Is there a simple way to rip live cd's that play gaplessly to gapless wav files? If not, to gapless mp3's?

I'd just like to play them from my computer gaplessly, but with my current encoder (iTunes) neither mp3s or wavs playback gaplessly

thanks

The only way to play MP3's gaplessly is to encode them with LAME and play them back using foobar2000 (at least, as far I know). WAV files are already gapless.

is there a certain program i have to use to play wavs back gaplessly? iTunes doesn't play them back gaplessly, like the CD does.

The files are gapless, however some players introduce a gap when they play back files.

ok that makes sense, but how come the CD will play back gaplessly in iTunes? (bear with me, this stuff is all new to me )

Also, when i played back these .wav file in Winamp, there were gaps.

Like Mike says, some players introduce gaps at the time of playback. This is because the player closes and re-opens the audio port. This generally occurs very quickly, so the gap is small, but very often it's still audible with players that do this.

Also, certain rippers will not rip WAV files gaplessly. If you rip and encode to FLAC (a natively gapless and lossless format) with PhatNoise Music Manager, for instance, the encoded tracks will have gaps between them.

If you say even Winamp is playing the WAVs with gaps, then iTunes must have a similar bug as PMM, introducing gaps in the WAV files it rips.

Solution: Use a different software to rip your CDs. Exact Audio Copy is what I use, and it rips gaplessly. Then, if you encode to a natively gapless format (FLAC, Ogg Vorbis, MPC), the tracks will remain gapless. Formats that are not natively gapless (like MP3 and AAC) can be made to play (at least audibly) gaplessly by either "faking" gapless playback with the use of memory buffering and a slight crossfade, or with actual gapless playback by not playing the specific empty frames (which comprise the gaps) in encoded files.

Much clearer now. Thank you for your explanation, i will try EAC.

... it will not so easy, thus... browse this site and search for keywords like "Exact Audio Copy" "cuesheet" "gapless".

Basically there are two strategies you can use:

A) rip tracks individually and then compress and play with a compressor/player combination that gives you the possibilty to play it back gaplessly.

B) rip the whole album to a single file, create an "index" of the album (a "cuesheet"), compress, play with a player that can understand the content of the cuesheet and gives you the possibility to seek to each track.

There are advantages in each. It's a matter of taste...

Here is a link to a thread about that matter:
"Are you ripping to one file per album, or individual files for each track?"

Personally I use both, depending to the particular situation.

For strategy (A) I use EAC as the ripper, LAME as the compressor and Winamp 5 as the player, but using a modified MP3 input plug-in (Shibatch in_mpg123, modified by Otachan's version 1.18y ot63)

For strategy (B) I use EAC as the ripper, LAME as the compressor (WMA or FLAC if I want to go lossless) and a "cueeshet parser plug-in" (Mp3Cue Version 0.94 ) for Winamp

A quick search in this forum will point you to the location from where to download such plug-ins. Sorry but I don't have them at hand now.

These are only two of the many alternatives you have, just the ones that fit me best.

Purists seems to love Foobar2000 much more than Winamp. Me, I'm still undecided...


Sergio

I was afraid that i would need a player that would be able to support gapless playback. I have a Mac, and basically there is only iTunes, which can't accomplish it. i was hoping there was a way i could get "gapless files" from my PC and transfer them to my Mac and it would work. however, i see that the player is a big part of this.

I just don't understand why iTunes on my Mac will play the actual CD back gaplessly, but if i copy those exact files off the cd, and put them in a playlist, it won't play gaplessly. I have checked, and each file on the CD is exactly the same size as it's copy on my hard drive. How does the player insert the pause in between the files on my hard drive, but not on the CD? maybe there is just something basic i am missing.

I have come to grips with the fact that i probably can't get this to work on my Mac, but i can't find an explanation to this.

Ahh, yes, nevermind it works!

If i enable crossfade playback, but set it to zero seconds, it works PERFECTLY.

Sorry for all the newbie questions, and thanks all.

...oooops... I didn't understood you have a Mac... then just send all I said to /dev/null: I don't know a thing about Macs.

I'm glad you found a solution.

Cheers

Sergio

As to why the CD plays without gaps, but not the files (when crossfade isn't enabled)...

CDs are read sequentially, non-stop. The track indicator may move to the next number, but it isn't specifically ending the old track & starting the new... the point from which the audio is being read merely passed over the place (stored in a CD's Table of Contents) where the new track begins.

The WAV files, on the other hand, are interpreted as seperate audio files by the player. In addition to closing the audio object for the previous track & calling it for the new track, the processor must also take the time nessesary to prebuffer the new file before it starts playback.

Crossfading starts prebuffering the next file before the current one has ended, so it is ready to play back the instant it comes to the specified crossfading point.