Creating MP3 gap issues

[Dr Klovernutz]

hello
I am new but very familiar with music encoding however I am somewhat new to MP3s

I have an extensive collection of FLACs of live music.
for purposes of size I want to convert my entire CD collection to mp3s for my portable (which does not support FLAC).

For converting my "commercial" CDs to mp3 I use media player which does a fine job.

However for going from FLAC to mp3 my options were limited (I also have SHN to flac conversions to make) until i found this program. But when I make mp3s in powerAMP there is always a .025 sec of silence placed at the begining of each mp3. I updated to the most current LAME .dll (3.97) still I get that silence. Now I used the Blade encoder and there is no silence added to the track (mp3).

Normally I would just use the BLade encoder but i wanted to ask some opinions first:
1. why is lame considered better than Blade? is blade no good?
2. will the same encoder used by WMP be made avaliable for PowerAMP (gapless)
3. I saw that a beta version 12 is out, can i use this for flac > mp3 (i read that the beta version is supposed to be a gapless LAME encoder)?
4. why isn't ther a gapless mp3 encoder yet?
5. Im sure someone else out there has encountered this problem, what did you do?

[LtData]

1. Blade is no longer updated while LAME is still being developed.

3. It is an alpha and it only works with WAV and mp3 files right now, as the codec structure is different than the codec structure of dMC r11.5 and previous.

[Spoon]

No such thing as a gapless encoder, only decoders which know where to look for the gap (encoder delay and padding) and remove it.

Different encoders might have a different delay (silence at beginning), some smaller than others, but there always is a delay.

[Dr Klovernutz]

Spoon,
are you sure about no gapless encoders?
I've taken the same CD and encoded to mp3 different ways and found the following:
wmp> no gaps
blade> no gaps
lame> always .025 sec of silence at begining of track.

I've even double checked by splicing the mp3s back together in soundforge and listened for "clicks" or "pops" at the track changes and only found them on the lame encoded mp3s. Where should I look for the gaps or silence in the other mp3s?

My main concern is that I do not feel like wasting my time converting my collection to mp3s, only to have to do it again when a more widely accepted gapless encoder comes out.

[Deano]

Gapless mp3 on a portable device is simply very unlikely to happen. The only player I have managed to have this working on is my iPod 5G 60gb using Rockbox (http://www.rockbox.org). Using LAME 3.97b2 I have managed to get perfectly gapless playback on the aforementioned platform.

[Dr Klovernutz]

my goal is not to have gapless playback (at this time, I currently have gapless playback through winamp with an old plugin)

My goal/ concern is that I am sure in the near future gaps (both through encoding and decoding) will be a thing of the past with mp3's and I don't want to be stuck with a whole mp3 with gaps. Especially if winMediaPlayer is already making gapless mp3s I predict that the mp3 world will be gapless in the future.
And I really don't feel like re-doing all of my mp3s (especially if dpPowerAMP v12 is going to make gapless mp3s) BTW when is this coming out? If soon I can wait on my FLACs and just do my regular CD through winMediaPlayer for gapless encoding...??

[LtData]

dMC r12 probably won't be released until late this year or, more likely next year. However, it will reach a point at which it will be usable with formats besides WAV and mp3, which is how it stands now.

[Dr Klovernutz]

ok
so let me ask this,
is there any reason why I shouldn't use Blade mp3 encoder?

also (just curious) do you need a registered version of PowerAMP for Blade mp3 (mine is already registered)

also will i have to re purchase v12 or was my purchase a lifetime upgrade and how will i know about new versions? also how do you know I already have a registered version?

thanks

[LtData]

From here http://www.dbpoweramp.com/dmc-power-register.htm:
Registration Entitlement

Registration entitles free version upgrades throughout the life of product (Music Converter / Sveta Portable Audio / CD Writer), illustrate believe in fair use: registration is not locked to a single PC, or portable player (Sveta Portable Audio).
So your purchase of the PowerPack is good as long as dMC exists.

And no, the mp3 encoder only applies to the internal LAME encoder, the other encoders (LAME.exe, Blade, etc.) do not require a license and aren't affected by the PowerPack's registered/unregistered status.

[Spoon]

If I had a choice of Blade with smaller gap and Lame with larger gap I would go with Lame because the encoder quality is much higher.

[Dr Klovernutz]

Spoon, where do you see the gap in Blade mp3s? I honestly cannot find it.
I don't mean if you can hear a gap, but rather open up the mp3 in an audio editing program and tell me where the gap is located. (ie> in lame the gap is between 0:00:000 to 0:00:025) while both Blade and FHG encoding I have been unable to see a gap in either.

[Spoon]

I have not used blade in a long time...

We will be offering a FhG encoder soonish (will appear around R12).

[gameplaya15143]

All MP3s have a gap of at least 576 samples, its built into the specs.

LAME writes a xing header which includes delay info, but most decoders do not read this. WMP does NOT support gapless playback of MP3s. Winamp does NOT support gapless playback of MP3s unless you are using in_mpg123 instead (and I do recommend that). Your portable player probably does not support gapless mp3 playback either. MP3 is not gapless, all you can do is deal with it.

Blade is of lower quality than Lame. Lame IS the best MP3 encoder, but if blade suits your quality needs, then by all means use it.

[good_reason]

Spoon, where do you see the gap in Blade mp3s? I honestly cannot find it.
I don't mean if you can hear a gap, but rather open up the mp3 in an audio editing program and tell me where the gap is located. (ie> in lame the gap is between 0:00:000 to 0:00:025) while both Blade and FHG encoding I have been unable to see a gap in either.

(so sorry for my broken english :D)
Hi, Dr Klovernutz .
If i were not wrong, the "gapless mp3" we are talking about is the gapless playback of the mp3. Just like gameplaya15143 said in post #13 .

so, if you play the mp3 files that without the "0:00:025 gap" in the player (winamp2.9x with standard plugin) , you will still hear the gap between 2 files ;)

p/s: From the Change Log of the winamp 5.2x , we know that new version of winamp is support gapless playback now (i never tried it, so... u had better try it by yourself)

[good_reason]

I have not used blade in a long time...

We will be offering a FhG encoder soonish (will appear around R12).
There is a gapless switch in lame.exe . Is it useful in this case ?