[Tfug] CD Ripping

[Nate]

CDs actually started the whole 2 second gap thing.  By default, they 
will have a 2 second gap.  It's considered part of the tracks meta data 
I think.  You can burn discs with no gaps, though, which is quite common 
now a days for albums that blend one song into the next.  But that's 
another issue...

Any sane ripper that I've ever worked with just rips the audio track 
itself, and doesn't insert any kind of gap in the audio file itself, 
regardless of whether there's a 2 second gap prescribed in the meta data 
of the track on the CD.

What you are no doubt dealing with is the poor iPod implementation of 
playing MP3s.  I have had a theory that Apple did it on purpose to make 
MP3 seem like a lesser format their their own AAC.  This has been 
"fixed" on newer ipods.  So it's just an artifact of your "rescued MP3 
player."  If it's not an iPod, then it's probably just a similar flaw.

So for solutions, you can either:

1. Live with it. (this is what I do on my old iPod in my car)
2. Get a newer iPod.  A quick google search says: iPods that support 
gapless playback: iPod nano (2nd Generation), 5th Generation iPod (Late 
2006) and I'm sure anything newer.
3. Rip CDs as one track.  I actually do this with most of my electronica 
CDs, for different reasons.  I put my iPod on shuffle most of the time, 
and I don't like it coming up with a song in the middle of a mixed CD. 
It will start in the middle of the music, and end in the middle of the 
music.  CDs mixed by a DJ are meant to be played all the way through in 
order.  So I rip them that way.  However, for other kinds of music, this 
would invariable be horrible, because if you wanted to listen to Track 7 
of your favorite CD, you'd have to fast forward through tracks 1-6 to 
get to it.  You might as well use a cassette walkman at that point =).

Nate

Bexley Hall wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I carry a rescued MP3 player around on my daily (nightly?)
> walks -- since walking is *so* boring!  :<
> 
> In general, I don't update the music on it very often.
> It's just more hassle than its worth and whatever is
> there is usually "good enough" to serve as a distraction.
> 
> Recently, I *did* start changing the music.  And, noticed
> something that, had I thought about it ahead of time, I
> should have been wary of!
> 
> The ripping software treats each "cut" on the CD as a
> separate "song".  I suspect the player deliberately inserts
> some fixed amount of dead space *between* songs during
> playback -- even if the songs were originally temporally 
> contiguous.
> 
> Note that vinyl, tape and even CD's are able to play their
> entire contents *without* gaps between songs.  I suppose
> the MP3 player *could* have been designed to NOT insert
> this gap (though how it would "separate" songs by different
> artists would be an issue).
> 
> While this is mildly annoying on my walks, it would be
> *crippling* if all ripping/playback software had a similar
> problem!  I surely don't want to start digitizing my music
> collection only to find all my live recordings, etc.
> "broken up" into an arbitrary set of disjointed "cuts"!
> 
> <frown>
> 
> So, is this *just* an implementation issue that I am facing?
> Is it more likely in the *player* or *ripper*?  How do other
> tools/utilities deal with slicing "sides" of albums into
> discrete "cuts"?
> 
> 
>       
> 
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-- 
Nate
System Admin Manager
System Administration
Ext 220