MP3 help required!

dr_mabuse

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I am just in the process of getting into MP3 now that I have a capable player in my car - only a few years behind the times, right?! :zonked:

I have used Audiograbber to extract 100 tracks from various CDs and Acoustica MP3 CD Burner to sort and burn them, but all the tracks are separated by a moment's silence. This is no problem on a standard CD, but forty or so of the tracks are from a continous mix CD so of course it sounds crap with gaps.

Should I have done something in Audiograbber to eliminate these gaps, or in Acoustica? I see there is a setting in Acoustica to eliminate gaps if their combined size is over X.X seconds, but if I set that to zero, won't it join ALL the tracks, whether they were meant to be joined, or indeed whether I want it to or not? What setting/stage of the process have I missed?

Also the Acoustica is onyl a trial - is there a better app out there for the creation and burning of MP3 CDs?

Thanks for looking - sorry if this is SOOOO obvious to you all :blush:

dr_m
 
Take a look at this guide to ripping to MP3 http://www.ping.be/satcp/cd2mp3-en.htm
It is useing EAC (Exact Audio Copy) to rip the CD's and Lame to convert to MP3. It also gives details on how to remove the gaps that MP3 create for continuous recordings such as live music & mixes etc.

HTH,
Mark.
 
MarkE19
Cheers much for that link. I have downloaded EAC (I already had the LAME) and read through the process for ripping an entire CD as one image witha cue sheet, which is the recommended option for mix CDs. I followed the setup pages and clicked all the boxes carefully, then set it running.

Unfortunately I ended up with an MP3 that was only 18MB and at 81kbps for 1 hour and 19 minutes' worth of source file!

I know something's gone t*ts up but I dunno what? Do you have any ideas?

Sorry to bother you again but I'm stumped

:confused:

dr_m
 
Does the ripped MP3 play?
I have a live CD that I ripped and it is just under 110,000Kb (approx 108Mb) so 18Mb does sound way too small. Could you have just copied a single track?
I would suggest takeing another look at the instructions and trying the CD again.

Mark.
 
MarkE19

Thanks for replying. I have made some progress, in that I tried the "Copy Image and create Cue Sheet" direct to .wav, and this did work. I also tried it using the "Compressed" option, and this worked too, giving me a 118mb mp3 file at 192kbps. :)

I then split the .wav up using the "Split Wav with Cue Sheet" and "Leave out Gaps" options, and this also worked. I ended up with 17 .wavs with the Title, Artist and Track info I wanted. :)

Then I selected "Compress WAVs" on the 17 .wavs into mp3 and this also worked. :) So far so good.

When I played them in WMP, there was still a micro-silence between the tracks, which as you know in mix CDs sounds really obvious. Just in case this was the WMP, I did a test burn with Acoustica MP3 Burner and the gaps are still there. :mad:

Can I not split the 118mb mp3 file instead of going through the intermediate stage? I couldn't see an option for this in EAC. :confused:

Also do you think the stutter is from Acoustica's burn? I played around with Nero as well and I could analyse the track and "clip" the start and end position, but the program re-converts to .wav on the fly so I am not using compressed files and saving any space! Aaaaargh!!

Is this possible or am I wasting my time? By now I could have just ripped the ten CDs I want to do this to into 10 giant mp3 image files and just burned them, but I want to have track access if I desire (fussy git that I am :D )

Any help appreciated.

dr_m
 
As far as I know, MP3's require that little bit of silence and you can't get away from it (part of the codec requirement or something) The way the Rio Karma does gapless playback is by fading the end of the 1st track with that beginning of the next as you can do in winamp etc.

So unless your player supports Ogg Vorbis (which is truly gapless) or can cross fade tracks, you are stuck with ripping the whole album in one.

Sorry i couldn't help more,

Ben
 
Finally i have found someone with the same problem as me! but i am happy just to rip each album as one huge mp3... i currently use musicmatch jukebox for ripping and i cant find a way to do it using that...

What software can u use for ripping a whole album as one large mp3 without gaps?
 
TomOfArabia said:
What software can u use for ripping a whole album as one large mp3 without gaps?
EAC will rip a full album to MP3 as a single track with no gaps :thumbsup:

Mark.
 
Gidday. I have had encountered this problem and the only way I can figure out of removing the gap is to save them all as .wav files. Yes, they end up being huge files but after you have burnt the CD you convert them into mp3 format and archive.
 
The link quoted in this thread about removing the gaps between tracks as mp3 files is not longer active.
I am struggling to get a smooth transition from one track to the next when ripping, when the music is intended continues form one track to the next without a break.
I ahve asked EAC to remove the gaps but it then asks me to provide a Cue sheet. I would be grateful to know how or where I obtain this?
thanks!
 
It is not possible to remove gaps between tracks on MP3 rips by any method which is part of the MP3 standard - MP3 is inherently gappy due to the fixed frame size it uses, which will almost invariably result in the last frame of a file being at least partially silent.

If you have a recent iPod, this corrects for gaps by scanning the MP3 files before loading them onto the iPod and storing the length of the silence at the end of the last frame - this only works on an iPod. There is a custom parameter for the LAME MP3 encoder which does the same thing, but it isn't supported by very many portable players.

If you want gapless playback, either use MP3 on an iPod, or rip to a different format, such as WMA, which is gapless by design.
 

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