Cutting an MP3 gaplessly without re-encoding., I need advice, please. Options

[S3NT13NT_GL1TCH]

Greetings all!

This is my first forum post here, although I have been a reader for a while now. I ran into a dilemma recently. I purchased an album off of BandCamp that included a bonus track, but the problem is that they made the last track and the bonus track one file rather than splitting the bonus track into it's own separate file. I'm a perfectionist, so naturally I went about trying to find a program that could cut the mp3 into two separate tracks without compromising quality. This was harder than I imagined.

Most programs that claim to split audio files without re-encoding don't actually do it flawlessly. The data isn't encoded in a truly gapless way, and this bothers the hell out of me. I've referred to several old threads here on the board (Which I will link to in a second) and they all seem to recommend a problem called "pcutmp3" which has been dead since 2009:

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....showtopic=62757
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....showtopic=73064

I've tried to run the most recent release (0.98 Beta), but to no avail. I just get an error message that states that "a java exception has occurred". I'm running a PC with Windows 7 Home Premium, 64-bit installed. And as explained in the previous threads, programs like Medieval CUE Splitter and mp3Directcut just don't do the job.

So my question is... Are there any other programs today that are able to do what I need, i.e., splitting an mp3 file into two separate files WITHOUT re-encoding them, AS WELL AS making the resulting files play back gaplessly? Surely in the three years since those threds were posted at least one other program has been developed that can do what pcutmp3 used to do, right?

Any suggestions would be tremendously appreciated.

[mixminus1]

1) Try an earlier version of pcutmp3. It's been awhile since I've used it, but I also ran into Java errors, and IIRC, one of the earlier versions worked while 0.98 didn't.

2) Be aware that the way pcutmp3 cuts MP3's "gaplessly" is by writing new encoder delay and padding values into the LAME/Xing tag. Those values can often be unusually large, and some players may not be able to cope with them, and that's assuming you're using a player that actually reads those values and implements them in the first place.