MP3s generated with dbpoweramp not gapless Options

[dancrocker]

I hope this is the right forum and that this topic hasn't been beaten to death. I apologize if I'm wrong on either of these. I searched but didn't find the answer I was looking for. Of course, the amount of info here is a bit overwhelming

I used dbpoweramp to rip to FLAC, then generate 320kbit CBR MP3s. ITunes plays them gaplessly as does foobar2000. However, my iPod (5th generation) does not. There's a teeny "gap" (more like a glitch). My iPhone 3G doesn't play them gaplessly either although the "gap" is more like a click. Meanwhile, MP3s generated by iTunes play on the iPod perfectly.

I know, years ago, there was a lot of noise about apple not supporting gapless. But, I thought this was all resolved. Certainly, it appears to work fine if the MP3s are encoded with iTunes.

Is this a well-known problem? I found some other posts that seemed to say that LAME encoded MP3s (which is what dbpoweramp uses) play gaplessly on iPods. So, I'm puzzled as to while I'm having this trouble. I'd appreciate any help or suggestions.

[kornchild2002]

I have thousands of Lame mp3 files on my 120GB iPod and they playback gaplessly (they work fine on my 5G 60GB iPod too). Have you modified these mp3 files with another application? Did iTunes scan the files for gapless playback when you added them to your library?

[dancrocker]

I have thousands of Lame mp3 files on my 120GB iPod and they playback gaplessly (they work fine on my 5G 60GB iPod too). Have you modified these mp3 files with another application? Did iTunes scan the files for gapless playback when you added them to your library?

I didn't modify them at all; they're straight from dbpoweramp. I didn't pay close attention to iTunes when I added them but I don't remember seeing any messages indicating scanning for gapless. I can remove them and re-add them to check. Is there a way to disable this function just in case?

Is it possible that some LAME settings used by dbpoweramp aren't proper to allow gapless?

Also, if you wouldn't mind, could you listen again to some music that needs to be played gaplessly and make sure it sounds right? A co-worker of mine also told me that his music played gaplessly on his iPod but when he listened again, he heard the same thing I'm hearing. It's very subtle so it's easy to miss unless you're listening closely with headphones. In case it helps, his test case was the second side of Abbey Road and mind is Dark Side of the Moon.

[kornchild2002]

I didn't modify them at all; they're straight from dbpoweramp. I didn't pay close attention to iTunes when I added them but I don't remember seeing any messages indicating scanning for gapless. I can remove them and re-add them to check. Is there a way to disable this function just in case?

Yes, you can try removing them from your library and adding them back in. You will see the "Determining gapless playback..." message at the top of iTunes where you normally see the Apple logo. You can click out of this option and some people do it as they don't want iTunes to scan their files. The process takes (about) less than one second per track so you might see it flash for a few seconds when adding an album. You can add multiple albums to iTunes just to make sure iTunes scans them.

Is it possible that some LAME settings used by dbpoweramp aren't proper to allow gapless?

Other than what is mentioned, not that I know of. Most of the Lame files I have (either Lame 3.97 or Lame 3.98.2) were made with dBpowerAMP so I don't think that is an issue. Just for kicks and giggles, I went back and encoded Dark Side Of The Moon with dBpowerAMP and Lame 3.98.2 at -V 2 (from my source Apple lossless files). It played back alright in iTunes, on my 120GB iPod classic, and my 5G 60GB iPod. I then tried Tool's 10,000 Days and received the same results.

What version of Lame is dBpowerAMP using and what version of dBpowerAMP are you using?

This post has been edited by kornchild2002: Jan 16 2010, 03:21

[dancrocker]

I didn't modify them at all; they're straight from dbpoweramp. I didn't pay close attention to iTunes when I added them but I don't remember seeing any messages indicating scanning for gapless. I can remove them and re-add them to check. Is there a way to disable this function just in case?

Yes, you can try removing them from your library and adding them back in. You will see the "Determining gapless playback..." message at the top of iTunes where you normally see the Apple logo. You can click out of this option and some people do it as they don't want iTunes to scan their files. The process takes (about) less than one second per track so you might see it flash for a few seconds when adding an album. You can add multiple albums to iTunes just to make sure iTunes scans them.

Is it possible that some LAME settings used by dbpoweramp aren't proper to allow gapless?

Other than what is mentioned, not that I know of. Most of the Lame files I have (either Lame 3.97 or Lame 3.98.2) were made with dBpowerAMP so I don't think that is an issue. Just for kicks and giggles, I went back and encoded Dark Side Of The Moon with dBpowerAMP and Lame 3.98.2 at -V 2 (from my source Apple lossless files). It played back alright in iTunes, on my 120GB iPod classic, and my 5G 60GB iPod. I then tried Tool's 10,000 Days and received the same results.

What version of Lame is dBpowerAMP using and what version of dBpowerAMP are you using?

OK, I removed and re-added the files. There was no gapless scanning; only something about "detmining song volume".
As for the versions, I'm using the free dbpoweramp (it's actually still the professional version until the trial period ends). It's release 13.3. The LAME it's using is 3.98.2.

[maggior]

There was no gapless scanning; only something about "detmining song volume".

Wow, I can't believe we haven't figured this out yet. This should just simply work, which is what makes it difficult to figure out what's wrong.

Based on what you've described, I would concentrate on why you do not see the "determining gapless" message in iTunes when you import your music files. I think you've determined that the mp3 files themselves have been properly made. Ever since I've been using mp3 files encoded by LAME, I've seen this message in iTunes. I started out using version 7.x. I recently installed 9.x on my laptop. I've never had an issue like this.

You mention at one point using a older Nano and seeing an issue. That rules out fragmentation I would think.

Have you tried newer/older versions of iTunes? Perhaps the version of iTunes that you have has a bug.

I've never seen "determining song volume". Do you have somesort of gain feature turned on? Maybe you can try turning that off.

[dancrocker]

There was no gapless scanning; only something about "detmining song volume".

Wow, I can't believe we haven't figured this out yet. This should just simply work, which is what makes it difficult to figure out what's wrong.

Based on what you've described, I would concentrate on why you do not see the "determining gapless" message in iTunes when you import your music files. I think you've determined that the mp3 files themselves have been properly made. Ever since I've been using mp3 files encoded by LAME, I've seen this message in iTunes. I started out using version 7.x. I recently installed 9.x on my laptop. I've never had an issue like this.

You mention at one point using a older Nano and seeing an issue. That rules out fragmentation I would think.

Have you tried newer/older versions of iTunes? Perhaps the version of iTunes that you have has a bug.

I've never seen "determining song volume". Do you have somesort of gain feature turned on? Maybe you can try turning that off.

I agree that this should just work. It's very frustrating.
I also agree that I don't think any kind of a fragmentation problem because, as you say, the nano has a similar problem. In addition, files ripped with iTunes work fine.
Regarding "determining gapless", I was expecting that the iPod would use the gapless info in the MP3 during playback. Obviously, some here think this is not the case. Still, something doesn't add up. The files play almost perfectly; there's no gap that I would expect if the files were truly not encoded with any gapless info and if iTunes didn't fix them up. It seems that either iTunes or the iPod is using this info even though iTunes doesn't explicitly say anything about it. Perhaps the gapless scanning only happens if the files are imported without any gapless info? I seem to remember that iTunes is able to take non-gapless files and create gapless ones. I don't know how it works, but I think it can do this. If this is true, then I wouldn't expect any gapless scanning for the files I'm importing.
I would appreciate it someone could do an experiment for me: import MP3s that have gapless info in the header and see if their iTunes indicates any gapless scanning is going on.
I guess I could try an old version of iTunes but, for one thing, I don't know where to get old versions. For another, I'm not sure I'd be interested in down-grading just to fix this. My "work-around" would be to rip and encode with iTunes, using ALAC as my lossless (archive) format. I'd rather use FLAC but if I can't find a way to make clean MP3s out of FLAC, I'll settle for ALAC.

One specific question: Is there a way to create MP3s without the gapless info (e.g. a LAME command line option)? If so, I could do this and see if iTunes does the automatic gapless scanning. As an alternative, can I edit the MP3 to get rid of these fields (or change the value to something innocuous)?

[lukpac]

I also agree that I don't think any kind of a fragmentation problem because, as you say, the nano has a similar problem. In addition, files ripped with iTunes work fine.

Has anybody ever come up with any sort of answer to this? The same issue appears in this thread without an answer. I've been having exactly the same problem: iTunes plays things fine regardless of whether the MP3s were created in iTunes or LAME, while my iPod (Classic, 120 GB) will sometimes produce small hiccups between LAME files. That is to say, some files produced by LAME always sound fine, while others always have hiccups between them. Files produced by iTunes never have hiccups between them when played on the iPod.

I haven't done quite the amount of testing Dan has, but my experiences thus far have been consistent. Also, I don't have all the details in front of me regarding versions and such, but can provide them if requested. I updated LAME within the past few months, so it is pretty recent.