename or mp3Tag (freeware, that will handle FLAC tags/Vorbis comments, too, in spite of its name).

• The cue sheet for the split files that CueTools created would result in a CD with a hidden track, just like the original CD, if you used it as it is for burning an audio CD. You may want to edit it as described here.

The original image file remains untouched. You can choose to discard it after checking that the separate tracks are OK, or keep it as an archival copy.

5g. If You Have No Cue Sheet

(1) If you have created a single file rip and no longer have the CD, so that you can not create a cue sheet for it, you may be able to find a cue sheet in some online database. This is hazardous business, though. CDs come in different releases and different pressings. There is no guarantee that a cue sheet found online is the proper one for your single file.

You can test the cue sheet with CueTools, though. Load it and choose to "Verify, don't encode" with AccurateRip. If it is the wrong cue sheet, the result will normally be "Disk not present in database". You can use the cue sheet for incorrectly splitting the single file all the same, but I would not recommend it - the tracks will not start or end quite when they should.

(2) Occasionally, you will come across single files that have no cue sheet since they were not CD-sourced to begin with, for example audience or soundboard recordings from live concerts, or your own rips from vinyl discs. If you want to split such files into separate tracks, you will have to do it manually. Audacity works nicely with lossless files. Work with a copy, so that you don't risk the original file in the process, and decompress that copy to .wav if needed before loading it in Audacity.

When you manually split files, you may introduce sector boundary errors. The "sectors" in question are those that make up the structure of a CD. If you burn your split files to a CD and their lengths do not match those of the sectors, the burning software will pad the files. The result is usually small glitches between the tracks, which can be very annoying. Once there, they are difficut to get rid of - they will stay if you rip the CD, for example.

So, if you manually split a single file, take the precaution of testing for sector boundaries and have the files fixed if needed. Trader's Little Helper contains easy-to-use tools for this. Just load all the separate files in there and test them ("Analysis - Check audio files for SBEs", then add the files), continue with "Fix SBEs" if needed. (I cut off small parts of the first two tracks below in order to produce this illustrative picture.)

(3) Also (though not relevant for splitting single file rips/images), if you have the log file for separate tracks ripped with EAC 0.99, you can create a cue sheet from that information. A simple way of doing this is to use the online "Log to Cue" tool at The EAC Helper web page. Note that, in order to have correct gaps in the new cue sheet, the gaps need to be shown in the log. In other words, the gaps must have been detected before ripping, see EAC Ripping Guide - 3. Detect Gaps.