iTunes - gapless playback mystery

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by somnar, Jul 17, 2017.

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  1. somnar

    somnar Senior Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    NYC & Amsterdam
    I've just finished mixing a new album and am having a problem. A number of the songs segue from one to the next. When I play a burned CD of the album, the segues work perfectly - no gaps in between songs. And, if I take the ripped WAVs, import them into my DAW, and bump them up against one another, they work fine as well - no gaps.

    But when I play the songs - either in WAV, MP3, or AAC - in iTunes, there is a very short gap in between the songs. I Googled "iTunes" and "gapless playback" and there were many posts saying that iTunes can no longer handle gapless playback.

    However, when play the first two songs from Sgt. Pepper (just one example and purchased from the iTunes store), gapless worked fine (meaning there was no moment of silence between the two songs).

    Help!
     
  2. jon9091

    jon9091 Master Of Reality

    Location:
    Midwest
    This might get more attention in the Hardware Forum...
    Which version of iTunes? Mac or PC?
     
    somnar likes this.
  3. John22

    John22 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Northern Germany
    You can user another program like Foobar2000 to test the WAV, MP3, or AAC songs. The program has a portable version and if you hear a gap between the songs then it's a problem with songs.
     
  4. When In Rome

    When In Rome It's far from being all over...

    Location:
    UK
    I'm using the latest iTunes (12.6.1) on a Windows PC (Windows 10) and gapless playback is fine...
    I've noticed that if you play a whole song through, gapless is fine as mentioned but if you try to play the last 5 seconds of a song, gapless will be lost and you'll get the silence! as if it's not had enough buffering (or something)...
     
    InStepWithTheStars likes this.
  5. Lownote30

    Lownote30 Bass Clef Addict

    Location:
    Nashville, TN, USA
    Buffer??? This isn't streaming audio. iTunes is playing audio files. I've had this happen intermittently myself with no explanation from Apple, or anyone for that matter
     
  6. detroit muscle

    detroit muscle MIA

    Location:
    UK
    I get gapless on my iPhone fine.
     
  7. When In Rome

    When In Rome It's far from being all over...

    Location:
    UK
    I know!!! It's just the best way I could describe it. :)
    Play the whole song through, gapless fine. Play the last 5 seconds of a song, gap is present.
    Go figure...
     
    Lownote30 likes this.
  8. rockclassics

    rockclassics Senior Member

    Location:
    Mainline Florida
    Even though it is playing a file iTunes still buffers the data.
     
  9. Chazzbo13

    Chazzbo13 Forum Resident

    May not be the ultimate solution you're seeking, but you can "join" tracks in iTunes when importing, eliminating the gap.
     
    Galley likes this.
  10. Blueshirt

    Blueshirt Forum Resident

    Location:
    Ireland
    FWIW, gapless playback works fine for me in iTunes too. (I haven't updated iTunes in a few years though so it's not the current version that I am using.)
     
  11. Lownote30

    Lownote30 Bass Clef Addict

    Location:
    Nashville, TN, USA
    Yes, but it doesn't play as big of a role as it does when streaming music. The buffer that iTunes uses shouldn't fall behind to the point of having gaps as the data is already right there and can be buffered much faster.
     
  12. When I used to burn CDs from various recording/mixing projects, I used to get occasional gaps that I couldn't seem to get rid of. I found out years later that if I use my audio editing software to align the track markers/cue points to line up with CD sectors, that problem no longer happens. If the end of a track doesn't line up with the end of a CD sector, silence will be added to the end of the track to align it with the next CD sector, causing a gap that may sometimes be detectable.

    The above might not pertain to your problem, but it certainly could help. It solved a pesky iTunes playback problem I had with at least two of my tracks years ago. I've noticed problems with the buffer in iTunes as well. Usually after a few tries, I can get two tracks to segue seamlessly, as long as there is no gap caused by trying to round off to the next CD sector.
     
  13. When In Rome

    When In Rome It's far from being all over...

    Location:
    UK
    Well, the OP has disappeared and left us to it. To paraphase The Stones, maybe he's neglected us as he's still perfecting ways of making seamless gaps... :pineapple:
     
    Schoolmaster Bones likes this.
  14. MikeP5877

    MikeP5877 V/VIII/MCMLXXVII

    Location:
    OH
    Maybe he had his 19th nervous breakdown.
     
  15. somnar

    somnar Senior Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    NYC & Amsterdam
    Sorry, I wasn't getting the alerts that there had been responses! Thanks everybody. Running out the door, but will respond later!
     
  16. NightGoatToCairo

    NightGoatToCairo Forum Resident

    Location:
    .
    His 'Location' suggests he has better things to do!
     
    somnar likes this.
  17. somnar

    somnar Senior Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    NYC & Amsterdam
    OK, so here's the ultimately boring story...

    I finished mastering my new CD - which has a number of tracks that segue in the next with no silence in between - and brought home a burned CD, which played fine on my home CD player, the segues all intact. I then ripped the CD into iTunes, both as WAVs and MP3s and decided to check the segues in iTunes, so I jumped ahead to the end of each song and, as one track led into another, there was a not-so-brief moment of silence. Same with both the WAVs and MP3s. I then brought all the files into my DAW and confirmed that the files looked correct (ie, no silences where they shouldn't be). I then burned CDs from iTunes - one using the new MP3s and the other using the new WAVs - and both CDs played correctly on my home CD player (segues intact).

    I Googled bunch of things and found people saying there was an issue with gapless playback starting with iTunes 12, so I brought the files into other players - WMP, Media Monkey, etc. - and it wasn't perfect, but better than iTunes (Media Monkey was the best).

    Then I saw the above post and thought there's no way that can be right, but thought I might as well try it. So I played my album from start to finish in iTunes and it played correctly - no silences in between tracks. Now the one thing that doesn't make sense to me is that when I - in my initial search to find out what was going on - purchased the first two songs from Sgt. Pepper from the iTunes store and the segue played correctly, even if I just played the last two seconds of track one (which is the thing that I initially with my songs and which started all of this). But it is the Beatles, and I'm me, so I'll chalk it up to that.

    So thanks for the suggestion - all is good in my world now (segue-wise).
     
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