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Topic: "Silent" tracks won't play. (Read 2354 times) previous topic - next topic
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"Silent" tracks won't play.

I have several CDs that I have digitized that contain 1 to 4 second long tracks of nothing but silence, Nine Inch Nails Broken is a good example. Tracks 7 through 97 are silent.  The tracks appear as mp3s on my hard drive, and I can play them in other apps, such as iTunes, but they won't play in Foobar2000, though they do appear in the Playlist.  Is there something I'm doing wrong?  Is there a way to get these tracks to play?

Re: "Silent" tracks won't play.

Reply #1 –
How exactly do you mean they won't play? If you have enabled Skip Silence DSP the player will fast-forward over silence which might look like the player doesn't play them.

Re: "Silent" tracks won't play.

Reply #2 –
Quote from: Case on
How exactly do you mean they won't play? If you have enabled Skip Silence DSP the player will fast-forward over silence which might look like the player doesn't play them.

The track doesn't not play, as in it skips from the track in less than a second, (the tracks are 4 seconds in length.)  Also, it doesn't show that the track has been played in "Play Count" nor does it update the "Last Played" column with a date and time.

Re: "Silent" tracks won't play.

Reply #3 –
Could be the Skip Silence effect that I already mentioned but could also be Skip Track. I'm surprised you didn't comment about your DSP settings at all in the previous post.

Re: "Silent" tracks won't play.

Reply #4 –
Quote from: Case on
Could be the Skip Silence effect that I already mentioned but could also be Skip Track. I'm surprised you didn't comment about your DSP settings at all in the previous post.

To be honest, I have no idea what DSP settings are?  Is there a way to turn off Skip Silence or Skip Track?

Re: "Silent" tracks won't play.

Reply #5 –
Quote from: Scarecrow237 on
To be honest, I have no idea what DSP settings are?  Is there a way to turn off Skip Silence or Skip Track?

Go to Preferences/Playback/DSP Manager.  Your active DSP's (Digital Signal Processor) show up in the left pane of the view, the ones that are installed but NOT active are on the right.  Note "Skip Silence" on the bottom of my non-active list.  Click the "X" to the right of the active ones to de-activate, the "+" to the right of the non-active to activate them.  The "..." button by some of the active ones leads to settings for that individual DSP:

Re: "Silent" tracks won't play.

Reply #6 –
Quote from: Scarecrow237 on
I have several CDs that I have digitized that contain 1 to 4 second long tracks of nothing but silence, Nine Inch Nails Broken is a good example. Tracks 7 through 97 are silent.  The tracks appear as mp3s on my hard drive, and I can play them in other apps, such as iTunes, but they won't play in Foobar2000, though they do appear in the Playlist.  Is there something I'm doing wrong?  Is there a way to get these tracks to play?

Try this one vst!
> Jeroen Breebaart :   Broadcast  - http://www.vst4free.com/free_vst.php?id=548
Select settings - smooth or agc mode

Re: "Silent" tracks won't play.

Reply #7 –
what has a multiband compressor to do with this ?

Re: "Silent" tracks won't play.

Reply #9 –
Quote from: sveakul on
Quote from: Scarecrow237 on
To be honest, I have no idea what DSP settings are?  Is there a way to turn off Skip Silence or Skip Track?

Go to Preferences/Playback/DSP Manager.  Your active DSP's (Digital Signal Processor) show up in the left pane of the view, the ones that are installed but NOT active are on the right.  Note "Skip Silence" on the bottom of my non-active list.  Click the "X" to the right of the active ones to de-activate, the "+" to the right of the non-active to activate them.  The "..." button by some of the active ones leads to settings for that individual DSP:



OK, so the left column is completely empty on my copy of Foobar.  So that means that Skip Silence is *not* active.  But the silent tracks will still not play.

I'm not trying to amplify the quite parts of a song, I'm trying to get tracks in which there is no sound recorded, that last between 1 and 4 seconds in length to play, so that they show up as being played in the "Play Count" column, and provide the date and time they were last played in the "Last Played" column.  Since the CDs that these tracks are from have many silent tracks, there is a gap between when the last song plays and the next song plays the length of the number of silent tracks.  In my above example, Nine Inch Nails Broken tracks 7 through 97 are silent and are one second in length.  So when you play the album there is a gap of 91 seconds between Track 6-"Gave Up" and Track 98-"Physical".  Right now, if I play the album, Foobar will play track 6, then immediately play track 98 without any time gap between.

The physical media itself had the silent tracks on the disc.  The MP3s I created from that disk have all those silent tracks, in other media players, such as iTunes, VLC Player, and Winamp, the silent tracks will play, but not in Foobar.  To be clear, I'm not trying to hear any sound from these silent tracks, there is no sound recorded, it is, literally, an intentional recording of silence.  I just want them to play the way that they would play if I plopped the CD into a CD player.

I have more than one album that uses silent tracks in the same way that Broken does.  None of them will play those silent tracks in Foobar, while they will play in other media players.

Re: "Silent" tracks won't play.

Reply #10 –
Doesn't sound like Skip Track either then. It currently can't jump over multiple tracks instantly and each skip has a little delay.

Does foobar2000 display duration for the tracks that won't play? If duration is not shown it could indicate the files are somehow problematic. You could also verify that foobar2000 can handle your files by verifying them with File Integrity Verifier.

If the duration isn't shown or integrity verifier complains about the files you should upload a sample file here.

If the files are fine does Console report anything when the tracks are skipped? You can find Console under View main menu.

If the console reports no hints about the cause could you show us a list of your components? There's a "Copy report" button at Preferences -> Components page that allows you to easily paste the info here.

Re: "Silent" tracks won't play.

Reply #11 –
Quote from: Case on
Doesn't sound like Skip Track either then. It currently can't jump over multiple tracks instantly and each skip has a little delay.

Does foobar2000 display duration for the tracks that won't play? If duration is not shown it could indicate the files are somehow problematic. You could also verify that foobar2000 can handle your files by verifying them with File Integrity Verifier.

The tracks show a duration of 0:04, which matches the duration of the tracks as they appear in iTunes, Winamp and VLC, which, again, can play these tracks without difficulty.  Running the File Integrity Verifier shows the following status: "Failed: Reported length is inaccurate : 0:04.000000 vs 0:00.941474 decoded" on all of the tracks.  The track duration is supposed to be 0:01 exactly, that is how long they are on the CD itself.  When played back in iTunes, Winamp and VLC they play for 0:01 even though the track length appears as 0:04 in those programs.  I've been informed elsewhere that 0:04 is the minimum track length that can be displayed on most media players, but that they can play tracks as short as half a second while showing the track length as four seconds, no matter what.

Quote from: Case on
If the duration isn't shown or integrity verifier complains about the files you should upload a sample file here.

I think I have successfully attached a file of one of the mp3s in question.

Quote from: Case on
If the files are fine does Console report anything when the tracks are skipped? You can find Console under View main menu.

If the console reports no hints about the cause could you show us a list of your components? There's a "Copy report" button at Preferences -> Components page that allows you to easily paste the info here.

Core (2017-04-07 09:01:48 UTC)
    foobar2000 core 1.3.15
foo_albumlist.dll (2017-04-07 09:00:22 UTC)
    Album List 4.5
foo_audioscrobbler.dll (2012-08-20 20:49:44 UTC)
    Audioscrobbler 2.3.1
foo_cdda.dll (2017-04-07 08:59:54 UTC)
    CD Audio Decoder 3.0
foo_converter.dll (2017-04-07 08:59:36 UTC)
    Converter 1.5
foo_dsp_eq.dll (2017-04-07 09:00:28 UTC)
    Equalizer 1.2
foo_dsp_std.dll (2017-04-07 09:00:26 UTC)
    Standard DSP Array 1.3.1
foo_fileops.dll (2017-04-07 08:59:06 UTC)
    File Operations 2.2.2
foo_freedb2.dll (2016-03-30 11:45:14 UTC)
    Online Tagger 0.7
foo_input_std.dll (2017-04-07 09:00:16 UTC)
    FFmpeg Decoders 3.2.4
    Standard Input Array 1.0
foo_playcount.dll (2017-07-31 17:41:33 UTC)
    Playback Statistics 3.0.2
foo_rgscan.dll (2016-03-30 11:44:24 UTC)
    ReplayGain Scanner 2.2.2
foo_ui_std.dll (2017-04-07 08:59:58 UTC)
    Default User Interface 0.9.5
foo_uie_lyrics3.dll (2017-07-31 17:49:29 UTC)
    Lyric Show Panel 3 0.5
foo_unpack.dll (2017-04-07 09:00:16 UTC)
    ZIP/GZIP/RAR Reader 1.8
foo_verifier.dll (2018-09-09 14:56:11 UTC)
    File Integrity Verifier 1.2.1

Re: "Silent" tracks won't play.

Reply #12 –
The sample track you attached plays for about one second here both on the current foobar2000 version and the old 1.3.15 you are using. I don't think any of your components can cause skipping of playback either.

Quote from: Scarecrow237 on
The track duration is supposed to be 0:01 exactly, that is how long they are on the CD itself.
What ever program is responsible for making these files has made an error. But you can fix the length display for these tracks with foobar2000. If you wish to test with one track first, select the track, right click, hit "Utilities" -> "Fix VBR MP3 header..." and reply "Yes" in the confirmation dialog.

Quote from: Scarecrow237 on
I've been informed elsewhere that 0:04 is the minimum track length that can be displayed on most media players, but that they can play tracks as short as half a second while showing the track length as four seconds, no matter what.
That isn't true with any player software I know of. But 4 seconds is the minimum track length supported on audio CDs. You can make foobar2000 show lengths with sample accuracy and it should be able to play tracks as short as a single sample. For example with 44100 Hz material that's about 23 microseconds.