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Topic: PC as CD-Player replacement (gap puzzlement deluxe) (Read 7063 times) previous topic - next topic
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PC as CD-Player replacement (gap puzzlement deluxe)

Hi,

i want to rip my CDs, store them on a server and play them via an audioplayer connected to my amp. So far, so easy. I have so far chosen foobar as my player and flac as my codec, but this can be changed if there is a better choice for what i want.
I want to listen to the music as if it were still CDs and not datafiles, and at first (and second) thought i wanted to rip them with EAC as single tracks, each with metainformation (artist, title, ...) and that's it. Then i read about gaps. And i have no clue what the best option is to not loose any data. If i append gaps to the previous track they are played every time i play the track, right? CD players only play gaps when i continously play the whole CD, so that does not seem 100% correct (right?). What if i copy the whole CD image and create a cue sheet? Would e.g. foobar be able to "simulate" a CD player perfectly now? Would the gaps be played correctly and would i not loose any data?
I did not yet start to rip my whole cd collection, and from the bottom of my heart i do not want to do it twice. I know myself, if i miss out on some option now it will torture me all day long and in the end i will rip everything again  The solution can focus solely on ripping original CDs and playing them with foobar (or any other suitable player), i don't care for portable audio or downloaded mp3 enough to make a compromise with the task of digitilizing my CDs.

Right now as i am pondering about gaps i am trying to understand all options REACT has to offer, but questions regarding that will start another thread  Nonetheless, if there is a config for REACT and/or EAC that is suitable for my problem i will glady take it.

I read several FAQs about eac, gaps and the whole procedure, but i am still not sure what is the best way to do. If i missed out on some guide i apologize for creating another thread about it (and like to know where i find my answers).


Thanks in advance and regards,

eimer

PC as CD-Player replacement (gap puzzlement deluxe)

Reply #1 –
I believe the problem is the opposite.
Most tracks on a CD have an couple of seconds of silence at the end.
There are however CD having multiple tracks but when played sounds as one (often live recordings).
If the mediaplayer don't support gapless playback you will hear a gap there where there shouldn't be one.

TheWellTemperedComputer.com

PC as CD-Player replacement (gap puzzlement deluxe)

Reply #2 –
Well i will use foobar, which should support just about anything. And if not: the player is changed easily, but i don't want to rip again. My question aims therefore more on the ripping part: should i do single tracks w/o cue, image w/o cue, something else, or, in other words: what settings do i need? I believe that i find a player on this world that can play it correctly once i ripped it, but i have to rip it correctly (=not loose any data).

Moderation: Removed useless quote of previous post.

PC as CD-Player replacement (gap puzzlement deluxe)

Reply #3 –
If data loss is the issue, rip to a lossless format using EAC or dbPoweramp or any other ripper using Accuraterip. Accuraterip allows you to compare your results with those of others.
TheWellTemperedComputer.com

PC as CD-Player replacement (gap puzzlement deluxe)

Reply #4 –
Well, you have two choices, really - rip to image with cue, or separate tracks without cue - both will sound gapless when played with foobar2000. Gaps (if there were some) will be automatically ripped into image, or added to the end of the file if ripped to single files, so you will loose nothing. Just don't do nonstandard cue files.
TAPE LOADING ERROR

PC as CD-Player replacement (gap puzzlement deluxe)

Reply #5 –
gapless playback from track-to-track only matters for tracks that there's not supposed to be silence in between (live albums and Pink Floyd albums are the most commonly-cited examples).
if you rip to separate songs without a cuesheet (my preferred strategy) your playback will only be gapless if the combination of your player and your format can support gapless playback. iTunes scans mp3 and aac files to determine gapless playback information. foobar2000 will read gapless header info written by LAME mp3 encoder.

I think that ripping to separate tracks are preferable because you can still listen to the album contiguously, but you can also pull out single songs if you ever want to.
God kills a kitten every time you encode with CBR 320

PC as CD-Player replacement (gap puzzlement deluxe)

Reply #6 –
Quote from: hlloyge on
Well, you have two choices, really - rip to image with cue, or separate tracks without cue - both will sound gapless when played with foobar2000. Gaps (if there were some) will be automatically ripped into image, or added to the end of the file if ripped to single files, so you will loose nothing. Just don't do nonstandard cue files.


If i do tracks the gaps are appended and played every time i play the track, right? If there a no gaps (live recording) the tracks are played gapless and if there are any (silence or fading out) they are played? What if a track has some sort of fading in - it would be added to the previous track and would be played if i just play one track, right? A "normal" CD player only plays the gaps if the tracks are played one after another, not if i only select a single track (afaik).

Is there a reason to use a cue with seperate tracks? Can i configure EAC in a way it produces nonstandard cues? I mean is there a way i could misconfigure it?

PC as CD-Player replacement (gap puzzlement deluxe)

Reply #7 –
I understand your issue eimer. It's not "gapless" that you're worried about - foobar2k will take care of that - it's the part of CDs where traditional CD players "count down" to the start of the next track that's at issue. Appending the count-down of track N to the end of track N-1 isn't ideal if you only want to listen to track N-1 and then something completely different. Also, it's not good to append the count-down of track N to the start of track N, because it's often silence, and all CD players will skip the count-down of track N if you select "play track N".

I understand the dilemma - I don't have an answer!

(I usually append the count-down to track N-1, unless it's overly long silence, in which case I'll probably dump it. I know, that's different from the original CDs - but some early CDs maintain the very long inter-track gaps of vinyl, and I don't see the point).

btw, I'm not convinced all CD players skip the count-down if you put them in shuffle mode - if they play track N, then you won't hear the count-down to track N at the start, but you will (IIRC) hear the count-down to track N+1 at the end of track N before it jumps and plays something completely different.

Cheers,
David.

PC as CD-Player replacement (gap puzzlement deluxe)

Reply #8 –
Doesn't foobar support cutting silence at start/end of track below a defined treshold (for playback only of course)? At least Winamp's DirectSound Plugin does.

PC as CD-Player replacement (gap puzzlement deluxe)

Reply #9 –
Quote from: onkl on
Doesn't foobar support cutting silence at start/end of track below a defined treshold (for playback only of course)?
Yes there is a DSP function to do this in the standard install package, but it is not need for typical gapless playback the way Winamp's is.
elevatorladylevitateme

PC as CD-Player replacement (gap puzzlement deluxe)

Reply #10 –
Quote
If there a no gaps (live recording) the tracks are played gapless and if there are any (silence or fading out) they are played?
  Just to complicate things...  The bigger problem with live recordings is when the tracks are played individually and the crowd noise/applause suddenly kicks-in and out.

So...  I actually make a 2nd edited copy of each song with the crowd noise faded-in and out.  And, if the crowd noise is too short for a "nice" fade-out, I'll mix-in some more from a different part of the recording.   

A compromise option is to make a single copy with fades all of the tracks, and then use a crossfade plug-in.

PC as CD-Player replacement (gap puzzlement deluxe)

Reply #11 –
Quote from: 2Bdecided on
I understand your issue eimer. It's not "gapless" that you're worried about - foobar2k will take care of that - it's the part of CDs where traditional CD players "count down" to the start of the next track that's at issue. Appending the count-down of track N to the end of track N-1 isn't ideal if you only want to listen to track N-1 and then something completely different. Also, it's not good to append the count-down of track N to the start of track N, because it's often silence, and all CD players will skip the count-down of track N if you select "play track N".

I understand the dilemma - I don't have an answer!


You nailed it, David.

What exactly does the procedure of appending the gap, the count-down, however you name it, do? Does it create an audio file that consists of both parts and hence can not be seperated by any player in the world just because the information is missing? If we assume we add the gap between track N-1 and N to the beginning of N we have a few silence and then the track starts, which is correct if we play N-1 and N in normal order. To solve the problem of having the few seconds silence at the beginning of N if we skip to N and want to play only this track the player has to recognize the gap, connect it with the info that N-1 was not played and skip the gap. Is this correct so far?
Now where is the big deal for a player to play the gap if we play an album in normal order and to skip it if we play a single track? I can't do extensive testing right now, but this should be possible, right? If my thinking is flawed please tell me where  It should not matter if the gap is at the beginning or the end of a track, as the playback order is set and the gap can be identified by a cue sheet.

PC as CD-Player replacement (gap puzzlement deluxe)

Reply #12 –
what I don't get is why you're worried about this to begin with. For live cd's, and other cd's for which it's important to have consistent sound flow between tracks, the cd's are not mastered with gaps of silence (pre-gap, countdown gap, or otherwise) between the tracks, even if they are cd's from the late 1980's.
Are you talking about ripping cd's that someone burned you from their iTunes and automatically added 2-second gaps in between songs?
God kills a kitten every time you encode with CBR 320

PC as CD-Player replacement (gap puzzlement deluxe)

Reply #13 –
You are right, i do not worry about gapless playback. I am worried about CDs that have gaps/countdowns/whatever and that these gaps are not played the way a cd-player handles them. I want the gap to be played when the whole album is played and i want them to be skipped when i only play certain songs. Some gaps are filled with either the fadeout of N-1, some contain fade-in of N, and it sounds strange when they are messed up. It is not a big deal, i don't have alot CDs that fall into a category where it matters, but right now i am starting to rip my whole collection and want to do every tiny bit the way i want.
I don't have download-music, burned CDs or any other content besides normal audio CDs that matter for this task.

Question is: when i have a cue sheet that contains information about the gaps, will foobar (or any other player) be able to simulate a cd-player the way i want it?

Moderation: Removed useless quote of previous post.

PC as CD-Player replacement (gap puzzlement deluxe)

Reply #14 –
Not to confuse you, Eimer, but there's also an option "leave out gaps" 
Default, however, is append gap to previous track. You can skip this silence (IF it's silence, check with F3).

PC as CD-Player replacement (gap puzzlement deluxe)

Reply #15 –
But if i leave them out how can they be played if the whole album is played? My goal is to have the gaps played (if it can be called like that) if the whole album is played and to skip them if a single track is played, just like most standalone cd-players do it.
Maybe i should ask the question in the foobar forum to find out if foobar has some sort of "intelligent gap playback"  Right now i just want to know how to rip, how to make the track information available for a player. Hopefully i have more time next weekend to do some tests

Moderation: Removed useless quote of previous post.

PC as CD-Player replacement (gap puzzlement deluxe)

Reply #16 –
I'm pretty sure you want to rip and use cuesheets.
elevatorladylevitateme

PC as CD-Player replacement (gap puzzlement deluxe)

Reply #17 –
I don't know of any SW or portable players that make proper use of gap information found in cue sheets.

If you're ripping as one file per track and aren't planning on burning them to CD-R, CUE sheets are essentially useless since their information is normally stored as metadata.

PC as CD-Player replacement (gap puzzlement deluxe)

Reply #18 –
I will do some extensive testing this weekend. So far i know that foobar reads the cue to identify the tracks if the cd was ripped as one file (image). I am curious to see the "gap handling" and hope the best!

Moderation: Removed useless quote of previous post.  Please learn that you can reply by hitting either the [FAST REPLY] or [ADD REPLY] button at the bottom of the discussion instead of the [" REPLY] button and that it's sometimes better to do so.  When quoting, it's usually best not to quote the entire post, unless the post is short.

PC as CD-Player replacement (gap puzzlement deluxe)

Reply #19 –
Although I do not want to discourage you from discovering these things yourself, foobar2000 pays no attention to indices that are not 01 except for the one before the first track which it will skip entirely.

<EDIT>
This is assuming you're using single-file images and their corresponding cue sheets.

If you're using a cue sheet with corrected gaps (what is intended to accompany files created created using the nonstandard method of prepending gaps to the current track), I think foobar2000 will skip all 00 indices.  I have not tested this and I probably should.
</EDIT>

PC as CD-Player replacement (gap puzzlement deluxe)

Reply #20 –
Having EAC "append gaps to previous track" seems like the most sensible way to do it. When you play all the files back-to-back, as if you were listening to a CD, there will be no audible difference. When playing an individual track (or skipping tracks), it will start playing at the point the CD's table of contents indicates as the beginning of that track, same behavior as a CD player.

The only possible downside is that if you were to put your entire library on shuffle, you would hear the gap between tracks. In the majority of cases it's just a couple of seconds of silence, which doesn't bother me in the slightest. I think there *should* be silence between tracks. The transition might be a bit jarring when shuffling tracks from albums that flow together as 1 piece (Dark Side of the Moon), but there is no way of doing the gaps that would alleviate that issue. You would need a crossfade DSP for that.

PC as CD-Player replacement (gap puzzlement deluxe)

Reply #21 –
Why is it only CD players that can play back a CD exactly as it was intended? Why can't PCs and portable players play back CD albums exactly the way a CD player does? Why isn't gapless playback standard on PC audio players and portable players? Why don't they support countdown? And why don't they support indices?

Today nobody program CDs with indices anyway. But I think that was a good idea, and I think it is sad that it disappeared. It is a much more logical way of programming a CD in classical music and prog-rock, because that is the way the composer was thinking. For example, The Soft Machine's Second album had a track called Esthers Nose Job. The track had several sub-tracks (with no pause between them):

3. "Esther's Nose Job"
[blockquote]
  • "Fire Engine Passing with Bells Clanging" (Ratledge) – 1:51
  • "Pig" (Ratledge / Wyatt) – 2:09
  • "Orange Skin Food" (Ratledge) – 1:47
  • "A Door Opens and Closes" (Ratledge) – 1:10
  • "10:30 Returns to the Bedroom" (Ratledge / H. Hopper / Wyatt) – 4:13
[/blockquote]

So Esthers Nose job was track 3, and it had five sub-tracks. PC players and portable players can't replicate that, so the only way to do it is to either have one long track without sub-divisions, or to make the sub-tracks separate tracks. That gives two problems: players that don't support gapless playback will put gaps between the sub-tracks, which is very disturbing. And when tagging you will either get very long titles, like "Esther's Nose Job: 1. Fire Engine Passing with Bells Clanging", or you get incomplete titles. It would be much better if todays players (and CDs) supported indices, and that we could have both track titles and sub-track titles in the tags.

PC as CD-Player replacement (gap puzzlement deluxe)

Reply #22 –
When there is a single track on a cd that actually contains multiple (functional) divisions, I'll rip the wav, use a wav editor to cut it into separate tracks. Such as "A Change of Seasons" by Dream Theater.
Tracknumber tagging is the biggest tricky part here - I used to use decimal tracknumbering (e.g., if I broke track 11 up into 3 tracks, they would be 11.1, 11.2, and 11.3) but iTunes doesn't read this at all and Windows Media Player only reads the "11" part of it, so I'm not sure how exactly I'm going to redo my tagging scheme in this case. But I'd prefer that they be separate tracks that can be skipped between, anyway, and foobar plays gapless so I have no problem there.
God kills a kitten every time you encode with CBR 320
 

PC as CD-Player replacement (gap puzzlement deluxe)

Reply #23 –
I think you just have to accept that track+index isn't usable in a PC/mp3 environment, and split into tracks only.

I also think you have to accept that tracks have to have integer numbers, and accept some re-numbering to accommodate this. If you're really interested in the original track numbers, put them in the comment field or something.

I often split "hidden" tracks off, even if they didn't have a different index on the original CD.

YMMV!

Cheers,
David.