itunes making gaps between songs when burning mp3s - help!

Started by japanesebaby, October 11, 2005, 16:06:21

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japanesebaby

(this is a bit long, but please read if you think you have some ideas for this! thanks)

i have been trying to find a solution to the annoying problem of getting  gaps/pops/scratch sounds between tracks every time that i burn a downloaded show (originally on mp3, flac, whatever) on cd-r with itunes (i use ibook G4).
now i have been under the impression that using itunes is the reason for this problem & i should just change software, but now i've tried some other software (like discblaze etc.) with exactly the same outcome - gaps/pops occur for sure.
so recently i was told that these slight gaps occur because the track marks haven't been placed exactly in the so called 'zero crossing' point - so the change of cd-burning software is not a solution. is this really so?
(because i have noticed that when i copy a commercial live show cd with itunes, i get no gaps there - so this explanation is starting to sound quite believable to me)

but i have also been suggested that getting some commercial software (like roxio's toast) would solve the problem - but i'm not willing to pay for a pretty expensive software like that if i have no proof that the outcome will be any different

does anyone have any experience to share? i'd really love to know if i'm the only one with this problem. i have asked this from a couple of mac forums but it looks like there's not a lot of people who spend their time with downloading live shows around there...

i would love to be able to burn cd copies of live shows that would be just ordinary audio cds & would work with every cd player, even older ones, but it looks like this isn't possible...(?)
Ay, in the very temple of Delight
Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine

splitmilk34

In iTunes - click on Edit, then select Preferences.  Once the window comes up, click the Advanced tab and select the Burning option.  You can set the "Gap between Songs" (make it 0 seconds).  This will get rid of the gaps/pops so that you can burn a cohesive CD.

-- Chris
"... sleeping less every night"

japanesebaby

...to say that all this happens even thought i have already set the gap between songs to '0' like you suggested - i still get a slight pop/gap everytime (yes, everytime).

i've actually read that this is actually a commonly known flaw in itunes - look into here for instance

http://playlistmag.com/weblogs/todayatplaylist/2005/04/jointracksyou/index.php

so, i have just been wondering why nobody says anything about it = am i strangely the only one here with this problem anyway? pc users don't get bothered by this?
Ay, in the very temple of Delight
Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine

Matti

Is this really a problem only ocurring with iTunes stuff? I don't think so really. In fact, these gaps are the reason why I've got very picky about mp3 downloads, at least when it comes to live shows - the microgaps are always there, and so I spend hours in front of my PC and removing them manually. Programs like foobar offer a gap killer function, but even this doesn't seem to work. Afaik the only way of getting rid of the problem is converting the songs to *.wav and then editing each file in an audio software like Soundforge or Wavelab. And I can tell you, this way of getting a decent CD bootleg of a Dream Tour show with 25+ songs is not the most pleasant thing to do on a Friday night...
and we close our eyes to sleep
to dream a boy and girl
who dream the world is nothing but a dream

japanesebaby

thanks - this is probably the only answer that i was hoping to get anyway. at least i can be now sure that i'm not only just "hearing things"....
i've just been wondering why no-one really ever mentions this problem at all - but hey if it really comes "as part of the package" then why mention it, i can understand that.
that editing business: yes i've thought about it too but really, i'll start doing that the moment someone starts paying me salary for it, i can tell you ;)
anyway, thanks again

(now this has nothing to do with the subject here but i have to ask since i'm just curious: Matti is a VERY Finnish name... is there a connection or is it just a coincidence?)
Ay, in the very temple of Delight
Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine

Matti

That's something I've been wondering about as well. No-one seems to give a lot about the obvious flaws of mp3 or other lossy formats. After all, mp3 is free (more or less), it's convenient, it saves disk space...

Other than that, no, I'm not finnish. It's funny because when I used to hang around the alt.music.thecure newsgroup (before I set my browser not to accept cookies anymore - and before I forgot my login data...) I was asked this several times. Matti is just a short form for my real name that some friends of mine started to call me by some time ago, and it's just stuck with me.
and we close our eyes to sleep
to dream a boy and girl
who dream the world is nothing but a dream

klara

i've just been wondering why no-one really ever mentions this problem>>> you take a risk of being accused for trying to cheat traders, prsesenting your mp3 sourced collection of shows as a low generation cd audios.
i must add those gaps really bother me while driving.

japanesebaby

just today i found a source which says that the reason for this with itunes is that it uses TAO (track at once), not DAO (disc at once), and that at least roxio's toast should burn the discs without gaps (with DAO).
does anyone know whether this is really true? or does these gaps appear with toast too?

(& once again, might be different(?) with pc and i use mac, so please mention which one you have in case you have some info)
Ay, in the very temple of Delight
Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine

klara

roxio makes gaps too, 2sec tao, 0,1 sec dao. i use pc.

lostflower4

Quote from: klarai've just been wondering why no-one really ever mentions this problem>>> you take a risk of being accused for trying to cheat traders, prsesenting your mp3 sourced collection of shows as a low generation cd audios.
i must add those gaps really bother me while driving.

I don't know why whoever designed mp3 compressors decided it would be a good idea to have it add a microgap. Sure it sucks to have that momentary break while you're listening to a CD, but there are much worse things that drive me out of my mind now (speed problems, bad EQ, hiss, etc., etc.).

As mentioned, many people do cut out the silence gaps and trade them as lossless CD's. This happens way too much. I can't count how many shows I've received like this.

If you really want gapless stuff, true lossless is the way to go. FLAC files are pretty easy to come by with all the various torrent sites around now. And you can get stuff through trading pretty easily. It's really just a matter of how hard you want to work at it.

As for your iTunes problem, it doesn't surprise me. I despise iTunes. It totally messed up my computer when I downloaded it for the "exclusive" AOL sessions last year. I managed to get the songs, but it really screwed up my Windows settings. I quite dislike Apple, to say the least. I'm never putting that program on my computer again! :twisted:

japanesebaby

Quote from: lostflower4If you really want gapless stuff, true lossless is the way to go. It's really just a matter of how hard you want to work at it.

As for your iTunes problem, it doesn't surprise me. I despise iTunes. It totally messed up my computer when I downloaded it for the "exclusive" AOL sessions last year. I managed to get the songs, but it really screwed up my Windows settings. I quite dislike Apple, to say the least. I'm never putting that program on my computer again! :twisted:

well i am starting to feel that maybe i owe an explanation/even an apology here...
my original intention was not to complaint about the mp3 quality - i am completely aware of the "filthy ways" that some people use to disguise their shows are fool others and it sucks.  

what i originally wanted to discuss here was really connected to itunes. i myself do not dislilke apple (but i have to say that i have no experience how its software works with windows - might be bad there like you said). i use both pc&mac on a daily basis and i have to say that the latter one just has been so much more reliable on almost every occasion than the first one, that's why i prefer it. BUT: this is just my experience & i certainly do not want to start any pc vs. mac debates so let's leave it.

anyway, my point was just to wonder why the mp3 files are completely gapless & perfect when one listens them on itunes (before they are burned), but then turn into a "gap track" afterwards - it's weird and annoyingly misleading that the outcome on cd is different to what you were expecting. and in any case it would really be about time that apple provided something better than itunes, it's really a dinosaur.  

i highly agree that there are much more important issues than this, and it could all be much worse. and for instance, some time ago i was persuaded to get a new mp3/divX etc. qualified dvd-player because somone assured me that it would solve this matter = stupid me: it is even worse with live shows on mp3s since it makes 4 second (!) gaps between mp3 tracks, so these micro-gaps won't kill me...  :wink:

(thanks for everyone who bothered to kill their time with this topic)
Ay, in the very temple of Delight
Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine

lostflower4

Are you sure what you're playing back on iTunes is mp3? I don't know if you're talking about files you've downloaded from there, or if you're using it for a general media player.

I know that iTunes downloads are in .m4p format, and I believe you can later convert them to .mp3 through the program. But I can assure you that all mp3's contain a microgap of silence at the end.

There are gapless plugins for Winamp that will attempt to make the transitions between songs seemless, but I don't like the way they work, and I find them glitchy. Maybe iTunes like this has something built-in. I really don't know... :?

japanesebaby

thanks for a reply once again, caley!
i am talking about itunes as a general media player.
i've just noticed that although one accepts the microgaps as part of a game with mp3s (which they certainly are like you said), there is still some things that puzzle me a bit. for instance, i've found quite a lot a variance in them - i mean with some files they are much more noticeable, with some others you hardly notice anything at all
so it just started to interest me to find out the reason for this (and i have to confess that since this sort of technical matters are usually not my area at all, so i didn't know where to look really...). the only possible explanation that i've been given so far was the so called 'zero crossing point' explanation (see one of my earlier posts in this thread). at least this seems believable, because it would explain this variance in the microgaps: if the file was cut & the track mark is placed exactly in the right spot, there shouldn't be a gap & vice versa.  
i am not really trying to search for a way to make my mp3 shows gapless at any cost or something futile like that, but i'd simply be interested to know whether this explanation is the correct one or not & i'd be happy if any of you "technical wizards" had any comments about that because like i said  i am a total beginner here.   :wink:

(about the plugins: so far the only thing i know for itunes is 'itunes join' which i was told can remove the microgaps. but it also removes the trackmarks (so it is pretty unpractical for live shows) - and i also noticed that it actually didn't remove the gaps at all, only removed the track mark... maybe it works if one tries to join two non-mp3 tracks, but i don't know, i didn't try that.)
Ay, in the very temple of Delight
Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine

lostflower4

I'm more confused than ever now. I don't know anything about "zero crossing points".

I think one time I heard that mp3 adds one frame of silence at the end of each track. I just did a calcualation, and a frame in mp3 is approximately 0.026 seconds. Now you said, that it seems to vary from song to song, so I don't know. I've never noticed much of a variance from song to song.

I just ran some tests. I see that some mp3's have silence at the beginning, some at the end, and some on both ends. And 0.026 is definitely not the universal figure. You were right.

If iTunes plays seemlessly, it obviously has something in the software that is creating the illusion of no gaps. But the gaps are surely there. Now if you are talking about a native format such as m4p, etc., it's possible they don't have gaps.

I've never really been one of the anti-mp3 people, but it's starting to piss me off now. :lol:

Maybe mp3 really does suck after all? :?

lostflower4

Update: When they invent a hard drive that holds at least 2 terrabytes and doesn't sound like a lawnmower or run at the temperature of the sun, I'll gladly say f*ck it to mp3 for good! :twisted:

It's bound to happen... Someday.