Can't seem to get flawless conversions from FLAC or AIFF to MP3

[snowdog]

I just downloaded dBpoweramp this morning with a view to getting error free lossless rips of my CDs for safe keeping in the cloud.

I also need high quality MP3s for life on the move.

I used to do all this in iTunes without issue (although god knows how may errors there are in the lossless rips I made with iTunes).

So now I have a live bootleg that I downloaded years ago & burned to CD. I do my secure lossless rip. All good.

When I convert to a best quality (320) MP3 with constant bit rate from the FLAC files, I get a slight glitch in playback between tracks. Only very slight but it should be perfect, right?

So I check the CD playback. Yep, perfect. I didn't burn it with glitches, so that's good.
I can't play FLAC files in iTunes so I convert my FLAC to AIFF & bring them into iTunes. Perfect. No glitches.
I convert the AIFFs to MP3. The glitches are back.
I convert my AIFFs to MP3 320 CBR using Steve Dekorte's "Sound Converter". Perfect. No glitches.

So my question is, what might be wrong my my dB converter settings that mean I get glitches in the MP3s that are not present anywhere else? Any thoughts?

[garym]

Re: Can't seem to get flawless conversions from FLAC or AIFF to MP3

Are you using LAME for the mp3 conversion in dbpa? Any DSPs added in the conversion?

edit: and you say you convert from AIFF to mp3 and get glitches between songs. Is this also true if you convert from FLAC to mp3?

[Dat Ei]

Re: Can't seem to get flawless conversions from FLAC or AIFF to MP3

Which audio player do you use?


Dat Ei

[snowdog]

Re: Can't seem to get flawless conversions from FLAC or AIFF to MP3

Are you using LAME for the mp3 conversion in dbpa? Any DSPs added in the conversion?

edit: and you say you convert from AIFF to mp3 and get glitches between songs. Is this also true if you convert from FLAC to mp3?

Well, let me start by saying that the other two or three test albums I ripped didn't have this problem. But I ripped those as "burst" & this was the first one I ripped as "secure", which is the only difference I can think of between all the FLACs.

So, yes, LAME for the MP3 conversion. (Is there another kind of MP3 conversion?)

No DSPs as far as I know. The settings are so deep & so many that I just left them as defaults.

It happened when I converted from FLAC to MP3 and from AIFF to MP3.

The AIFF files were converted from the FLAC files so they may have inherited any faults in the FLAC files. That said, those were the AIFF files that converted perfectly to MP3 in the Dekorte Sound Converter.

[snowdog]

Re: Can't seem to get flawless conversions from FLAC or AIFF to MP3

Which audio player do you use?


Dat Ei

iTunes & my iPhone 8, although I didn't test the glitchy files on my phone.

[garym]

Re: Can't seem to get flawless conversions from FLAC or AIFF to MP3

Well, let me start by saying that the other two or three test albums I ripped didn't have this problem. But I ripped those as "burst" & this was the first one I ripped as "secure", which is the only difference I can think of between all the FLACs.

So, yes, LAME for the MP3 conversion. (Is there another kind of MP3 conversion?)

No DSPs as far as I know. The settings are so deep & so many that I just left them as defaults.

It happened when I converted from FLAC to MP3 and from AIFF to MP3.

The AIFF files were converted from the FLAC files so they may have inherited any faults in the FLAC files. That said, those were the AIFF files that converted perfectly to MP3 in the Dekorte Sound Converter.

1. Burst vs Secure ripping shouldn't have anything to do with it. (As an aside, why use BURST? The secure settings automatically use BURST when the rip has an initial match with the AccurateRip database (so much faster) and then only moves on to the ultrasecure ripping settings when needed (i.e., no AR match).

2. You'd know if you added any DSPs. They show up in the DSP tab in the lower center of the Ripper screen. (I'm not talking about other settings buried in various menus).

3. If the AIFFs are OK from the FLACs, then there's not likely any problem with your source files.

4. All I can think of is that the glitches you are hearing as you move from one song to another has to do with REPLAYGAIN. That's why I asked about DSPs. If you're using the REPLAYGAIN DSP and you are setting it to TRACK basis (including adding iTunes track normalization in the REPLAYGAIN DSP settings), then this could causes a small "tick" as you move from one song to another because the volume is changing slightly based on TRACK volume adjustments being used by the player (iTunes). If the "Dekorte" converter doesn't add RG tags but dbpa is adding them (because you are using the RG DSP), then this could cause a small tick as you move from song to song. This would be much more obvious if the songs are gapless (e.g., live album).

This said, I use REPLAYGAIN *ALBUM* level adjustments in my mp3 conversions and don't hear any ticks between songs.

[snowdog]

Re: Can't seem to get flawless conversions from FLAC or AIFF to MP3

1. Burst vs Secure ripping shouldn't have anything to do with it. (As an aside, why use BURST? The secure settings automatically use BURST when the rip has an initial match with the AccurateRip database (so much faster) and then only moves on to the ultrasecure ripping settings when needed (i.e., no AR match).

2. You'd know if you added any DSPs. They show up in the DSP tab in the lower center of the Ripper screen. (I'm not talking about other settings buried in various menus).

3. If the AIFFs are OK from the FLACs, then there's not likely any problem with your source files.

4. All I can think of is that the glitches you are hearing as you move from one song to another has to do with REPLAYGAIN. That's why I asked about DSPs. If you're using the REPLAYGAIN DSP and you are setting it to TRACK basis (including adding iTunes track normalization in the REPLAYGAIN DSP settings), then this could causes a small "tick" as you move from one song to another because the volume is changing slightly based on TRACK volume adjustments being used by the player (iTunes). If the "Dekorte" converter doesn't add RG tags but dbpa is adding them (because you are using the RG DSP), then this could cause a small tick as you move from song to song. This would be much more obvious if the songs are gapless (e.g., live album).

This said, I use REPLAYGAIN *ALBUM* level adjustments in my mp3 conversions and don't hear any ticks between songs.

1. I have no real idea what I'm doing & I didn't know "burst" was a thing until I started doing some background reading.
2. Nope, no DSPs.
3. And they converted fine with the other converter, so I agree.
4. Once again, no DSPs, but in any case, it's more of a momentary partial dropout than a click.Although in some cases, when I moved the playhead about 10-15 seconds from the end to see if it glitched, about 3 or 4 seconds to go, it suddenly jumped to the next track. I couldn't make it do this consistently, but all of these problems happened with this one set of files. The others were all fine. Maybe I should just keep an eye out going forward & see if it happens again.

In addition, the albums I've been ripping today are bootleg CDs that I downloaded some years ago via torrent sites so there are no on line track lists or AccurateRip files for it to compare to.

[garym]

Re: Can't seem to get flawless conversions from FLAC or AIFF to MP3

I don't know if this is your issue. But I can confirm that in my gapless files (like live "bootleg" concerts), if I move the playback cursor toward the end of a song (so I can "test" what happens when it moves from one song to another), I sometimes get a momentary glitch as it changes to the next song. However this does NOT happen if I let the first song full play before moving to the next song (or at least let the last minute or so play). The culprit here is most likely the playback buffer in my player. My moving the playback cursor to almost the end of the song doesn't give the buffer time to "recover" before moving to next song.

[garym]

Re: Can't seem to get flawless conversions from FLAC or AIFF to MP3

I don't know if this is your issue. But I can confirm that in my gapless files (like live "bootleg" concerts), if I move the playback cursor toward the end of a song (so I can "test" what happens when it moves from one song to another), I sometimes get a momentary glitch as it changes to the next song. However this does NOT happen if I let the first song full play before moving to the next song (or at least let the last minute or so play). The culprit here is most likely the playback buffer in my player. My moving the playback cursor to almost the end of the song doesn't give the buffer time to "recover" before moving to next song.

also, if only happening with this one set of files, check to see if the files may be different bitrates. For example, are some of the source AIFF songs 16/44.1 files and others are 24/48, etc.

[snowdog]

Re: Can't seem to get flawless conversions from FLAC or AIFF to MP3

I don't know if this is your issue. But I can confirm that in my gapless files (like live "bootleg" concerts), if I move the playback cursor toward the end of a song (so I can "test" what happens when it moves from one song to another), I sometimes get a momentary glitch as it changes to the next song. However this does NOT happen if I let the first song full play before moving to the next song (or at least let the last minute or so play). The culprit here is most likely the playback buffer in my player. My moving the playback cursor to almost the end of the song doesn't give the buffer time to "recover" before moving to next song.

Well, that is exactly what I was doing so that sounds like it may well be the culprit! Next time, I'll play the full song to check the joins. (In fact, I've just synced everything I've ripped so far with dB to my phone so that I can give them a proper listen.)

Thanks for all the help & suggestions. It's good to know there are knowledgeable people I can turn to when confronted with 400 options that I've never heard of!

[garym]

Re: Can't seem to get flawless conversions from FLAC or AIFF to MP3

Well, that is exactly what I was doing so that sounds like it may well be the culprit! Next time, I'll play the full song to check the joins. (In fact, I've just synced everything I've ripped so far with dB to my phone so that I can give them a proper listen.)

Thanks for all the help & suggestions. It's good to know there are knowledgeable people I can turn to when confronted with 400 options that I've never heard of!

Happy to help. the software is generally easy to use and once setup, one rarely has to change anything. But there is a bit of a learning curve to figure out all the options.

[RecklessMission]

Re: Can't seem to get flawless conversions from FLAC or AIFF to MP3

I&*8217;ve had this same problem with gapless playback using the native music app on my iPhone (no problems with playback on my MacBook laptop). I often get little blips between tracks during play. It&*8217;s extremely frustrating. I&*8217;ve re-ripped, reconverted, deleted the old files, rebooted my phone, and re-synced the new files, and nothing helps.

I&*8217;m now convinced it&*8217;s an unfixable problem with the native music app in iOS, on the iPhone itself. Unfortunately Apple is moving away from traditional mp3 playback in favor of their own Apple Music steaming service. Apple has gone downhill since Steve Jobs died, and I&*8217;m doubtful they&*8217;ll ever fix problems like this.

[snowdog]

Re: Can't seem to get flawless conversions from FLAC or AIFF to MP3

I&*8217;ve had this same problem with gapless playback using the native music app on my iPhone (no problems with playback on my MacBook laptop). I often get little blips between tracks during play. It&*8217;s extremely frustrating. I&*8217;ve re-ripped, reconverted, deleted the old files, rebooted my phone, and re-synced the new files, and nothing helps.

I&*8217;m now convinced it&*8217;s an unfixable problem with the native music app in iOS, on the iPhone itself. Unfortunately Apple is moving away from traditional mp3 playback in favor of their own Apple Music steaming service. Apple has gone downhill since Steve Jobs died, and I&*8217;m doubtful they&*8217;ll ever fix problems like this.

All I can say is that Steve Dekorte's "Sound Converter" did a perfect job with mine on the one occasion it happened. Other than that, dbpa's been fine, though.