iTunes - short break between songs

[satans_banjo]

when i listen to an album where tracks lead into each other, it gets quite annoying when there is a short break as one track loads after the other that i don't get on other programs. for example, when i play 'dark side of the moon' and the opening track 'speak to me' finishes it's supposed to seamlessly go into 'breathe in the air' without any delay. however itunes has a tiny break between these two songs which kind of ruins it. same with on OK computer where 'airbag' has those 4 short tones leading into 'paranoid android' - itunes makes it go out of time

is there any way to fix this annoying little thing?

 

[Kernow]

The sort answer is no - people have been on at Apple for years about this and it has not been fixed yet.

The long answer is also no.

 

[Mitthrawnuruodo]

...and the even more painful answer is that it's even worse on the iPods which where you cannot enable a short cross fading and iPods also ignors whatever start and stoptimes you've set in iTunes... (which BTW are the two best workarounds to emulate gapless playback when on a computer, one fast to enable but not really good (for that purpose), the other painstakinly slow because you have to finetune every single track individually ).

 

[NicP]

Turning on cross-fade and setting the time to 0 might work for you. There will actually be a short overlap of the 2 tracks which sounds awful with dj mixed music, but for live concerts it might work ok.

Another way is to import cds using the method described here: http://gapless.itunes.wanderingfocus.com/

Its a lot of work for something that should really be a standard feature on itunes/ipod, please use the link to apple feedback in my signature to complain to apple about it

 

[johnnyjibbs]

I heard that the problem was something to do with the AAC (and MP3) file format in that it has to be a fixed length and so a short gap has to be added to the end of each file to "make it up" to the next round number in terms of samples, or something.

If that's the case then it can never be properly fixed, although I'm sure that some ingenious programming could solve this. Still, it's something that I've wanted fixed for a long time, as the problem is especially noticeable on iPods, as has been mentioned.

 

[NicP]

I heard that the problem was something to do with the AAC (and MP3) file format in that it has to be a fixed length and so a short gap has to be added to the end of each file to "make it up" to the next round number in terms of samples, or something.

If that's the case then it can never be properly fixed, although I'm sure that some ingenious programming could solve this. Still, it's something that I've wanted fixed for a long time, as the problem is especially noticeable on iPods, as has been mentioned.

mp3 has that problem, aac does not, neither does apple lossless.

its also very easy to fix on mp3, new versions of lame add a little bit of info that tells the decoder where the song actually ends so it can skip the section of the last frame that is empty. You can also use software to check how much of the last frame is silence and then remove the silence.

 

[dubbz]

its also very easy to fix on mp3, new versions of lame add a little bit of info that tells the decoder where the song actually ends so it can skip the section of the last frame that is empty. You can also use software to check how much of the last frame is silence and then remove the silence.

Yup.. there's players for Windows that can play LAME encoded MP3s gapless.

There's also MP3 players that can do it too (amongst them one of the Rio players, that I don't remember the name of right now).

 

[oldMac]

"Join CD Tracks" when ripping from CD

when i listen to an album where tracks lead into each other, it gets quite annoying when there is a short break as one track loads
is there any way to fix this annoying little thing?

If you're ripping from a CD, just re-rip using the "Join CD Tracks" feature in the "advanced" menu in iTunes. This joins the CD tracks together so that they rip as a single MP3. It's a little clunky, but at least it removes those annoying "skips" from albums like Chicago II and Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon.

 

[Kernow]

If you're ripping from a CD, just re-rip using the "Join CD Tracks" feature in the "advanced" menu in iTunes. This joins the CD tracks together so that they rip as a single MP3. It's a little clunky, but at least it removes those annoying "skips" from albums like Chicago II and Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon.

I have no idea if this would work, but if you try what oldMac says above, and then use Chapter Tool, as balamw suggests here, to mark the track changes in the album, then it looks like it could acheive what you want.

I guess it would be a bit of work, but if the gaps really bother you, then give it a go & let us know if it works.

 

[NicP]

I have no idea if this would work, but if you try what oldMac says above, and then use Chapter Tool, as balamw suggests here, to mark the track changes in the album, then it looks like it could acheive what you want.

I guess it would be a bit of work, but if the gaps really bother you, then give it a go & let us know if it works.

This is exactly the method used here http://gapless.itunes.wanderingfocus.com/