I've checked out the forums a bit and don't know exactly where to go to find an answer here. So if someone could post me a link that would be helpful. Sorry if this is redundant but there is so much information it's hard to sort out.
Basically I have a bunch of live albums downloaded from aomp3 in OE format. As you all must know gapless doesn't seem to cooperate with OE, so I was wondering if there's any sort of tutorial for an extreme newbie on how to make these albums gapless without affecting the quality. I've seen a few programs out there but honestly I'm fairly stupid when it comes to those things so if anyone that could direct me to a step-by-step process on how to do this, that would be tremendous.
No flaming please, I just simply couldn't find it. Thank you.
Full Version: New member: gapless question
I googled and now realise AOMP3 is allofmp3.com, the Russian site of disputed legality in the rest of the world. I don't understand what OE means, but I guess that regardless, it's one-file-per-track MP3, not one-file-per-album plus CUE sheet to provide the track positions.
MP3 isn't gapless, and requires a workaround.
Workaround 1: Get a player that supports gapless info embedded in the LAME tag. Foobar2000 is one, and as eofor points out below, iTunes and Winamp are others. There aren't all that many, but iTunes is highly popular. If the files don't have the appropriate gapless info, you can try to deduce it if you can work out the encoder delay (encspot on a range of files + testing the most likely encoder, plus info from Cuesheet heaven to deduce the original length on CD) then manually enter delay and padding in foobar2000 and get it applied to the file tags.
Workaround 2: Get a player or plugin for a player that works as a gap-killer - something that makes a pretty smart guess where the encoder-related gaps are. Some only remove MP3-type gaps, some remove all silences, even intentional ones. iTunes and some or all iPods have this feature built in, and it's in Winamp (see Junon's post below). I think it's still available as a plugin for some versions of foobar2000, usually called foo_nogaps.
Workaround 3. If you must play back on a decoder that won't do gapless (like any in-car MP3 hifi I've ever known), you can use a non-transcoding mp3 editor such as mp3DirectCut to join the mp3 files together and then go in and make small cuts of a frame or two at the bit between the end of one file and the start of the next to remove the gaps that are inherent with MP3. With care and luck you'll then end up with a single file of the whole album without noticeable glitches or gaps. If you play this file on a PC as well, you could try to get a CUEsheet. I believe Cuesheet Heaven might help you recover from a lost CUE sheet.
MP3 isn't gapless, and requires a workaround.
Workaround 1: Get a player that supports gapless info embedded in the LAME tag. Foobar2000 is one, and as eofor points out below, iTunes and Winamp are others. There aren't all that many, but iTunes is highly popular. If the files don't have the appropriate gapless info, you can try to deduce it if you can work out the encoder delay (encspot on a range of files + testing the most likely encoder, plus info from Cuesheet heaven to deduce the original length on CD) then manually enter delay and padding in foobar2000 and get it applied to the file tags.
Workaround 2: Get a player or plugin for a player that works as a gap-killer - something that makes a pretty smart guess where the encoder-related gaps are. Some only remove MP3-type gaps, some remove all silences, even intentional ones. iTunes and some or all iPods have this feature built in, and it's in Winamp (see Junon's post below). I think it's still available as a plugin for some versions of foobar2000, usually called foo_nogaps.
Workaround 3. If you must play back on a decoder that won't do gapless (like any in-car MP3 hifi I've ever known), you can use a non-transcoding mp3 editor such as mp3DirectCut to join the mp3 files together and then go in and make small cuts of a frame or two at the bit between the end of one file and the start of the next to remove the gaps that are inherent with MP3. With care and luck you'll then end up with a single file of the whole album without noticeable glitches or gaps. If you play this file on a PC as well, you could try to get a CUEsheet. I believe Cuesheet Heaven might help you recover from a lost CUE sheet.
QUOTE(Dynamic @ Aug 3 2007, 14:06) 
Workaround 1: Get a player that supports gapless info embedded in the LAME tag. Foobar2000 is one. There aren't all that many.
Actually, iTunes and Winamp also support this now.
QUOTE(Dynamic @ Aug 3 2007, 15:06)
Workaround 2: Get a player or plugin for a player that works as a gap-killer - something that makes a pretty smart guess where the encoder-related gaps are. Some only remove MP3-type gaps, some remove all silences, even intentional ones. iTunes and some or all iPods have this feature built in. I think it's still available as a plugin for Winamp and for some versions of foobar2000, usually called gapkiller or foo_nogaps.
Winamp doesn't need any external plugin to use this feature, it's a built-in one of the default DirectSound output instead. Checking "Remove silence at the beginning / end of track" causes any format to be played back gaplessly, though the cutoff setting might need some adjustment in order to do so.
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