gapless not very good at all

[topbanana]

Finally got myself an Android device + on day 1 I realised the native music player was rubbish -- so been trying out the alternatives. On a trial version of this right now, basically I've narrowed down to neutron or poweramp. pros and cons with each - but I was pretty impressed with the sound quality of neutron + that's more important than the other stuff.

However -- I heard a lot of claims that gapless is great on neutron. So - where am I going wrong? It's worse than poweramp, and nowhere near as good as rockbox was (at least when I was using it a few years ago) and nowhere near as good as iProduct.

To me, the next track starts way too early, so there's a quite significant glitch in the transition. Any settings I need to tweak to get it to work?

[topbanana]

ok, I think I've tried everything. killed every other app running. tried music ripped from various different sources and methods. tried various different settings. the gapless is still seriously rubbish - it works on a few occasions, but most of the time it's way off the mark. Is it only me who noticed, or am I still doing something wrong?

it's the only thing that's annoying me now, the sound is clearly better than the other music player options - I got used to all the other minor drawbacks, but this one for me is a big one, especially as I was expecting much better.

[dmitrykos]

> where am I going wrong? It's worse than

I propose to find out what modes you have first and try to find out the cause of the problem either yours, or Neutron's. Make sure you see GAPLESS label on Neutron's Display (where you see time + tags)

> the next track starts way too early

It means you have Crossfeed option active? It can't start early as inside the audio core next gapless track starts after last sample of current track. Could you please specify if you have FADE/CROSSFEED modes active. Do you see GAPLESS label in Neutron's Display (where you see tags & time).

Also it would be great to know what files you were trying to play as gapless: was it CUE or multiple files. Which type?

[topbanana]

thanks for the help...

Yes, gapless label is displayed.

I had crossfeed enabled. I switched that to surround and it doesn't make a difference. Disable both and it still occurs (maybe less obvious, the timing is better, but still pretty noticeable with a glitch). I've now disabled every option possible, I think (eq, crossfeed, surround, fade, dither, etc, etc) + it still occurs.

Just playing LAME mp3s from a single folder - tried some I downloaded from emusic, and some I ripped from CD using CDex. The gapless seems to work OK on (some) other players - best ones seem to be rockbox, and then apple's one. Not sure what you mean about CUE or multiple files - you mean adding to the queue, right? I just start one track of an album, and the following track of the album plays after it.

BTW is there an option to restore original settings? I uninstalled it and reinstalled, then had to activate (which I thought was justified even if I can't solve the gapless problem -- the sound quality is immense compared to the other players I tried)

BTW I have HTC Desire S - not sure if that makes a difference or not

[dmitrykos]

Ok, as long as you see GAPLESS label on Display Neutron is meant to play music files in gapless mode. Crosfeeding/surround won't affect gapless because they are audio effects.

To have gapless playback you need to have gapless (by nature) album, like: Pink Floyd - The Dark Side of the Moon. This one I am using in Neutron to test gapless playback correctness and it work ok for me without gaps/glitches. Which albums are you trying to playback as gapples? Could you please mention at least one. Also, MP3 shall be encoded for gapless playback, like LAME encoders usually have NOGAP option which must be ON while encoding (otherwise encoder may produce silence gaps on end/start of MP3 file).

Neutron does not do pseudo-gapless playback which is: detection of silence between tracks and removal of it. Such pseudo-gapless could be used in some other players but Neutron won't support it and requires music files to be gapless aware.

> BTW is there an option to restore original settings?

Full re-install od course is one of bullet-proof ways. You could also try resetting settings by going into Neutron's Settings -> some section -> use RESET button.

[topbanana]

hi,

I've been trying out gapless using mixed albums, it's the easiest way to see if it works or not... for example I used Scuba DJ kicks and there's a clear discontinuity between tracks (not only on this, but any album I tried). filed are encoded OK, they play OK on other players.

[dmitrykos]

If you could e-mail to me (neutronmp@gmail.com) at least 2 files from this albums which shall sound gapless I would analyze them and check if there is problem with Neutron or files. As to other players, I already mentioned in my previous posts that some players use pseudo-gapless method by detecting silence on track end and track begin and cutting it out, Neutron doesn't do this because for some true gapless compositions with intended silence it will be cut out and thus playback will be wrong. Pseudo-gapless method can be implemented but later, after work on Landscape UI. I would appreciate your help if you could e-mail me 2 files from mentioned album.

[rs219]

At first, I did not think this problem was a very big issue. Any album I played seemed to perform gapless playback perfectly fine.

But now, ironically enough, I am listening to Pink Floyd - Dark Side Of The Moon, the one you said was used for gapless testing, and I am hearing "non-gapless playback" --- it actual plays back like the CD version. I am wondering if the difference is ripping to MP3 versus FLAC? I will re-rip to both MP3 and then try also ripping to FLAC to see if there is a difference with the way it is being ripped (I do have "continuous" set when ripping to anything).

[dmitrykos]

Ripper shall be capable of making gapless rips, otherwise Neutron won't be able to play it in gapless manner. If music file has some leading zeroes they will be played. MP3 Lame encoder has switch which allows to encode in gapless mode.

When you make FLAC rip do you produce some CUE Sheet or per track FLAC files are produced? May be you ripped silence into FLACs as well?

[rs219]

I use MediaMonkey to rip to both MP3 and FLAC at present. FLAC is per track. I don't know what ripping FLAC silence means. Some of my older rips to MP3, probably when I ripped Dark Side Of The Moon, was Creative Labs which does not have many options.

I'll go back and re-rip as I mentioned and see it options are correctly set for gapless ripping. All the FLAC's I have ripped so far play gapless perfectly, but I have not started doing this until a few weeks ago so older rips like Pink Floyd are all MP3.