mp3 format

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro,alt.music.mp3 (More info?)

Hey.
Is there anybody who can confirm or deny whether or not the mp3 format
requires a little section (0.025 seconds or so) of silence
at the end and start?
When I use soundforge to edit mp3s, I'm unable to cut out those
sections of silence.
Is there any audio editor that allows more accurate and precise editing
of mp3s than sounforge? Samplitude perhaps?

kind regards, Niek

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro,alt.music.mp3 (More info?)

dadiOH wrote:
> dohduhdah@gmail.com wrote:
> > Hey.
> > Is there anybody who can confirm or deny whether or not the mp3
format
> > requires a little section (0.025 seconds or so) of silence
> > at the end and start?
> > When I use soundforge to edit mp3s, I'm unable to cut out those
> > sections of silence.
>
> MP3s consist of "frames", each frame being 0.02 second IIRC. If you
are
> editing with SoundForge (or any wave editor) the MP3 has been
decoded.
> Presumably, when your edited wave is re-encoded to MP3 it is encoded
so
> that the last frame is complete; if you chopped the wave so that the
> last frame had to be "reconstituted" then it would have to be filled
> with silence.

But when soundforge opens an mp3, it doesn't have to encode it right
(only decode it to wav)?
Only when I safe it with soundforge, so I ought to be able to inspect
mp3s with soundforge to check whether or not there is still a tiny
section of silence at the end or start left at a highly magnified level
of zoom.

> _____________
>
> > Is there any audio editor that allows more accurate and precise
> > editing of mp3s than sounforge? Samplitude perhaps?
>
> For what you want to do, MP3Trim would be better. You can only trim
on
> frame boundaries but at least the file doesn't have to be
> decoded/re-encoded.

I tried that. I trimmed 1 and even more frames from a few mp3s that
ought to blend into each other seamlessly, played them in winamp and
there was still a gap between them. In soundforge the silence at the
end and start remained visible, so presumably the silence at the end
and start of an mp3 are something inherent in the mp3 format.

>
> http://www.mptrim.com/
>
>
> --
> dadiOH
> ____________________________
>
> dadiOH's dandies v3.06...
> ...a help file of info about MP3s, recording from
> LP/cassette and tips & tricks on this and that.
> Get it at http://mysite.verizon.net/xico

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro,alt.music.mp3 (More info?)

"name" <dohduhdah@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1113064700.823926.157700@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>
> dadiOH wrote:
> >
> > For what you want to do, MP3Trim would be better. You can only trim on
> > frame boundaries but at least the file doesn't have to be
> > decoded/re-encoded.
>
> I tried that. I trimmed 1 and even more frames from a few mp3s that
> ought to blend into each other seamlessly, played them in winamp and
> there was still a gap between them. In soundforge the silence at the
> end and start remained visible, so presumably the silence at the end
> and start of an mp3 are something inherent in the mp3 format.
>
============

Test by merging trimmed files, and listen if the gaps are still there.
---
WinAmp: Increase your "Buffer-ahead on track change" in waveOut (or DirectSound, whichever you use)
output plug-in.


Don
NP: "Another Brick in the Wall Pt 1->The Happiest Days of Our Lives->Another Brick in the Wall Pt
2" - Pink Floyd

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro,alt.music.mp3 (More info?)

Don M. wrote:
> "name" <dohduhdah@gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:1113064700.823926.157700@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> >
> > dadiOH wrote:
> > >
> > > For what you want to do, MP3Trim would be better. You can only
trim on
> > > frame boundaries but at least the file doesn't have to be
> > > decoded/re-encoded.
> >
> > I tried that. I trimmed 1 and even more frames from a few mp3s that
> > ought to blend into each other seamlessly, played them in winamp
and
> > there was still a gap between them. In soundforge the silence at
the
> > end and start remained visible, so presumably the silence at the
end
> > and start of an mp3 are something inherent in the mp3 format.
> >
> ============
>
> Test by merging trimmed files, and listen if the gaps are still
there.

I tested it two times by removing 1 as well as 2 frames from the start
and end of two mp3s that ought to blend into each other seamlessly and
merged them with mp3directcut. There still remains some discontinuity.

> ---
> WinAmp: Increase your "Buffer-ahead on track change" in waveOut (or
DirectSound, whichever you use)
> output plug-in.
>
>
> Don
> NP: "Another Brick in the Wall Pt 1->The Happiest Days of Our
Lives->Another Brick in the Wall Pt
> 2" - Pink Floyd

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro,alt.music.mp3 (More info?)

Tom Cole wrote:
> "name" <dohduhdah@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >Well, I'm just trying to find out if there is some way to play mp3s
> >(with some software or hardware player) without a gap between
> >consecutive tracks.
> >Some music is intended to play without any gap whatsoever since the
> >tracks blend into each other seamlessly. If there is any gap,
however
> >small, it's annoying.
>
>
> If you're playing your mp3s with Winamp, you can use a plugin to
remove
> the gap between tracks. I use MP3Splice - see the Winamp Plugins page
> for more details.

I tried a gapless playback plugin for winamp and it does reduce the gap
somewhat but doesn't eliminate it completely.

>
> If you are encoding MP3s yourself using lame, see
> http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/v [...] plessHowTo for useful
> information on how to achieve this.

But the very fact that mp3s employ frames implies that most mp3s
contain a minute section of silence at the end (or start), unless in
the rare instances that the time of the track (and wav files can have
arbitrary length) is a manifold of the duration of a frame.
Hence, when you merge together two mp3s, it's likely to contain a
slight gap between them.

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro,alt.music.mp3 (More info?)

Harkhof said...

> If one were to merge the mp3s (for the sake of simplicity, say 2 mp3s),
> would the merge also merge the frames of silence between the two? And if so,
> is it possible that the merge would produce a complete frame of silence,
> enabling one to remove the "now complete frame", or at least provide the
> ability to reduce the length of silence between the two songs?

No. Merging two will not combine the contents of any blocks, just line
up the last of one with the first of another. If you merge the two the
silence at the end of the first remains and any silence at the beginning
of the second is then added.

This thread is going over something that has been tried and re-tried over
and again for as long as there have been mp3s and there really is no re-
invention of the wheel waiting in the wings. Lame has tried with limited
success to address the problem of the tiny bit of silence between tracks
with gapless encoding, but you have to be the ripper/encoder to take
advantage of this. Others have tried to address the problem by ripping
the CD to one big mp3 file and then cutting it with a utility and
including a cue sheet for re-joining it seamlessly. See the paragraph
titled "How I do it" for more detail:

http://www.cappycue.com/split.html

This works, but again you have to be the ripper/encoder to take advantage
of this or you have to be lucky enough, if you are downloading the files
in question, to get them from someone who cared enough about the sound to
go to the extra bit of trouble involved.

You aren't going to "solve" it with files anyone ripped/encoded via
normal methods by using fading, concatenation, merging, trimming, or any
other method. The millisecond of silence is simply inherent to the
format.

The choices are pretty much: get over it, get used to it, or get some
other way to listen to the CD.

--
CQ

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro,alt.music.mp3 (More info?)

>>
>> Does 0.02 (1/50) of a second make that much difference to you? If
> so,
>> you might want to switch to lossless but compressed wave such as
> FLAC,
>> SHN, APE, etc.
>
> Well, I'm just trying to find out if there is some way to play mp3s
> (with some software or hardware player) without a gap between
> consecutive tracks.
> Some music is intended to play without any gap whatsoever since the
> tracks blend into each other seamlessly. If there is any gap, however
> small, it's annoying.

If that's your primary concern - and you don't mind buying a new hardware
player - buy a Rio Karma. About 130 UKP on eBay.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI [...] eName=WDVW


Famous for the excellence of it's gapless MP3 playback. Here's an article
with nice drawings demonstrating the fact:

http://www.pretentiousname.com/mp3players/


I have a Karma, and gapless sounds perfect to me (although it's not a
feature I find important personally). A great player generally.

Sean

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro,alt.music.mp3 (More info?)

"CQ" <me@privacy.net> wrote in message
news:1113136445.53aac4e2184bfd87eef1a9bc46d0dff9@teranews...
> Harkhof said...
>
>> If one were to merge the mp3s (for the sake of simplicity, say 2 mp3s),
>> would the merge also merge the frames of silence between the two? And if
>> so,
>> is it possible that the merge would produce a complete frame of silence,
>> enabling one to remove the "now complete frame", or at least provide the
>> ability to reduce the length of silence between the two songs?
>
> No. Merging two will not combine the contents of any blocks, just line
> up the last of one with the first of another. If you merge the two the
> silence at the end of the first remains and any silence at the beginning
> of the second is then added.
>
> This thread is going over something that has been tried and re-tried over
> and again for as long as there have been mp3s and there really is no re-
> invention of the wheel waiting in the wings. Lame has tried with limited
> success to address the problem of the tiny bit of silence between tracks
> with gapless encoding, but you have to be the ripper/encoder to take
> advantage of this. Others have tried to address the problem by ripping
> the CD to one big mp3 file and then cutting it with a utility and
> including a cue sheet for re-joining it seamlessly. See the paragraph
> titled "How I do it" for more detail:
>
> http://www.cappycue.com/split.html
>
> This works, but again you have to be the ripper/encoder to take advantage
> of this or you have to be lucky enough, if you are downloading the files
> in question, to get them from someone who cared enough about the sound to
> go to the extra bit of trouble involved.
>
> You aren't going to "solve" it with files anyone ripped/encoded via
> normal methods by using fading, concatenation, merging, trimming, or any
> other method. The millisecond of silence is simply inherent to the
> format.
>
> The choices are pretty much: get over it, get used to it, or get some
> other way to listen to the CD.
>


Thanks for the comprehensive reply, CQ. Fortunately, for me, this is a
theoretical question. And, as I never download, but only buy the CD and rip
myself, this should never be the issue that it is for some.
Thanks for posting the link. I found it very informative and, through the
link and this post, learned more about the format.

Hark