Say you have an old CD of a great show, but it has one either a couple clicks, or gaps between track, or the dreaded click and gap. Well, you can get a new copy from your source, but what happens when your source doesn't have a new copy? Well, then you can fix it yourself. And you don't need anything else other than EAC for this guide. You can get EAC from http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/. Also be sure to check out Ginny's easy EAC Guide.
 

Now lets get going, first you need to extract the CD to an image using EAC. First make sure EAC is properly configured. Page 1 of Ginny's EAC guide shows you how to do this. Next copy the disc with clicks and gaps to an image. Page 2 shows you how to do this. Stop when you get to the picture of Ginny taking a nap. Be sure to remember where you saved the image file and what you called it.

Now, we're going to use the built in Wave Editor in EAC. While its not the most powerful wave editor, it has the distinct advantage of being free.

From the Tools Menu in EAC, select Process WAV...

A diaglog box will open up asking you for the WAV file. Open the WAV that you saved when you created a disc image, and click [OK]

You will see a box that says, "Analysing WAV" and a progress indicator. EAC is loading the WAV file and drawing a graphical image of the WAV. This may take some time depending on the speed of your computer, speed of your hard disk, and size of the CD you are fixing. While you are waiting, Ginny recommends giving your cat a treat!

Once the process is complete, besides having a happy cat, you should see an image of your WAV file like the one below:

 

Notice the time display directly beneath the image of the WAV file. That is the time, as it appears on the CD you ripped. For this example, I am going to fix a small click on the 8/22/2001 Lewiston, NY Yes show. This click appears between "Long Distance Runaround" and "Don't Go." You can move the Sound Processing window down a bit on your screen, and you should still see the regular Exact Audio Copy window.

Notice in the track layout area, where it says "Start". This is the start time on the disc for each track. Since the click we are looking for is at the start of "Don't Go," we need its start time. As you can see, the start time for track 04 is at 0:27:56.12. Also, take note of the start times for each track, maybe jot them down on a piece of paper. We are going to need them later on.

"I can just smell those track start times!"

Now move back to the "Sound Processing" window. Ginny recommends you maximize the window, so it takes up the whole screen. You can do that by clicking the square  at the top right hand corner of the window. Don't click the X, though, as that will close the editor and you'll have to re-open the file, and re-feed your cat. (Ginny recommends, re-opening the file over and over again, until the cat treats are gone).

Click your mouse anywhere on the WAV display, you will notice the time index pops appears under the WAV display where it says "Selection startpos:" If you click in a different place on the wave, the "Selection startpos" will change. Since, Don't Go begins at 0:27:56.12, click on the WAV so that the "Selection startpos" is near 0:27:40 or so. You don't need to be exact

Now use your mouse to highlight a section of the WAV starting around 0:27:40.00 and ending somewhere shortly after 0:27:56.12. You can draging your mouse across the WAV display, the same way you might highlight text using a word processor.

Notice the small area of the WAV highlighted here in black. Click the [Zoom Range] button beneath the WAV display, and you will zoom in right on this area.

Now you can use the mouse the select an area even closer to the click position, by repeating the process above. Here, I've zoomed in abut further:

Notice the buttons above the WAV file display, that look like VCR controls. We will be using the play and stop buttons. Click on the WAV somewhere at the beginning of the display shown here. Hit the Play button. The WAV file will scroll by while part of the WAV file is being played back. You will here the click. Click Stop after you hear it. You may have to use the scroll bar, above the WAV file display to get back to the position you were at.

You will be able to see exactly where the click is. In this case, since you are probably not using the same disc as I am, I have pointed it out below:

There are two methods that can be used to remove this click. EAC has a built in "Glitch Removal" function that can automatically get rid of clicks. This works better with larger clicks than the one we have here. Then there is a manual method, that I have described below. The manual method must be used for deleting gaps between tracks.

"I'm using the manual method of figuring out if this disc is any good....I'm going to lick it!"

Highlight, just the click. Its okay if you highlight a small part before and after the click. Remember, we are talking about milliseconds here and you will never hear the difference.

Then chose "Delete selection" from the Edit Menu:

You will see a "Processing WAV" message box with a status indicator.

This is another lengthy process, so its time to give the cats some more treats!

"I like it when Matt works on CD's!"

Once complete, you will see that the click is gone. You can play back the area just to be sure.

Oliver's shortcut: Use EAC's glitch removal. As I mentioned aboved, EAC has a built in glitch removal that can be used on clicks. Highlight the area surrounding the click as shown above, but instead of selecting "Delete selection" from the Edit Menu, select "Remove Glitches" from the "Process Selection" menu:

This box will display:

This slider controls the sensitivity of glitch detection, which means that if it is set too low, it is more likely a glitch won't be detected, and if it is set too high, you could remove parts of the show that aren't actually clicks or pops, but sounds that are supposed to be there. You will have to play around with this, as this setting will differ from CD to CD depending on the type of click. In this example, the glitch was not loud enough to be detected no matter how the slider was set, so I would have to use the manual method, wich I prefer anyway.

Now select, Save from the File Menu. While you are waiting for the file to save, Ginny suggests that it is a good time to scratch your kitty behind the ears.

"Food and scratches....all I need is a Fuji and my life will be purr-fect!"

Repeat this process for every click on the disc. You can also do this for a gap between tracks as well. A gap will appear as a blank dispay, and look something like this:

If you are removing a gap, its okay to take a very little bit of music from the beginning and end of the gap. We are talking portions of a millisecond here, so you will not be able to notice its gone. It's better than taking not enough and leaving some of the gap there. Sensitive ears will hear even the smallest of gaps.

We're not done yet. Remember from the EAC guide, that when you create a disc image with EAC, you get a big WAV file and a CUE file that indicates the track positions. Since we have changed the length of the WAV file by removing the click, we need to create a new CUE file.

"I don't see any clicks on the disc"

Click the [Zoom Out] button a few times, so that you see more of the WAV again. Remember earlier, when I had you take note of the start times for each track? Well, now is when we need them. again. You will note that Track 2 (in this case "Close To The Edge"), starts at 0:02:17.25. Position your cursor at 0:02:17.25, or as close as you can get to that point. You the [Zoom In] and [Zoom Out] buttons, along with the scroll bar above the WAV display to navigate through the WAV file.

If you look at the diagram below, you will see the cursor positioned close to 0:02:17.25 at 0:02:17.3174. First, select "CD sector adjustment" form the "Edit Menu" and EAC will automatically move your cursor to the closest sector boundary (this will prevent clicks appearing on your disc because the tracks aren't sector aligned), you will see the Selection startpos change slightly. Then, from the CUE sheet menu, select the Insert sub menu, then select Track Start.

 

While it seems like nothing happened, you can select "Display CUE Sheet" from the "CUE sheet" menu, and see the new track start you created:

You will note that the time has been changed for Track 2 from 02:17.3174 where you initially put your mouse to 02:17.23. This is because EAC automatically repositioned you to the nearest sector boundary when you selected the "CD Sector Adjustment" option.

Repeat this process for every track on the disc (you have the list of track times written down).

Oliver's shortcut: Oliver likes to cheat....since we only removed a few milliseconds, Oliver recommends just creating nine track markers anywhere in the WAV file. You can then select "Display CUE Sheet" from the "CUE sheet" menu. You can click on each Track you created and click the [Edit Time] button. From there you can type in the track time that you want, in this case change each track start time to correspond to the times on the piece of paper. You will have to start at the last track and work your way up, or else you may get an "overlapping track" error message. Also note, from the images below, that you will have to type 74:55.36 for the time position for Track 9, instead of the 1:14:55.36 that you wrote down.

"My stupid brother Oliver is always trying to find shortcuts!"

Either method you chose, when you are done, your CUE sheet layout should look like this:

Schleery would like to point out, that since we only removed a few milliseconds of audio, that you could get away with using your existing CUE sheet that was created when you created your image. In this instance, it would probably work, since what we removed was very small, but if you were removing two second gaps between tracks, each track start past Track 2 would be 2 seconds off, and by the time we got to Track 9, it would be 18 seconds off. You wouldn't want a track that starts 18 seconds too early.

Now, you must save your CUE sheet, Select "Save CUE Sheet" from the CUE sheet menu, and give it a new name. In this case,  I called it "fixed.cue".

Now all you need to do is burn the disc you just fixed. Follow the same steps as they appear on Page 2 of Ginny's EAC guide (scroll down to the picture of Ginny sleeping). Just substitue your new .CUE file for the one you just saved when you get to the "Load CUE sheet" step,  in this case "fixed.cue".

Now enjoy your disc, and be sure to give your old disc to your cat to lick!

"Wow! I hit the motherload! Matt must have really been busy!"

Check out Ginny's other guides:
Ginny's EAC Guide
Ginny's SHN Guide

Check out The Menagerie, to see more of Ginny, Oliver and the rest of the pets.

Checkout the Kitty Lickin' Discs page for artwork for most of Matt's remasters.

Checkout Matt's Yesshows trading page