Aha
That's a different question!

The small gap at the start when it's playing on a computer is because the mp3 has to tell the decoder what format the file is and how to decode it, which, I presume, is why you're using the x-fade function to listen to it on your computer. As far as I know iTunes is the only media playing program that offers gapless playback for situations like this.

Talking about burning it to a CD is a slightly different kettle of fish. Your burning program will render each track to .wav before burning, as that's essentially what CD audio is - uncompressed PCM data. The default for most CD burning programs is to insert a 2 second gap between tracks on the burnt CD, but this isn't inserted as 2 seconds of silence - it's a signal that says to the CD player 'wait for 2 secs before playing the next track' (you might have seen some CD players counting in -0.02, -0.01 on the display).

Removing this gap will differ depending on what CD burning software you're using, but it's usually possible - I can't remember the name is for the setting in Nero off the top of my head but you can def do it in that. Not sure about WMP as I've never used that to burn CDs. Then your CD will play seamlessly and showcase the mad DJing skillz but still have the track splits so you can skip to whichever track you want to listen to.

Hope that made sense, I am feeling very tired and not especially caffeinated yet.
(username1, Wed 6 May 2009, 10:17, Reply)