Joining CD Tracks - A Guide

[sehested]

Gapless playback... Not really. What you get is a huge combined song that do not allow the songs to be played individually.

Not even iTunes do proper gapless playback. Yeah you can crossfade, but even with 0 second crossfade you will normally hear a small glitch between songs.

As for the iPod there is no such thing as gapless playback. There is a pause between the individual songs - very annoying when listening to concept albums.

There are other portable players supporting proper gapless playback - such as the Rio Karma.
It should be a simple matter for Apple to make a software update for their iPods that allow gapless playback, that is if they want to.

Some time back there was a petition for getting Apple to provide true gapless playback in iTunes and on their iPods.

We are many still waiting for Apple to implement this feature.

 

[jasperstory]

Perhaps the reason they are currently unwilling to is because having imported Gap-Less playback would mean people would be more likely to import CDs rather than buying the individual Tunes off the Itunes Music Story.

Just a thought.

 

[christopher]

Gapless playback... Not really. What you get is a huge combined song that do not allow the songs to be played individually.

Not even iTunes do proper gapless playback. Yeah you can crossfade, but even with 0 second crossfade you will normally hear a small glitch between songs.

As for the iPod there is no such thing as gapless playback. There is a pause between the individual songs - very annoying when listening to concept albums.

There are other portable players supporting proper gapless playback - such as the Rio Karma.
It should be a simple matter for Apple to make a software update for their iPods that allow gapless playback, that is if they want to.

Some time back there was a petition for getting Apple to provide true gapless playback in iTunes and on their iPods.

We are many still waiting for Apple to implement this feature.

True gapless is as much a hardware requirement as a software requirement. The reason the Karma can do proper gapless is because it has two decoders, which the player alternates between - that means it can start to decode and cache the next track whilst the present track is still playing the last few frames. So as you can see, it's not as simple as a firmware update. It costs more to make, would require a fairly big change to the present firmware's construction (and the way it interacts on a low level with the decoding hardware), and of course that firmware would then become backwardly-incompatible.

I loved my old Rio CDMP3 player for that reason - when playing back MP3s it did it truly gaplessly. It's the one key feature that nearly all companies seem to have left out whilst in search of saving a few quid on development and production. Real shame.

 

[Swishy Raccoon]

Is there a way to join these files AFTER it's been imported? I ask because I got an audiobook on CD and it's spread across 22 discs, and I would like all the tracks to be merged into one file.

 

[iric]

christopher,

I disagree that you need 2 independent hardware decoders to do gapless. I suspect with a single decoder, if it can decode faster than realtime, you should be able to analyze the ends of 2 adjoining tracks, remove the gap if necessary, then put the modified, gapless stream into the playing buffer where it is decoded as a constant stream.

But even if that's not possible, it's largely irrelevant. Using markers, bookmarks, or whatever name you prefer, it is easy to have an entire album encoded as a single, continuous track (with no gaps) and still treat each track in the album as if it were a discrete track simply by using the timepoint bookmarks to distinguish the beginning and end of each track within the larger file. The processing requirements for this approach are trivial. And, in fact, the iPod already has this capability for audio books. It simply hasn't been integrated into the main music database, where it truly belongs. Furthermore, since Apple prides itself on the strong integration between the iPod and iTunes, it would be trivial for iTunes to rip an entire CD and add the relevant track time indexes either in a separate file or within the file's header. Ideally, it would just use something like the .cue file format for compatibility, but a proprietary format would work just as well. This would require you to re-rip some of your CDs, but otherwise would require relatively minor modifications to iTunes and the iPod software. The low processing requirements means it could be incorporated across the board to the original iPods.

 

[behedwin]

Hi! I really dont understand why my "join track" is greyed!

i do it like this...

1. open itunes and import two mp3 files from my computer
2. right-click and types in track number and then sort them after that (1, 2)
3. Then i press on "select all" and then i go to advance and there i se join track greyed! why?

what am i doing wrong? i dont understand what is wrong...

i tryed to convert mp3 files to acc files and then do the same thing but it does not work.

i tryed to use import options insted of adding files to libary, but it does not work!

what shall i do? please help me!

 

[Jesse Hollington]

Unfortunately, the "Join Tracks" option only works when importing from a CD. You have to select to join the tracks in the original CD view before you import them.

There are third-party utilities that can accomplish this for you with existing MP3 files. A quick Google search for a phrase like "MP3 join" should reveal a number of possibilities.

 

[MattJH2]

I've used the "join tracks" feature before with my Pink Floyd albums - and you're right, when shuffling through you're library there's a chance a whole album will appear in the rotation. So I also import the CD as individual tracks. I keep the full album unchecked in iTunes so it doesn't come up in shuffle mode. If I want to listen to the whole gapless album I just play it manually (or manually put it on my iPod to listen to later).
All of the albums I have imported as gapless are albums that are meant to be heard all at once, where each track flows into the next with a natural musical transition.
In my opinion, it would be useless to import a CD with gapless playback if you wanted to shuffle through the tracks anyway (except for live concert recordings).
Anyway - I really like this feature of iTunes, but the fact that you need to import the CD twice (once as gapless, once as individual tracks) in order to be able to select tracks AND listen to the whole album at once is kind of a pain.

 

[J.Maiorana]

I have a question...........Is there any way to join the tracks and then change the file extension so iTunes and the iPod think it is an audiobook so you could put markers in where the tracks are joined? I dont know enough about audiobooks, but I thought there was a way to do that..............

 

[J.Maiorana]

anyone?

 

[Ted T.]

Gapless playback... Not really. What you get is a huge combined song that do not allow the songs to be played individually.

Not even iTunes do proper gapless playback. Yeah you can crossfade, but even with 0 second crossfade you will normally hear a small glitch between songs.
...
Some time back there was a petition for getting Apple to provide true gapless playback in iTunes and on their iPods.

We are many still waiting for Apple to implement this feature.

This is very upsetting, because I intended to replace my CD player with a Mac Mini and rip my entire CD collection to Apple Lossless -- considering that so much of it is Classical music, gapless playback is a non-negotiable necessity.

So even with Apple Lossless, and 0 second crossfade you still get a hiccup in iTunes? Has anyone played with this?

Thanks,
Ted

 

[questlove]

merged AAC incomplete

I've merged a set of mp3's using Mp3Trackmaker, and when i go into iTunes to convert to AAC, it only converts as far as the original 1st track (so like 1:30 into a 8 hour book 120meg file).

Has anyone seen this problem before?

I tried it on another set of tracks and they worked fine.

Anyone?

Thanks a ton
- L

 

[Neon Kitten]

But even if that's not possible, it's largely irrelevant. Using markers, bookmarks, or whatever name you prefer, it is easy to have an entire album encoded as a single, continuous track (with no gaps) and still treat each track in the album as if it were a discrete track simply by using the timepoint bookmarks to distinguish the beginning and end of each track within the larger file. The processing requirements for this approach are trivial. And, in fact, the iPod already has this capability for audio books. It simply hasn't been integrated into the main music database, where it truly belongs.

Interestingly, I subscribed to a BBC podcast called "The Best Of Moyles - Enhanced Version", and the first one that downloaded was a 64Kb/s AAC file - with chapters! And not only chapters like audiobooks have, but a drop-down list of them that appears next to the song title/position display in iTunes, with colour thumbnail pictures and titles for each chapter.

So it IS possible to do on a standard AAC file. Anyone know how?

And Apple, if you're listening, THIS is how to handle the "join tracks" feature!

 

[mesablack]

hi, first post!

now does this 'join tracks' thing just work with proper 'bought' audio cds, as i have burned
mp3s to a cdr, then put the cdr in itunes...checked they r in sequence, selected all, join tracks then import......the result? i have one long mp3 file as expected, but there are still gaps on playback.
in addition can these 'one file' mp3s then be burned to cdr with no gaps?

thanks!
rob

 

[Jesse Hollington]

Hi and welcome to iLounge.

While the "Join CD Tracks" feature will work with any audio CD, whether or not it's going to provide any kind of gapless playback will depend entirely on the original CD, and the tracks that are on that CD.

Most CD burning software will add a 2 second gap between tracks unless you specifically tell it not to when burning the CD (and not all software provides the option to override this).

In addition, if there are gaps in the audio tracks themselves then there is little that joining CD tracks or any other kind of 'gapless' feature can do to actually play the tracks without the gap, since in this case the silence is part of the audio file.

To burn a CD without any gaps from iTunes, you can go into Edit->Preferences->Advanced->Burning and set your "Gap Between Songs" to NONE. Again, however, this will not help if the silence is actually in the tracks.

 

[robert]

Joining AAC files/tracks

I'm not aware of any utilities that join AAC files, since it's a less mainstream format. ...

YAMB (freeware for windows) will split or join AAC and many other file fomats. AAC files must have m4a extensions, so merging any m4b audio book files requires renaming m4a before joining or splitting and renaming m4b after performing the operation.

YAMB is also useful in making unplayable files work -- those which have gone to 0:00:00 time after an iTunes update. This happened to older SoundTaxi created files -- now fixed in current versions of SoundTaxi. Simply trim a few nano seconds off the beginning of the file and you have it. I have no idea why this works.

I know this thread is old but was searching for a solution to mix a homemade voice file and a music file, when this thread came up. So far, looks like freeware Audacity is as good a way as any.

 

[applesacks]

my ipod and itunes plays gapless albums gaplessly, i don't understand the problem here.
i just select all the tracks within an album and select "yes" on the gapless album option under "get info".
and yes i know what a gapless album is.

 

[Jesse Hollington]

Well, most of this thread pre-dates the introduction of gapless playback on the iPod.... That feature wasn't introduced until September of 2006, and prior to that, joining CD tracks was really the only way to get true reliable gapless playback -- and in fact it still is if you have an older iPod model (pre-5G).

Incidentally, you don't need to actually turn ON the "Part of a Gapless Album" feature to get gapless playback on the iPod -- that option simply tells iTunes not to cross-fade between those tracks when playing them back in iTunes. The gapless analysis that iTunes does when importing the tracks determines whether the tracks are played back gaplessly on the iPod or not.

 

[applesacks]

oh wow i didnt even notice that. im glad i waited until now to get an ipod. that would've really ####ed me off.

 

[xenooreo]

This isn't really relevant anymore, all the ipods from the last 2 generations can play gapless albums. So why is this stickied?