Cue points mark and describe specific positions within sounds. They have numerous uses. When recording speech, for example, you can use them to hold information about the speaker or a translation of what the speaker said. For music, you can store lyrics for each verse. If you design instrument samples, cue points can hold looping points. Some multimedia applications use them to play or loop specific sections of a sound. When transferring albums to CDs, cue points can mark track division points, which can be used later to divide a large file into individual songs or tracks.
Cue points are shown as inverted triangles in the cue points slot of a Sound window, just above the time axis. If two cue points overlap, the colour of the cue point border will be red.
Cue points are saved only in certain files types.
Cue point are adjusted automatically when a file is edited, but not when effects are applied. Any effects that alters the length of the selection, such as Time or Silence Reduction, will cause the cue points within the selection to be misplaced.
There are several ways to create a new cue point:
To edit an existing cue point, you can:
To delete a cue point, you can:
The Delete All button removes all cue points in the file. Use this button before using the Auto Cue button if you want to remove all existing cue points before automatically generating new ones.
The Cull button removes all cue points with the same position. Only the first cue point is retained and all other cue points with the same sample position are removed.
Additional menu commands are provided to move cue points to the start or finish marker's position or vice versa. Right-click on a cue point in the list to display the menu.
Click on a column header to sort cue points by number, position, or name.
Select a cue and use the F4 key start playback at that cue. Press F8 to stop playback.
Copy All Button
Use this button to copy all the cue point information into the clipboard. You
can paste this into a text editor, such as the Notepad accessory.
Split File Button
Use the Split File feature to divide a large file onto smaller files
using the cue points as split positions. This button displays the
Split File Window.
Auto Cue Button
Use Auto Cue to create cue points automatically based on fixed
intervals or detected silences. This button displays the
Auto Cue Window.
Use Auto Cue to generate cue points automatically at fixed intervals or at silences detected within the audio. Existing cue points are not changed or removed. Use the Delete All button on the Cue Points window first if you do not want to use any of the existing cue points.
The Split File feature can be used later to split a file into separate pieces based on these cue points.
Mark Silence Button
Displays setting for generating cue points at silences, such as marking gaps
between songs. A single cue point is added at each detected silence.
| Mark Silence Settings | |
|---|---|
| Setting | Description |
| Threshold (dB) | Sets the upper volume level for the silence. In most cases, like vinyl recordings, the value should be -40dB or higher so that any background hiss, pops, or clicks are considered silence. Otherwise no silence would be marked at all. If you find that no cue points appear, try increasing this value to -30dB or higher. If you find that too many points appear, delete them, then decrease this value or change the values below. Using the Pop/Click and Noise Reduction filters effect first may improve silence detection. |
| Silence length (s) | Specifies how much silence is required before it is marked. Some songs contain brief silences that you usually do not want marked. This value helps to avoid marking any brief pauses within a song. Try values between 1.0 to 1.5 seconds to ignore these brief silences and mark only the longer silences between songs. |
| Minimum separation between cues (s) | Sets the minimum amount of time between one cue point and the next. If all the songs are longer than 2 minutes, for example, then set this value to 2:00 to ensure no silences within a song are marked. All cue points will be at least two minutes apart. Use the Calculate button to calculcate the separation based on a given number of cue points. |
| Cue placement within area (%) | Specifies where to place the cue point within the detected silent area. A value of 0 means at the beginning of the silence, a value of 100 means at the end of the silence. The default value of 50 places the cue point in the center of the silence area. |
Spacing Button
Displays setting for generating cue points at fixed intervals, such as
having cue points every 5 minutes. Cue points are added at the specified
interval, starting at the given time.
| Spacing Settings | |
|---|---|
| Setting | Description |
| Start time (s) | Sets the time to begin marking the file. If you enter 1:00, then the first cue point is inserted at time 00:01:00 in the file. Normally this value would be zero. |
| Interval (s) | Specifies the time interval to use between each cue point. A value of 5:00 would set cue points at five minute intervals (00:05:00, 00:10:00, 00:15:00, etc.). Use the Calculate button to calculcate the interval based on a given number of cue points. |
Duplicates
This setting determines how duplicates are handled. A duplicate cue point is one that is close to an existing cue point. Only
the position of the cue point is considered. Cue points with the same name, but different positions are not considered duplicates.
If "Allow duplicates" is selected, then new cue points will be created on top of existing ones. If "No exact duplicates" is selected,
then new cue points having the exact time as existing cue points are not added. If one of the other options is selected,
then new cue points close to existing cue points are not added.
Cue Naming
These settings control how names are assigned to the new cue points as they
are generated.
| Cue Naming Settings | |
|---|---|
| Setting | Description |
| Time based | Names cue points based on its time position within the file. A cue point added at two minutes into the file, for example, will have the name 2:00.00000. |
| Numbered | Names cue points based on three digit sequential numbers. The names will be 001, 002, 003, etc. The starting number depends on the number of cue points already in the file. |
| Lettered | Names each cue point alphabetically, with three letters, such as AAA, AAB, AAC, etc. The starting name depends on the number of cue points already in the file. |
Import/Export Buttons
Use the Import button to read cue points from
a CD cue file. Use the
Export button to save all cue points to a CD cue file.
The default name of the cue file depends on the name of the current Sound
file. For example, if the file you are working on is
"music.wav", then the cue file is "music.cue" by default. See
Options | Storage for a setting
to use cue files automatically.
Use this window to set or change the attributes of a cue point described below.
Use the playback buttons or the keys F4, F5, F7, and F8 to play, rewind, pause, or stop playback respectively.
| Edit Cue Settings | |
|---|---|
| Setting | Description |
| Name | The tip text that appears when the mouse is over the cue point in the cue points slot of a Sound window. A name is required, so it cannot be left blank. The name may be used for as filename in the Split File feature. If the name is set to "]X[" or includes the text "[-Exclude-]", that cue point and section of the file is skipped when splitting. |
| Position (s) | Sets the time placement for cue point within the file. The position can be set relative to one of the listed locations. Use the - and + toggle to set the relative time before or after the selected location. For example, if "Playback marker" is selected with - and a time of "12.3", then the cue point is placed 12.3 seconds before the Playback marker. |
| Description | Any text. This may be left blank. |
Use Split File to divide a large file onto smaller files using the cue points as split positions. For example, after recording one side of an album or tape, set a cue point at the start of each song, then use Split File to automatically create separate files for each song. Each file can then be written to a CD-R disc as a separate audio track using separate CD Recording software.
Use the Auto Cue to automatically set cue points at silences between songs.
If a cue name contains the text "[-Exclude-]" or is set to "]X[", that cue point and section of the file is excluded from the split files.
Any information entered in File | Information is stored in each split file, if possible.
| Destination Folder Settings | |||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Setting | Description | ||||||||||||||||
| Use this folder | Specifies a destination folder where all the split files will be stored. | ||||||||||||||||
| Use file's current folder | Uses the original file's folder as the destination folder for all the split files. | ||||||||||||||||
| Overwrite existing files |
If checked, then files with the same name that already
exist in the destination folder are replaced (overwritten). If not checked, then splitting is aborted if a file with the same name is found. |
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Split Filename Settings |
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| Setting | Description | ||||||||||||||||
| Filename template |
Controls how filenames are generated for the files.
The template may contain any combination of text, number symbols #, or tokens listed below.
The drop down template list contains some commonly used presets.
# is replaced with the sequential split file
number. Entering "Track##",
for example, names the files named Track01, Track02, Track03, etc.
# can be placed anywhere
in the template, so names like "#### - CD1" or "#Track##" would be
valid. The least significant digit is placed in the right-most
# slot, so
the first names would be "0001 - CD1" and "0Track01". Tokens are replaced with
information from the
original file, which has to be set before splitting the file.
Any characters or symbols that are invalid for filenames (such as :, ?, *, etc.) are replaced with spaces.
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| First number | Sets the first number to use when creating the names with # as part of the template. It may also be used to set a track number in the tag/metadata. | ||||||||||||||||
| Information Settings | |||||||||||||||||
| Setting | Description | ||||||||||||||||
| Discard cue point | If checked, then split files will not contain the cue point located at the beginning of each split. If this is not checked, then the cue point's name and description are stored in each file. If you've entered a description for each cue point and want it stored in each split file, make sure this option is not checked. | ||||||||||||||||
| Replace track number | If checked, the track number information stored in split files is replaced with the sequential split number starting at First number. Otherwise the track number of the original file is stored. | ||||||||||||||||
| Title | The title information for each split file will contain the selected item. | ||||||||||||||||
| File Format Settings | |||||||||||||||||
| Setting | Description | ||||||||||||||||
| Use CD compatible wave format and alignment |
Ensures that each file is stored in a CD compatible Wave format and that the
length of each file is exactly aligned to a CD sector boundary, eliminating
gaps between files/tracks. For accurate, glitch free alignment, you must
resample
the file to 44100Hz before splitting. This helps you create seamless tracks on a
CD, provided you configure your CD-R software to not write silence between
tracks.
Note that if the end of the last track file does not contain enough audio to perfectly fill a CD sector, a tiny section of audio (usually silence) may be discarded for alignment. If the file does not end in silence you can use the Edit | Insert Silence command to add 0.0133 seconds of silence to pad the end of the file before splitting. | ||||||||||||||||
| Use default save format and attributes | Uses the format given under the Default Save Format tab of the Options | File Formats window to create the files. No alignment is applied. Choose the Set button to change the format. | ||||||||||||||||
| Use file's current format and attributes | Uses the format and attributes of the file being split, as shown in GoldWave's status bar, to create the files. No alignment is applied. | ||||||||||||||||