"Blending" songs (?)

[rlprlp]

Hello. I could not think of a good subject title. I apologize.

I put a "live" CD on my MP3 player. You know how a live album is: it's like one long continuous song, because you hear the crowd between songs. Even though the CD is divided into tracks, you hear continuous sound when you play the CD on a CD player. However, on my MP3 player, there are now gaps of silence as the player advances from one track to the next.

My guess for a cure is to transform the entire CDs (it's a two disk set) into one long song. Can audacity help me do this? Of course, better suggestions are most welcome.

Thank you to all who take the time to reply.

[waxcylinder]

I'ts likely that it's your MP3 player thats adding an inter-track gap. There is probably a setting somewhere that enables you to over-ride the gap and play the album continuously - iTunes/iPod for example has just such a setting, which needs to be made per album.

WC

[steve]

mp3's always have a short period of silence at the beginning, so if each track is a separate mp3 file, there will be a short gap in the playback. The gap may be extended further if your player requires a bit of time to access the next track before it starts playing it.

Some mp3 players have a feature that allows songs to cross-fade from one to the next. It is worth checking to see if your player has this feature.

If you just find the sudden stop / start to be irritating, you could edit each track so that they have a short fade-in / fade-out. This would not remove the gap, but it may be less irritating than a sudden stop/start.

I assume that you ripped the tracks from a CD - if you rip them as WAV files, then they will not have the gaps. You can then import them into Audacity and put them together one after the other so that they butt up against each other. You can then export the whole thing as a single mp3. Note that if you do this you will not be able to skip from one track to the next with your mp3 player.

[rlprlp]

Thank you for the replies. The gaps are only a split-second, but just enough to be annoying (at least, to me). I have been unsuccessful locating any "play as a whole" option, if you will, on my player. I realized from the start that making the entire album one track would make skipping from song to song impossible,because, after all, the entire album BECOMES one song, and I am fine with that. I will try the "WAV solution". I may call upon you to elaborate as exactly how to "stack" the WAV files, but will at least attempt it on my own, first.

[rlprlp]

I'm afraid that I am stuck before even getting started. How do I go about ripping the CDs in WAV format? Thank you.

[waxcylinder]

You can use Windows Media Player which should come bundled with your PC - or you can use iTunes (downloadable free from Apple)

WC

[rlprlp]

I'm pretty sure about this: WMP only allows ripping in two formats: WMA and MP3. I don't have iTunes; I tried it once a couple of years ago, and did not like it for my own reasons, and I am not willing to install it again. I do have "SUPER". I'm assuming a little bit that you are familiar with it, but if not, it's a conversion utility that lets you convert video and audio from one format to another. But I suppose that if I tried that, it would just convert the gap at the beginning of the WMA song to WAV right along with the song itself. And also, I don't know how many times I could convert a song back and forth before I start to notice a loss in sound quality (let's see; convert the WMA to WAV... modify the WAV... convert the WAV to MP3).

[waxcylinder]

I'm pretty sure about this: WMP only allows ripping in two formats: WMA and MP3.

I just tested my WMP (Windows XP-HE=SP2) and it definitely has an option in the Rip dropdown menu to select WAV, along with MP3 and carious Windows Media formats.

[rlprlp]

I'll guess that you have WMP 11. I have version 10. Similar story as my iTunes story. Tried it, didn't care for it, and reverted back. No WAV in the drop-down list; only WMA and MP3.

This is only one album in a collection of well over a hundred that I am talking about here. You guys have been great, but I'm beginning to think that this is more hassle than it is worth.

Thank you again.

[steve]

Two excellent free CD rippers (that support ripping to WAV)
CDex http://cdexos.sourceforge.net/
Exact Audio Copy (EAC) - can be very slow (with poor CD's), but with a good CD it will give perfect copies. http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/