Nero burn versus Winamp play? MP3s

[SkaarjMaster]

I know there's a discussion somewhere on this forum about this, but I can't find it right now. I played some MP3s of some songs that run into one another in WinAmp and they played fine with no pauses or very slight gaps. I then burned them with Nero and played them on my computer drive (Asus DVD-ROM on the SkaarjMasterDuo computer in my sig) and I could hear some slight gaps in the music and the same happens on my CD player in the car. It seems to be hit and miss on this kind of thing in the past, but it seems like I'm getting it more these days. Anyone know why this happens? Could it be because I'm burning the CD-R at 48X and not 24X or 16X? I'm using Taiyo Yuden media, so that's not the problem. Any ideas before I burn another CD-R at 24X and see what happens? Thank you.

[Ian]

You'll want to burn using DAO and set the gap for the tracks to 0 seconds. To set the gap, you need to right click on the track and go into properties.

[SkaarjMaster]

I usually use Nero Express and set the gap for zero seconds anyway. This has worked with Nero Express before, so what has changed lately. I've noticed Encoder Delay and Zero Padding numbers in the information section of the files. Does this have anything to do with it?

[redk9258]

For the file to play seamlessly from an audio CD the files must be in increments of 1/75th of a second. Otherwise the software adds silence to fill out that sector. 1 sector (or frame) on an audio CD = 1/75 seconds.

[SkaarjMaster]

So do I have to edit the files in Nero before I burn them and how do I do this without losing any music?

[redk9258]

I don't really use Nero Sound Editor for editing files, but if you are just trimming silence then you are not losing music (at least not more than 1/75th of a second). I opened a file with Nero Sound Editor and I don't see a way to change the time to show CD Audio frames (1/75th of a second), so I would use another program Like Audacity (free, open source).

What is the source of the music? From the internet or from a CD? If it's from a CD you may want to use Exact Audio Copy to re-rip the files. If from the internet, you may want to use Audacity to convert the files to WAV and trim to an increment of 1/75th of a second (or more precisely, an increment of 588 samples) before burning. I haven't used Audacity for a while, but I'm sure it can do this.

Alternately, you may be able to use Nero Sound Editor to put all of the files together as one WAV file, then insert track markers to burn as a CD.

[SkaarjMaster]

If it was from a CD, then yes I always use EAC to rip them and definitely WAVs for burning. These files are mp3s from another source. Never used Nero Sound Editor, but in Nero Express I add the files to create an Audio CD, then highlight the file and hit "Properties". Then I go to the "Indexes,Limits,Split" window and it shows the wave form I believe and I can then edit how much of the song I want burned. I use this for songs that have stuff at the beginning or end that I don't want for particular purposes. Basically, you can edit the start and end positions. For example, one song shows a start position of 0:00.00 and end position of 5:35.21 so based on what you said about 1/75th of a second, if I change the end time to 5:35.20 and that would be 15/75 of a second after the 5:35 mark. Do you think this will work? I may have to zoom in on the end of the form and see if I'm cutting off any music and it may be that I need to make this cut at the beginning of the next song. I do have Audacity but I don't use it that much at all. This Nero method would be easier for me. Does it sound like it might work?

[redk9258]

You almost need to have the resolution down to the sample level to make sure. If you go one sample over 1/75th of a second the rest of that frame will be filled with silence. You can certainly try your method to see how it comes out. Of course if you see some silence that you are going to edit out, you can bet that would cause a glitch.

[SkaarjMaster]

So if a burn of the mp3 files doesn't play right, does it mean the original rip was done wrong and the mp3s file I have can't be burned correctly?

EDIT: also I just checked and that 21 IS actually out of 75 because I tried changing it to 99 just for fun and it asked me to enter a number between 0 and 74. What does this mean?

EDIT: also is it just a matter of getting the frames to be a multiple of 75 because Winamp shows this song to have 12834 frames, so if I chop of 9 it would be 12825 ( a multiple of 75), so maybe that would mean changing the .21 to .12 Does this make any sense at all?

[redk9258]

So if a burn of the mp3 files doesn't play right, does it mean the original rip was done wrong and the mp3s file I have can't be burned correctly?

EDIT: also I just checked and that 21 IS actually out of 75 because I tried changing it to 99 just for fun and it asked me to enter a number between 0 and 74. What does this mean?

EDIT: also is it just a matter of getting the frames to be a multiple of 75 because Winamp shows this song to have 12834 frames, so if I chop of 9 it would be 12825 ( a multiple of 75), so maybe that would mean changing the .21 to .12 Does this make any sense at all?

Well 0 to 74 = 75. So they start counting at zero.

You should not have to chop off 9 frames unless you are trying to make the file in an even second. What matters is that the sound file is filled for the whole frame.

588 samples = 1 frame.
75 frames = 1 second.

Audio CD format is sampled at 44,100 Hz (22,050Hz per channel).
44,100 / 75 = 588 samples per second.
1 Audio CD sector = 2352 bytes

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Book_% ... al_details

[SkaarjMaster]

So why does this 5:35 song show 12834 frames and that divided by 75 is not even close to 335 seconds?

Here's the Winamp info for this 5 minutes and 35 second song:
Payload Size: 13410220 bytes
Header found at: 2322 bytes
Encoder Delay: 576, Zero Padding: 1872
Length: 335 seconds
MPEG-1 layer 3
320kbit, 12834 frames
44100Hz Joint Stereo
CRC: No, Copyrighted: No
Original: Yes, Emphasis: None

EDIT: OK, I converted to a WAV file in Audacity and saved the file and Audacity shows this at the end of the file (5:35.281633). Does this mean I need to shave off that last 0.001633 and make it end at 5:35.280000 and how do you do that? Although, I zoomed in on the wav form and it looks like a flat line (no music) from 5:35.251323 until the end, so maybe Audacity inserted some silence at the end when it converted it. This is strange and I'm thinking maybe a slower burn might solve the problem. Any thoughts? But I also need to zoom in on the original MP3 file also (it shows same thing).

Just for the heck of it, I opened the file up in Foobar 2000 and it shows duration as 5:35.200 (14782320 samples); divided by 588 would get 25140.

EDIT AGAIN: This seems to suggest I burn at 8X and use DAO in the actual Nero Burning ROM.
http://www.dvd-guides.com/content/view/132/59/
If so then what good is Nero Express, except for messing up your Audio CD burns? (nevermind, Nero Express is set to burn DAO) Also, I remember from asking this question in the past that 16X or even 24X might work also.

[redk9258]

I'm not sure what an mp3 frame is. On and Audio CD it is one sector or 1/75th of a second.
If Audiacity shows 5:35.281633, it probably really is. ANd yes I would try shaving the end off.
I've never had to burn CDs at a slow rate, but maybe your burner is different.

How about ripping your own WAV files from a live CD or something like Dark Side Of The Moon. Then use Nero to burn it as DAO with no gaps. See if this works. If so then you know it's a problem with MP3 files and not the burning software / Nero.

[SkaarjMaster]

I'm fairly certain ripping into WAV format from a CD like that should be no problem, but I have never tried it with this burner yet. Wait, the test CDs I did last week mentioned in the thread in the CD-R... section here were burned like that but I never played them. I'll try playing one tonight (It's Tool - 10,000 Days and I'm pretty sure in at least one spot the songs run into one another). I may also try burning those songs (the first one is the 5:35 song mentioned throughout this thread) at 10X on my Pioneer and see what happens.......if not then I'll try 8X or 16X on my BenQ. I was just trying to minimize the coasters before I started trying again.

So you're saying the Audio CD frame and WAV frames are the same, but the MP3 frame is different? Also, if it is just a matter of hit and miss with the MP3s, then it would be nice to know that for sure.

[redk9258]

I don't know what a WAV or MP3 frame is. I just know that for seamless playback WAV files need to be in increments of 588 samples or 1/75th second. I've never used MP3 files as a source for continuous music, only WAV. If the files are MP3, then the burning software has to convert it to the proper format for an Audio CD. Maybe Nero is messing this up. Maybe the MP3 files have extra info in the header. Why not combine all of the files into one big WAV, edit out any glitches with Audacity or Nero Sound Editor, then write a CUE file for it. Then You can burn with ImgBurn or Nero.

[SkaarjMaster]

Hopefully, I'll figure something out tonight or tomorrow night. Yep, MP3s seem to be a bit difficult. I'm still not sure about the header, encoder delay and zero padding, but it may have something to do with that; I did look them up also and am still confused. I may also try ripping a WAV from a CD I already have and comparing to an MP3 that was downloaded and compare the WAV forms and see what's up. Thanks for all your help so far.

Found some more info on encoder delay, etc., so instead of keeping it to myself I'll post the link here:
http://forums.winamp.com/showthread.php?postid=2527525

The stuff mentioned in this link seems to suggest it might not be an easy process to burn MP3s seamlessly.
http://lame.sourceforge.net/tech-FAQ.txt

OK, no problem at all burning WAV files with the Pioneer burner. On Tool's 10,000 Days songs 7 and 8 run together and songs 9 and 10 run together, so I may test burn them on CDs and see what happens as well as analyze WAV and MP3 versions in Audacity and see if anything works. I really don't think burning at 10X will really help at this point, but I'll try that sometime also.

[SkaarjMaster]

I just used Audacity to trim the MP3 file based on comparing it to the WAV for tracks 7 and 8, then I saved the result as a WAV file. I just burned the original EAC WAV files of each track and the trimmed WAV files of each one, so I could compare and listen to the boundary area. I can't listen tonight, but I'll listen to all CDs tomorrow (original Tool CD tracks 7 and 8, EAC WAV files tracks, Audiograbber MP3 files tracks, trimmed MP3 files saved as WAV). It should be interesting how each one sounds at the boundary between tracks 7 and 8. By the way, each MP3 track only has 243 bytes of header (no encoder delay and no zero padding), but you can tell stuff was added to start and end of tracks........start for the header and end to fill up the frame would be my guess. This is a crazy process and almost not worth it, but I need to find out for myself if it's worth it or not. I did listen to a WAV burn and MP3 burn of the tracks and I think I can handle it with only a header and no trimming, but I think the problem arises and it sounds a lot worse with the encoder delay and zero padding. It also can be hit and miss when you have only the MP3 file to deal with and no original WAV or anything like that.

EDIT: listened to CDs on the way to work and even trimming the header out, you still hear something tick between the songs. Let's just say it's not worth it to just take the header out, so any MP3s burned with just the header will remain as they are for my collection. Now I need to find MP3 files (with encoder delay and zero padding) for something that has tracks that run into one another where I bought the CD later and still have these MP3 files on the computer. As soon as I find these (or give up and just DL something), I'll continue this experiment.

[redk9258]

I've come to the conclusion MP3 sucks for continuous music. I was looking at some MP3 files that I ripped from Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon and see glitches at the beginning and end of the files. I used EAC and LAME to encode. I think Winamp and even WMP are smart enough to remove the little bit of silence when played continuously.

I was able to use Nero Wave Editor to put the files together as one WAV file, edit out the glitches and insert CD track markers. After I saved and reopened the file, the track markers were gone. So at this point I think I would either have to use other software or write my own CUE sheet to use to burn the WAV file to CD.

Another thing I noticed, In Nero Burning ROM 10, there is an option to remove silence at the end of tracks. I don't know if this would remove the glitches or not.

[SkaarjMaster]

Winamp seems to play the files fine, but it's just when I burn them and create an Audio CD is where the problem arises. Let me listen again to MP3 files that I know have encoder delay, etc. in Winamp tonight to make sure about that though. I'm still using Nero 6, but I doubt that's the problem.

EDIT: yes, you're right. The WAVs from Dark Side play fine in Winamp, but the MP3s I created from Audiograbber (set for 256kbit/s, joint stereo, normal quality, Lame) have a very slight glitch and it is most evident between tracks 1-2, 5-6, 6-7, 7-8 and 8-9. The only thing I see extra in Winamp info is header at 242 bytes, but no other extra stuff. I know Winamp plays some MP3s all the way through without problems, so I wonder why this messes up. Hmmmmmmm..........
For instance, Rush - Different Stages LIVE has two songs that followed each other in the actual concert (Dreamline and Limelight, songs 1 and 2 on Disc 1-set one) and no pause at all between the MP3 tracks in Winamp. These have header, encoder delay and zero padding set at 2322 bytes, 576 and 1284/1872 (1284 for Dreamline and 1872 for Limelight), respectively.

This is interesting (read Part3: Audio, LayerIII/MP3): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPEG-1

EDIT AGAIN: I'll get back to this once "real life" crap stops delaying me.

Funny I did a search for threads I started here and I asked some of the same questions 3-4 years ago.....hmmmmmm........last time I just wrote it off as a problem but this time I probed further and now know why it happens.