CUEMAKE ======= Neil Popham , 2005 Version 0.4, 2005-04-06 CUEMAKE will take a folder of track WAVE files, and merge them into one image file with an accompanying cuesheet. CUEMAKE was designed to work with 16 bit stereo 44100Hz WAVE files, but will work with other formats. USAGE ===== You can run CUEMAKE in three different ways: 1. From the Command Line ------------------------ Pass the folder path, and optionally the mask to use, to CUEMAKE using the following syntax: CUEMAKE.EXE [] E.g.: CUEMAKE.EXE "C:\My Music\Green Day\American Idiot" CUEMAKE.EXE "C:\My Music\Green Day\American Idiot" "%artist%\%album%\%tracknumber% - %title%.wav" If you pass a mask as the second parameter this will obviously override the INI file mask value for this call, but will not become the default mask (as stored in the INI file). 2. Drag and Drop onto the Icon ------------------------------ Drag a folder onto the EXE file's icon, or a shortcut to the EXE. 3. Drag and Drop onto the GUI ----------------------------- If you double-click CUEMAKE the GUI will open. You can drag and drop a folder onto any empty area of the dialogue (you will notice a cursor change when you are over an appropriate area). If you use method 1. (passing no mask) or 2. the settings stored in the INI file will be used, or if no INI exists the default settings. If you use method 3. the current GUI settings will be used (not the saved INI settings). SETTINGS ======== If you double-click CUEMAKE the GUI will open. The GUI allows you to set your configuration, which will be saved to an INI file. Masks ----- CUEMAKE uses a mask to retrieve meta data from a file's path. E.g.: If your folder has the path "C:\My Music\Green Day\American Idiot" and the files within the folder have the format "01 - American Idiot.wav"; "02 - Jesus of Suburbia.wav"; etc. you would use the following mask to extract the meta data: %artist%\%album%\%tracknumber% - %title%.wav CUEMAKE will apply this mask to each track file, extract the data from the path, and write the data to the cuesheet. So, for the file: C:\My Music\Green Day\American Idiot\02 - Jesus of Suburbia.wav we get the following meta data: Artist : Green Day Album : American Idiot Track Number : 2 Title : Jesus of Suburbia C:\My Music\Green Day\American Idiot\02 - Jesus of Suburbia.wav \%artist% \%album% \%tracknumber% - %title% .wav You can use the following tags in a mask: %album artist% (Cuesheet PERFORMER value) %album% (Cuesheet TITLE value) %tracknumber% (TRACK NUMBER value) %artist% (TRACK PERFORMER value) %title% (TRACK TITLE value) %% (empty tag (see below)) Use an empty tag (%%) to discard *variable* data. E.g.: If you had year or genre information in all your track files, like: "Rock - Green Day_American Idiot_2004 - Jesus of Suburbia, Track 02.wav" you could use: %% - %artist%_%album%_%% - %title%, Track %tracknumber%.wav However, you *must* use static text to represent characters that are unchanging in each file. A mask like: %%%artist%%%%album%%%%title%%%%tracknumber%%% will never work, as there is no way to determine where one value stops and another starts. The *static characters* determine where values start and stop. The static characters are indicated below in an attempt to explain further: %% - %artist%_%album%_%% - %title%, Track %tracknumber%.wav ### # # ### ######## #### If %artist% is specified in the mask, but no %album artist%, %album artist% will be allocated the same value as %artist%. Therefore, if both values are the same, you should use %artist% in your mask. An example of a mask using %album artist% may be: %album artist%\%album%\%tracknumber% - %title% (%artist%) E.g.: Various Artists\Shrek 2 Soundtrack\01 - Accidentally In Love (Counting Crows) The GUI allows you to create and save numerous masks, and then pick them from the dropdown list. To save a mask just type the new mask into the text box and click "Save". To delete a saved mask select the mask from the dropdown list and click "Delete". The default mask, if no INI exists, is "%%.wav". No meta data will be created, and files will be sorted by path name. If the file path contains no useful information simply use the default mask (but ensure your files are in the right alphabetic order). Deleting Track Files -------------------- The GUI allows you to opt to delete the track files once processing is complete. By default the track files will *not* be deleted. Playing a Sound --------------- The GUI allows you to select a WAVE file to play once the process has completed. While processing CUEMAKE becomes quite unresponsive, so it may be useful to get a clear indication of when your image file and cuesheet is available. By default no sound plays. THE PROCESS =========== CUEMAKE will check the folder for WAVE files. If it finds some it will loop through every WAVE file and store the meta data for each, by applying the mask to the file's path. Using this information it will then attempt to sort the files into track number order. If no %tracknumber% tag has been used in the mask (and therefore no track number data is available) CUEMAKE will revert to sorting the files by path name. Once the files have been sorted into order CUEMAKE will loop through each file, extract the audio data, and append it to the new image WAVE file "CDImage.wav". Once all files have been appended CUEMAKE will create the accompanying cuesheet "CDImage.cue". If selected, CUEMAKE will delete the track files and/or play a sound. -- 2005-04-06, Neil Popham