Gapless playback

[SteveWilson]

I've spent the last two days constantly going through the different setting on the different music players out there. True gapless playback is ESSENTIAL to me. I've tried at least Amarok, Clementine, VLC, Aqualung and Deadbeef. I installed them, updated them and then tried a couple of live studio MP3 rips of CDs I made and then rips of Dark Side Of The Moon and Santana's Caravanserai. All of the MP3s I tried work flawlessly in iTunes. If there's a setting in any of those players for "gapless", I'm just missing it. I can get the gap between tracks down to milliseconds, but none of them will do true gapless playback. It's absolutely unbelievable to me that in 2015, no-one has written music software for Linux that can measure up to Apple. Probably a really silly reason to be stuck with Windows, but it really IS essential, and installing Virtualbox so I can install Windows so I can install iTunes just seems a really cludgy solution. Not that I didn't do it. It's just cludgy. As much as I love Linux (especially LM), this IS a deal-breaker for me. I know I'm a music snob, but there're worse things.

[Hoser Rob]

Apple isn't the only Windows music player that has gapless playback.

A quick perusal indicates that a number of linux players do it too ... here's just one link ...

http://linuxmusicians.com/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=11777

[SteveWilson]

Thanks. I hadn't tried MPD, but I DID try the rest listed in that article. And none of them did music truly gaplessly, although they all say they support gapless playback. I KNOW I'm being OCD about it, but they all have a gap between tracks. With at least Deadbeef and Audacious that gap was only milliseconds, but it was there. That may well be my MP3s and they way I encoded them, but I'm not about to re-encode some 15000-18000 MP3s because I can't find a player for Linux that plays things like Dark Side Of The Moon seamlessly. Especially when iTunes does. I'll just dual boot.

[1.618]

= It's absolutely unbelievable to me that in 2015, no-one has written music software for Linux that can measure up to Apple. Probably a really silly reason to be stuck with Windows,

Yeah those coders who work in their SPARE TIME FOR FREE just ain't up to scratch are they? you're quite welcome to have a go at writing your own code or creating an app to do exactly what you want with linux but everything on linux is written by people who do it for free in their spare time, Apple has billions, literally, to spend on the best Harvard, MIT, Princeton etc coders as they graduate... try to remember that when talking down their efforts to provide an awesome and free alternative

I know I'm a music snob, but there're worse things.

Like not having gapless playback? that ranks up there with Nepalese earthquakes, Japanese Tsunamis, I've notified The Red Cross, hold tight you will be evacuated to a disaster relief camp as soon as possible... peace!

[SteveWilson]

"Yeah those coders who work in their SPARE TIME FOR FREE just ain't up to scratch are they? you're quite welcome to have a go at writing your own code or creating an app to do exactly what you want with linux but everything on linux is written by people who do it for free in their spare time, Apple has billions, literally, to spend on the best Harvard, MIT, Princeton etc coders as they graduate... try to remember that when talking down their efforts to provide an awesome and free alternative"

I don't recall running down anyone's efforts or suggesting that I could do a better job. I also don't recall ever spending a cent on iTunes.

"I know I'm a music snob, but there're worse things.


Like not having gapless playback? that ranks up there with Nepalese earthquakes, Japanese Tsunamis, I've notified The Red Cross, hold tight you will be evacuated to a disaster relief camp as soon as possible... peace!"

No, "Nepalese earthquakes, Japanese Tsunamis" would actually be a lot worse than being a music snob....

[Cosmo.]

You can use foobar200 via wine. It is a Windows-player only, but it works perfectly via wine, so no need for a Windows-dual-boot.

[SteveWilson]

Thanks. I'll give it a shot.

[Neil Edmond]

It's never really been an issue for me, so I can't speak from experience, but I've read that Rhythmbox is the go to music player of choice for gapless playback.

[SteveWilson]

I believe I tried it, but I honestly don't remember now, so I'll give it another shot. Thanks.

[Rocky Bennett]

First of all, Steve Wilson, I love the work you do. The re-mix of Jethro Tull's catalogue and Porcupine Tree is awesome. Secondly, foobar2000 is a fantastic free audio player. I am a real music snob, I do not listen to MP3s at all. All of my music is high resolution PCM, and I have terabytes of it. Gapless is essential and foobar2000 is really a nice way to access a large collection. I have it set up in my Windows 10 on a dual boot, and I am working at setting it up on my Linux side. I am just starting to learn about Advanced Linux Sound Architecture, so I will leave any discussion about that for another time. http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/6735

[Rocky Bennett]

So gapless music playback within Linux Mint is out? I really wanted to give Linux Mint a try but the audio playback programs all fall very short of what I need. I need gapless playback and I also need a program that will keep on playing music for days on end without shutting down the computer. These are two essential features which I have not found in Linux.

[SteveWilson]

Actually, gapless playback (with both Banshee & Clementine) WILL work. It just won't work if you're using mp3s. If you get/have FLAC files (or convert those to M4A files with Apple's lossless codec - [for use with iTunes]), gapless works like a charm. FWIW, Banshee has a much better library setup, but Clementine has visualizations. (Supposedly Banshee does too, but you have to get and install the banshee-community-extensions, and I have no idea where to find them.)

Steve

[SteveWilson]

So gapless music playback within Linux Mint is out? I really wanted to give Linux Mint a try but the audio playback programs all fall very short of what I need. I need gapless playback and I also need a program that will keep on playing music for days on end without shutting down the computer. These are two essential features which I have not found in Linux.

As far as the computer keeping playing, I keep mine playing for 6-8 hours at a time. Initially the computer went into sleep/hibernation, but that had nothing to do with the music program. That was in system settings - power.

[Rocky Bennett]

Thank you very much for your reply. I did not want to change my power management settings, I just assumed that having a program running would leave the system on as in Windows. With my audio programs in Windows, if I create a 2 hour, an 8 hour or a two day music program, that is how long the system stays awake running my program, then it goes straight to sleep after the last song plays. Is that possible with a program in Linux Mint?

[SteveWilson]

Thank you very much for your reply. I did not want to change my power management settings, I just assumed that having a program running would leave the system on as in Windows. With my audio programs in Windows, if I create a 2 hour, an 8 hour or a two day music program, that is how long the system stays awake running my program, then it goes straight to sleep after the last song plays. Is that possible with a program in Linux Mint?

I haven't tried it. I'd try changing the power management settings for each setting. That really should do the trick. What you could do is give it a shot with the two hour setting - set an alarm on your watch or phone or whatever for 1 hour 59 minutes and then be sitting by the computer when the two hour hits.

[Flemur]

Cosmo.

You can use foobar200 via wine. It is a Windows-player only, but it works perfectly via wine, so no need for a Windows-dual-boot.

I just tested foobar with two 400Hz WAV files - perfect.

Converted those wav files to mp3 and the converters (audition and lame) added silence at both ends, defeating the test.
Too lazy to find a better converter...

PS: foobar worked perfectly up thru wine v1.4; with 1.6 and 1.7 there are minor GUI glitches* which don't affect playback.
*what are supposed to be a small popup windows showing audio volume and position in the file fill the screen when you click the sliders - middle mouse roll over the sliders works OK.

[SteveWilson]

Cosmo.

You can use foobar200 via wine. It is a Windows-player only, but it works perfectly via wine, so no need for a Windows-dual-boot.

I just tested foobar with two 400Hz WAV files - perfect.

Converted those wav files to mp3 and the converters (audition and lame) added silence at both ends, defeating the test.
Too lazy to find a better converter...

PS: foobar worked perfectly up thru wine v1.4; with 1.6 and 1.7 there are minor GUI glitches* which don't affect playback.
*what are supposed to be a small popup windows showing audio volume and position in the file fill the screen when you click the sliders - middle mouse roll over the sliders works OK.

I've never tried foobar. Probably give it a shot, but my answer (before getting 150GB of true gapless music) was to install virtualbox and inside virtualbox to create a windows 7 installation. Then I installed the guest additions in virtualbox and mapped a shared folder to the drive I keep my music collection on. The I installed itunes in the windows on virtualbox and set it to use the music in that shared folder. Clunky and roundabout, but it works really well, and it's also made the dual boot unimportant. If I want/need Windows for anything, I simply use the copy in virtualbox. There are a very few limitations, but that's just more incentive for me to find ways to do things in LM.

[Cosmo.]

*what are supposed to be a small popup windows showing audio volume and position in the file fill the screen when you click the sliders

With Default UI oder Column UI? I do not see this with CUI and wine 1.7.

I see a number of other glitches, but I agree, non of them with audible consequence. Examples:
Not possible to save or load presets with the equalizer. This has been confirmed in the official fb2k support forum. (The Equalizer itself works.)
Visualizations cannot be displayed full screen.
In some dialogs the last character is cut off (but anyway usable).
No transparency for the program window with CUI.
Automatic stop of the screen-saver is not possible.
Small problems in separate fb-components (but no show-stopper, things what no Linux-player I know has at all)

[Cosmo.]

@SteveWilson:
A virtual machine (for foobar2000 or whatever) brings another problem - although it works undoubtedly: the sound goes through the virtual hardware and its driver. This cannot improve the result. Besides the fact, that starting a virtual machine takes significantly more time, until you can hear anything.

There is indeed one limitation with foobar2000 under wine, which I did not mention until now: The impossibility to run audio cds. I simply forgot it, because the special advantage of fb2k is not relevant for that and I use totem or vlc for that. The power of foobar2000 comes with my stored music collection.

[Flemur]

Cosmo:

With Default UI oder Column UI? I do not see this with CUI and wine 1.7.

Regular - your ref is the first I'd heard of the "Column UI".
This? http://yuo.be/columns.php

I see a number of other glitches, but I agree, non of them with audible consequence. Examples:

Are those foobar glitches or foobar+wine glitches? (Personally I don't use/need any of the things you mentioned).

The main issue I have with wine > 1.4 isn't foobar, but that the cursor in Audition 1.5 jumps to the wrong position by about .4 sec just after you start playback.

SteveWilson

Clunky and roundabout, but it works really well, and it's also made the dual boot unimportant.

I use virtualbox for photoshop, and by saving the vbox state when exiting, the whole shebang with photoshop already running starts up faster (4 sec) than just starting photoshop under Win7. Only bad part is you get a big file lying around.
GUI->Machine->Close->Save Machine State.

Edit: Start it like this:

Code: Select all

virtualbox --startvm  vmwindows 

vmwindows is the name I gave it - IIRC, with some fiddling in the xml files (also to get it onto a different partition).
/Edit

FWIW, I've tried recording with virtualbox+audition3 - it got the audio OK, but vbox used so much CPU - perhaps for the waveform graphics, I don't use nvidia driver - that the recordings had lots of glitches.