What is Gapless playback?

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camaron
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What is Gapless playback?

Post by camaron »

In the process of creating documentation for Guayadeque I've just being discussing with Anonbeat what is and is not Gapless playback. We kind of disagree and also seem to have different ideas as to what people in general think is Gapless playback. So we thought we'd better ask everyone.
If you rip and import a CD into your Library and play it with Guayadeque with fade out value of 0 the album will be played as if you just played your cd from the your stereo. In my view this is NOT gapless playback as there are usually 2-3 seconds silence between tracks. To me gapless playback would be to play all the tracks one after another without these seconds in between (but without overlap between the songs)
What is gapless playback for you?
mr_hangman
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What is Gapless playback?

Post by mr_hangman »

In my opinion, the gapless playback is when there is no pause between tracks at all.
If you listen to a live concert CD with gapless playback, you wouldn't notice that the song is changed to the next one even though the singer keeps talking between the tracks. You'll feel like there's just one long track on the CD.
If we are going to have a vote, I'll really vote for this feature.
tamalet
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What is Gapless playback?

Post by tamalet »

I agree, for me gapeless is when there is no pause, but not fade in/out either.
For some discs of for instance Pink Floyd or Led Zeppelin it makes a big difference.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gapless_playback:
Gapless playback is the uninterrupted playback of consecutive audio tracks without intervening silence or clicks at the point of the track change. Gapless playback is common with compact discs, gramophone records, or tapes, but is not always available with other formats that employ compressed digital audio. This may be a source of annoyance to listeners of music where tracks segue into each other, such as some classical music (opera in particular), progressive rock, electronic music, and live recordings with audience noise between tracks.

From http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1797?viewlocale=en_US
Gapless playback means that there is no pause in playback between the end of one audio file and the beginning of the next audio file. This allows for playback of content with no gaps the way it was meant to be heard. Some examples of gapless albums include:
"Dark Side of the Moon" by Pink Floyd
"Abbey Road" by The Beatles
Many live and classical albums
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anonbeat
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What is Gapless playback?

Post by anonbeat »

tamalet wrote:I agree, for me gapeless is when there is no pause, but not fade in/out either.
For some discs of for instance Pink Floyd or Led Zeppelin it makes a big difference.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gapless_playback:
Gapless playback is the uninterrupted playback of consecutive audio tracks without intervening silence or clicks at the point of the track change. Gapless playback is common with compact discs, gramophone records, or tapes, but is not always available with other formats that employ compressed digital audio. This may be a source of annoyance to listeners of music where tracks segue into each other, such as some classical music (opera in particular), progressive rock, electronic music, and live recordings with audience noise between tracks.

From http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1797?viewlocale=en_US
Gapless playback means that there is no pause in playback between the end of one audio file and the beginning of the next audio file. This allows for playback of content with no gaps the way it was meant to be heard. Some examples of gapless albums include:
"Dark Side of the Moon" by Pink Floyd
"Abbey Road" by The Beatles
Many live and classical albums
That is exactly what I say. But imagine now that a track have a long fade out and in that fade out the last mid second is almost silence... if you play this in gapless mode you will hear a silence... Is that gapless or not ? for me it is gapless even if you can hear the silence because the silence is part of the track.
camaron
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What is Gapless playback?

Post by camaron »

anonbeat wrote:That is exactly what I say. But imagine now that a track have a long fade out and in that fade out the last mid second is almost silence... if you play this in gapless mode you will hear a silence... Is that gapless or not ? for me it is gapless even if you can hear the silence because the silence is part of the track.
I don't think you are actually agreeing. In just about any normal Pop/Rock CD there are probably about 2/3 silence between songs (or breathing time if you like). Technically this silence is not a gap as it forms part of the songs (usually it is located at the end of the songs). As things are just now Guayadeque understanding of gapless playback would leave those few seconds between songs and call this Gapless. But most people I think would not call that gapless. You remove those few seconds and that is gapless (without actuall crossfading though)
camaron
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What is Gapless playback?

Post by camaron »

edit: 2-3 SECONDS of silence (in case it wasn't obvious..)
tamalet
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What is Gapless playback?

Post by tamalet »

I think don't agree with you there camaron. I think that gapeless playback should remove the silence only when there is no silence on the original disc.
If I listen to a rock album and in the original there is some silence between songs then that silence should be respected even in gapeless mode. I think that gapeless is about how to imitate the continuous playback of some albums.

Try for instance to record a Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd on an audio CD. On normal CDs you cannot reproduce that gapeless playback and the 2 seconds silence between songs is horrible.
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anonbeat
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What is Gapless playback?

Post by anonbeat »

Im not talking about the 2 seconds between tracks. Im talking about at the end of tracks there are usually some low level signals that are considered still as track or the example I told you of the U2 hidden track that is after two minutes of silence of the last Official track a new song start but its still the same track for the cd player and rippers also.
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anonbeat
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What is Gapless playback?

Post by anonbeat »

tamalet wrote:I think don't agree with you there camaron. I think that gapeless playback should remove the silence only when there is no silence on the original disc.
If I listen to a rock album and in the original there is some silence between songs then that silence should be respected even in gapeless mode. I think that gapeless is about how to imitate the continuous playback of some albums.

Try for instance to record a Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd on an audio CD. On normal CDs you cannot reproduce that gapeless playback and the 2 seconds silence between songs is horrible.
That is exactly my point
camaron
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What is Gapless playback?

Post by camaron »

tamalet wrote:I think don't agree with you there camaron. I think that gapeless playback should remove the silence only when there is no silence on the original disc.
If I listen to a rock album and in the original there is some silence between songs then that silence should be respected even in gapeless mode. I think that gapeless is about how to imitate the continuous playback of some albums.

Try for instance to record a Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd on an audio CD. On normal CDs you cannot reproduce that gapeless playback and the 2 seconds silence between songs is horrible.
So according to you any cd played in a stereo is gapless playback?
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