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Topic: Foobar2000 Gapless Playback: (Read 27221 times) previous topic - next topic
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Foobar2000 Gapless Playback:

Hi dudes,

        I recently downloaded and installed foobar2000 but its gapless download is not working here. I browsed through the preferences but found no relevant settings to this. I read most of the manual at http://eolindel.free.fr/foobar0.9/ but found nothing. I have tree players installed: foobar, winamp and iTunes. Foobar and Winamp shows exactly the same problem in the playback, but in iTunes it works fine.
        Detailing the problem: When playing songs, there is always a 1ms hang/gap between songs and I can't find a reason for this. I don't know the "name" for this problem, but the playback is not continuous. Help ?

Later,
Nelson

Foobar2000 Gapless Playback:

Reply #1 –
What sort of files are you playing?  fb2k will play lame mp3 and flac files gapless (among others). No setting is required. If you are playing mp3 files that are not lame mp3 files, fb2k won't play gapless. The reason that itunes does play these files is the internal itunes process that it uses in "determining gapless" when you add files to its library. If it is a lame mp3, itunes will use the gap info in the tag. Other mp3s it will do the best it can to estimate the gap info (and I must say itunes does a very good job of this).

Foobar2000 Gapless Playback:

Reply #2 –
If you do not mind if it is "true gapless", then you could add a crossfader-DSP with a very low crossfading time - something like 10-20ms.
I am arrogant and I can afford it because I deliver.

Foobar2000 Gapless Playback:

Reply #3 –
There are plugins for both foobar2000 and Winamp that removes the gap between mp3's.
Can't wait for a HD-AAC encoder :P

Foobar2000 Gapless Playback:

Reply #4 –
Thanks for the answers. I am using MP3 and AAC (encoded with iTunes). Indeed, some of my MP3 files are old and were encoded without lame MP3. Now for the questions: Is there anyway for me to re-encode the files in a format that it can be played gaplessly ? And what plugin do you recomend me to use for the gapless play (foo_dsp_crossfader would be my guess; is this the best out there ?).
    One more thing: I am aware in the differences between the lossly formats today (ogg, aac, mp3, etc), but all this in theory. What format do you suggest for the encoding of music today and why (In theory, ogg vorbis should be the best but why it's still so unusual today ?)

Thanks dudes,
Nelson

Foobar2000 Gapless Playback:

Reply #5 –
Don't know of any way to convert existing mp3 to lame without transcoding, which is typically not a good idea (converting your old mp3 files to new lame mp3 files). You can search this forum for enough discussion on best "lossy" encoder/settings to give you enough to read for the next year! My personal summary is:  if you want to use mp3 (which is the most universal of lossy files--virtually all players will deal with mp3 files), LAME VBR at -V2 seems to be the best compromise between transparency and size. Many people report not being able to ABX lame files at -V2 with the original source. I can't myself (heck, I can't even ABX -V5). ogg vorbis suffers from the lack of players that will handle this type of file.



Quote from: Grayman on
Thanks for the answers. I am using MP3 and AAC (encoded with iTunes). Indeed, some of my MP3 files are old and were encoded without lame MP3. Now for the questions: Is there anyway for me to re-encode the files in a format that it can be played gaplessly ? And what plugin do you recomend me to use for the gapless play (foo_dsp_crossfader would be my guess; is this the best out there ?).
    One more thing: I am aware in the differences between the lossly formats today (ogg, aac, mp3, etc), but all this in theory. What format do you suggest for the encoding of music today and why (In theory, ogg vorbis should be the best but why it's still so unusual today ?)

Thanks dudes,
Nelson

Foobar2000 Gapless Playback:

Reply #6 –
It is allways possible to add some information to mp3 files to make them play back gaplessly. I "rescued" some of my older mp3 files that way. But it is a rather extensive process. One way is to convert the complete mp3s of one album to single wavs. Then open each wav file in an audio editor, write up the amount of samples, find out the number of silent samples at the beginning and the end for each file (this values are called ENC_DELAY and ENC_PADDING in the Xing header of lame). You can use an excel spreadsheed for storing the information. Then calculate the amount of non-silent samples without the silent parts at the beginning and the end: non-silent = total - ENC_DELAY - ENC_PADDING (excel does a good job here). Most encodes have a fix value for ENC_DELAY, e. g. lame = 576, iTunes = 528. The "silence" is sometimes not easy to find, because there is a slight amplitude before and after the wanted signal.

Make a copy of your mp3 files, because we have to modify them in fb2k. For each file choose Right Mouse -> Utils -> Edit MP3 Gapless Playback Information. Enter into the first field the silent samples at the beginning (ENC_DELAY), and the second field enter the non-silent samples. If everything is correct, the files play now gaplessly. Unfortunately it is not possible to enter ENC_PADDING directly, although fb2k has to compute it through the non-silent and ENC_DELAY. Check the file with Right Mouse -> Properties; on the tab "Properties" you should see the correct values for ENC_DELAY and ENC_PADDING under "Other".

The up and down buttons are very helpfull if the mp3 files came from a CD, because in that case the amount of the samples must be a multiple of 588 (this is due to the way the music is stored on CDs). That means not every value for the second field is valid. In that case enter only the correct value for ENC_DELAY for all files. Then test two mp3s in series. Push "up" for the first file until you hear a gap between the files, and then push "down" until the gap is gone.

Note that ENC_DELAY and ENC_PADDING can only range from 0 to 4095. If you find greater values, then you either made something wrong or the mp3 file have some additional samples that you have to cut of with a appropriate program.

Maybe sometimes someone writes a application with a GUI to make this process easier, without the need of converting the mp3 to wav and to load them into an audio editor... :-)

Hth, Kosmas

Foobar2000 Gapless Playback:

Reply #7 –
Couldn't an Mp3 stream be put in a container in a way that could played gaplessly? .mp4 perhaps?
elevatorladylevitateme
 

Foobar2000 Gapless Playback:

Reply #8 –
MP3 created by new versions of iTunes does have gapless info, but is not recognized by foobar.

Is there any tool to translate the gapless info between format used by iTunes and that recognized by foobar (ie stored in lame tag)?

Foobar2000 Gapless Playback:

Reply #9 –
Quote from: kevinsham on
MP3 created by new versions of iTunes does have gapless info, but is not recognized by foobar.
Yes, that's true. Would be a nice feature for one of the next versions!

Quote from: kevinsham on
Is there any tool to translate the gapless info between format used by iTunes and that recognized by foobar (ie stored in lame tag)?
That would be great, but I didn't discover anything like that. Maybe someone else?

What about iTunes, does it playback MP3 with lame tag gaplessly?

Foobar2000 Gapless Playback:

Reply #11 –
sorry to bring this topic, but i have a question i felt not to be good for a new topic..

i'm wondering is there a way to perfectly play files in gapless playback if they're not lame mp3 encoded?

for example i have "the dark side of the moon" album by pink floyd (encoded by lame mp3) and it plays in "perfect gapless" playback, and i have the "exit planet dust" album by chemical brothers (non-lame mp3 encoded) and it has that minimal gap, barely heard, but present.

is there a way, by an option, hardware or plugin that will allow the full "perfect precise gapless" playback for all mp3's?

Foobar2000 Gapless Playback:

Reply #12 –
Quote from: foolver on
is there a way, by an option, hardware or plugin that will allow the full "perfect precise gapless" playback for all mp3's?

You can try the way I described a little bit above, if you have foobar. I started to write a program to solve this issue and to add the additional information with a graphical interface, but it is not very easy...

With the way I described I modified some of my non-lame mp3s to be played back very well.

Foobar2000 Gapless Playback:

Reply #13 –
i was having this issue myself and dug into foobar to find the problem, as i never had this problem, so i knew it was something i did.
it turned out to be "crossfader" DSP plugin.
after i disabled it by removing it from the DSP list, foobar now plays gaplessly

best audio software i have come across, hands down.

and freeware is a bonus!