Lead-in time for tracks

[BJG145]

Quick question...what's a sensible lead-in time for tracks being submitted for digital release (CD Baby, Bandcamp, Spotify etc)...?

[RichardT]

I usually have a lead in time of about 0.25 seconds.

[BJG145]

...thanks, when I looked this up the other day I was finding 2 seconds which seemed excessive. Checking it again it sounds like this was recommended for CD, but unless you're releasing on CD I guess it can be shorter...?

[resistorman]

...thanks, when I looked this up the other day I was finding 2 seconds which seemed excessive. Checking it again it sounds like this was recommended for CD, but unless you're releasing on CD I guess it can be shorter...?

2 seconds was kind of a default time between CD tracks. A 1/4 second or so is fine.

[RichardT]

...thanks, when I looked this up the other day I was finding 2 seconds which seemed excessive. Checking it again it sounds like this was recommended for CD, but unless you're releasing on CD I guess it can be shorter...?

Yes, for streaming, shorter is better. Listeners expect the track to start just about straight away.

[James Perrett]

A 2 second or longer lead-in is compulsory for the first track on a CD although the CD player skips that lead-in and goes straight to the index 1 on the first track.

I'd normally leave at least 0.1 seconds before the audio starts to give any player time to unmute before the start of the wanted audio.

[BJG145]

OK! Thanks...

[sonics]

I've experienced quite a number of digital audio playback systems that fail to play the first 100-300mS of audio, from CD and DVD players decades ago to modern apps. Sometimes it's faulty programming and is fixed in an update; sometimes it's a hardware issue that will never change.

Whether you'd want to include a gap to take that into account would be up to you. I think no gap (very common) is foolish.

[Wonks]

Unless it's for a CD, I normally leave 1 second of silence as a lead-in. I find if I'm using something like Soundcloud, that allows me to drag back to the start of the track and play almost instantaneously, whilst if I leave anything much shorter and drag back, the track always starts just after the beginning. Which sort of ties-in with Sonic's experience.

[RichardT]

Unless it's for a CD, I normally leave 1 second of silence as a lead-in. I find if I'm using something like Soundcloud, that allows me to drag back to the start of the track and play almost instantaneously, whilst if I leave anything much shorter and drag back, the track always starts just after the beginning. Which sort of ties-in with Sonic's experience.

Soundcloud definitely needs a lead-in, it’s quite a bad offender.

[Martin Walker]

I too standardise on a 1-second lead-in, by cropping the track start visually to the very start of its waveform, and then physically adding 1 second of silence (as others have mentioned, shorter lead-ins can occasionally result in the first note getting cut off in some applications).

I never use anything longer than 1 second, and it really annoys me when others do so, as after a few seconds have passed and you still can't hear anything, you're bound to suspect faulty playback.

I then adjust the spacing between tracks using the end of each track as required, adding extra silence if necessary.

[resistorman]

Unless it's for a CD, I normally leave 1 second of silence as a lead-in. I find if I'm using something like Soundcloud, that allows me to drag back to the start of the track and play almost instantaneously, whilst if I leave anything much shorter and drag back, the track always starts just after the beginning. Which sort of ties-in with Sonic's experience.

Interesting. I'll have to take that into consideration.