Gapless fix breaks gaps of files sold online?

2020-01-25 14:12:01

I stumbled across a little problem that unfortunately seems to creep in with digital music distribution these days.
There are quick fades between songs on digital distributed files i purchased. I saw this before.
I guess the distributers try to prevent possible clicks and glitches between songs with broken hard and software that doesn't handle gapless playback.
It seems these fades are only done if the level is above a certain volume. At lower levels it wouldn't matter. Maybe this is already an automated process.

Besides they alter the original files it really starts to get silly when this precautionary fade creates a glitch itself that wasn't there before.

I may have found such a thing at the recent "Bohren & Der Club Of Gore - Patchouli Blue" between track 10+11 bought at qobuz
No idea if i should complain again. Music online distribution still regulary accomplishs to disappoint.

I don't know someone that has the CD. My bet is that on a professional mastered CD such a glitch won't exist.

I attached short samples for others to listen. Maybe someone else already had a similar experience.

Re: Gapless fix breaks gaps of files sold online?

Reply #1 – 2020-01-25 15:03:46

> My bet is that on a professional mastered CD such a glitch won't exist.

On some of CDs, there are even worse gaps. 

But it's so dumb for formats not limited by CD limitations, they could simply align track transitions to zero crossings and it'll be fine but somehow it's too hard for these people.

Re: Gapless fix breaks gaps of files sold online?

Reply #2 – 2020-01-25 16:51:24

I had a likewise problem.
The Canto Ostinato by Simeon ten Holt doesn’t fit on 1 CD
Hence at the and of the CD they fade out and on the second fade in.
On a CD this make sense, on a PC not.
I loaded the tracks in audacity, removed the fade out/in.
After some trial and error they now play gapless.

Re: Gapless fix breaks gaps of files sold online?

Reply #3 – 2020-03-15 01:25:31

I just got the confirmation that the german CD of "Bohren & Der Club Of Gore - Patchouli Blue" has no audible glitch between track 10+11 like the online qobuz version has.
No samples, sorry.

Re: Gapless fix breaks gaps of files sold online?

Reply #4 – 2020-03-15 03:40:52

This is a completely unnecessary fix for a continuous, segued set of tracks. Neither the tiny fade, nor alignment to zero-crossing would be sufficient to make the song sound like a clean single edit. The click at a cut is dull, but it is still there. The authors of a streaming rip could have moved the cue points in case they were not accurate on CD. Or created a compilation with more liberal trimming. But these fades are usually all the same duration, and apparently automatic.

On a couple downloaded albums at CD resolution I managed to restore gapless playback with CUETools, because the fades were short enough and there were no deletions of silence. Surferosa - "The Beat on the Street" comes to mind as an example of this. Good click repair software can usually repair the edit point well enough if there is no deletion or insertion of time (interpolate in Izotope RX).

Re: Gapless fix breaks gaps of files sold online?

Reply #5 – 2020-03-15 04:10:10

What format are these tracks? If they're DSD, gapless handling is definitely problematic, as it is literally impossible for the format to encode the zero crossing point for the start of the track, so the only zero crossing it controls is the end of the track. The only way to play the DSD stream gaplessly is either to know the sample offsets ahead of time, or decode the entire album as one continuous DSD stream.

Re: Gapless fix breaks gaps of files sold online?

Reply #6 – 2020-03-15 06:10:52

I'm thinking of regular PCM downloads sourced from CD masters or tape with short fades applied by default at track boundaries. DSD downloads are very uncommon. Fading on start and end belongs in the player as an optional feature, why bake it into the files... It could also be part of the file format (similar encoder delay and padding) with configurable amount of priming, and could have been there in file-based DST from the start before there was any legacy software dealing with this format.

Re: Gapless fix breaks gaps of files sold online?

Reply #7 – 2020-03-15 14:38:43

Thanks for the feedback j7n.
Indeed if the fades are that short and applied to the files originating from the CD a repair with CUEtools is possible.

One more confirmation it can happen to HiBitrate material also. The latest Pink Floyd "A Momentary Lapse Of Reason" Remix has fades on the download but not the Blu-Ray.

No idea who and why they decided to alter the original files instead of offering working players. Maybe there is some other reason!?