There is now a true solution to the Gapless Playback problem.

I wanted to post this yesterday, but needed to spend more time testing to be sure it actually works.

The problem with getting gapless playback lies in the MP3 format itself, which pads the final frame of each song with silence in order to have all the frames be the same size. However... the codec ignores silence at the beginning of a song, most likely as an accommodation for the tag information.

So, here's how to do true Gapless Playback:

1) Open your PC and connect a 3.3v Lithium Ion battery across pins 12 and 22 of the system's RAM bus, and disconnect those pins from the PC's power supply. This will preserve your RAM state even when powered down. At this time, load your normal ripping/encoding software, then power down the computer. The Lithium Ion battery will keep your program running.

2) Put 6 amp capacity diodes in line with the AC power going to the PC's power supply, one facing + side in, the other facing + side out.

3) Connect the PC to a 240 volt power suppply; the diodes will block half of the incoming power, reducing it to 120 Volts, and reversing the polarity of the power. This will cause the hard drive spindle motors to turn in opposite the normal direction of rotation.

4) Rip and encode your songs as usual -- and they will be written to your hard drive backwards because of the reversed direction of the drive spindle motors. This cleverly places the silence at the beginning of the song rather than at the end. (Important! Do NOT play the music in this state, however, because you will be subjected to the Satanic messages that all rock and roll artists cleverly hide in their music!)

5) Restore your PC to its normal operation (remove the battery and the diodes, reconnect to 110V power) and using emplode (or Jemplode) load the reversed songs into your empeg player.

6) Now, put the player in your car. Then, reverse the cables on your car's battery, thus once again causing the spindle drive motors in the empeg to rotate in the opposite direction. Now, your songs will play back completely gapless.

One downside to this is that you cannot have any ID3 tags on your songs, as they will now be at the end of the song and will completely defeat the purpose of this technique. The other problem is... this only works on the 90th day of each year (91st day on Leap Years)

tanstaafl.

Did you mean to post this yesterday?

Did you mean to post this yesterday?

Well, remember that we're always a little behind the times in Alaska.

tanstaafl.

Now, put the player in your car. Then, reverse the cables on your car's battery

HA! I did this once on accident, long story short, tornado came thru, battery was dead in the truck for a fishing trip the early the next day, it was cold, my tux didn't come back from the cleaners, etc etc...
Anyways, it was one of the Optima batteries with the + and - molded into the top, hard to see at a glance at night with no flashlight. Besides I knew what I was doing. I didn't realize that they put the caps on the wrong posts (pos on neg, neg on pos) and didn't think much about how loose the negative was and how hard it was to get the positive cable on the post. Truck started, popping like popcorn I heard fuses go, the tachometer was going nuts bouncing all over the place. I figured it out pretty quick, and it was only 15 fuses, a grounded AC compressor and a fried Pioneer head unit... Amazing the battery didn't blow up... And it all works fine now. 5 year 70k mile warranty paid for itself there.
3 months of a boom box in the back seat until my empeg number came up in the queue!!!

For real, I have managed to rip 6 albums tonight (5 Pink Floyd and one Live Dire Straits) using EAC and Lame 3.91 (Configured with the --r3mix --nogap parameters) and they ALL play PERFECTLY gapless on the empeg. (NOT winamp tho, but who cares?)

Am I alone in realizing that this works? I thought this solution had been figured out already, so I was suprised when I saw the "april fools" thread above....

NOT AN APRIL FOOL. Try it. Just listened to "animals" - no gaps.

I had tried this a while ago (see here) using 3.91 and it never quite came out perfect (very close, but no cigar). ISTR using the same settings, too. Weird... I might have to revisit it again.

Phil

That is funny, same settings etc. However, I just listened again and I can't hear a single click or pop. Nothing. Perfect. Maybe its just me, but I know what it sounded like before, and using mp3trim etc. and this is -to me- inaudible.

However, I agree, VBR may kick ass for saving space, and archival quality, but seeking definitely suffers. I may have to reconsider using VBR and go with either 224 or 256 CBR instead.

Definitely re-download the newest LAME and give it a shot. Let me know what you find....

Jeff

seeking problems? i don't have any using -alt-standard preset

I think the seek problem only occurs in some of the older betas. ISTR it working ok now (I don't have it with me, so I can't verify for sure). When I get some time I'll try 3.92 and see if it's any better...

Phil

I just tried this, but when I got to step three, the house stopped working. What do I do now? Is this a warranty issue? Should I contact David at support?

PS What do I do with all the magic blue smoke, by the way?