Tech Help!
Anyone know if I can make a playlist in Windows Media, use the crossfade facility and save as a single file? (So I can burn a mix to disc and still have the tracks crossfade?)

Failing that, any advice on free software that will do the trick?
(Tugnut Ex of this parish, Wed 6 May 2009, 9:47, 9 replies, latest was 16 years ago)

I use Acid Pro for mixes
but it's far from free.

Edit: unless you know where to look.
( Noeli overtheshoulderboulderholderthingstraplatchboobs, Wed 6 May 2009, 9:49, Reply)

Audacity
may be a good one also. That *is* free.
(Ethelred is watching cheese grow, Wed 6 May 2009, 9:50, Reply)

You can do it in Winamp
by making a playlist and playing through it in usual fashion, but selecting some sort of encoder as your output plugin instead of the standard Nullsoft Waveoutput thingy.

This may be more similar to your Windows Mediocre Player approach and easier for you to understand than Audacity.

But automatically crossfaded tracks sound horrendous anyway, mix it properly or put up with the silence!
(username1, Wed 6 May 2009, 9:53, Reply)

I'm not even sure
what the crossfade facility is. And I have a bunch of mix CDs to make soon and now I'm worried that I should know what it is.
( The Light in Chains don't touch the Pope's boner, Wed 6 May 2009, 9:58, Reply)

Don't bother
It sounds horrible, like a deaf DJ is mixing.

Cross fade means two simultaneous fades; i.e. the outgoing track is faded down as the new one is faded up. Done properly by a DJ, with the tracks in time, it can sound good. Done automatically by a media playing program, it sounds gash.

If you're making mix CDs that need to be 'mixed' then do them properly, with CD decks, turntables, software, whatever. If you're making mix CDs as in 'mixtapes', a collection of tracks played one after another, then a small bit of silence in between tracks is no hardship.
(username1, Wed 6 May 2009, 10:05, Reply)

Rephrase my question...
If I have downloaded a mix that is supposed to have no gaps between tracks but was saved as individual tracks, how do I get it to burn without the gaps?
(Tugnut Ex of this parish, Wed 6 May 2009, 10:11, Reply)

Oh!
I think you can set "gap time" to zero.
Do a search for that in the help menu?
( Cawl, Wed 6 May 2009, 10:16, Reply)

Aha
That's a different question!

The small gap at the start when it's playing on a computer is because the mp3 has to tell the decoder what format the file is and how to decode it, which, I presume, is why you're using the x-fade function to listen to it on your computer. As far as I know iTunes is the only media playing program that offers gapless playback for situations like this.

Talking about burning it to a CD is a slightly different kettle of fish. Your burning program will render each track to .wav before burning, as that's essentially what CD audio is - uncompressed PCM data. The default for most CD burning programs is to insert a 2 second gap between tracks on the burnt CD, but this isn't inserted as 2 seconds of silence - it's a signal that says to the CD player 'wait for 2 secs before playing the next track' (you might have seen some CD players counting in -0.02, -0.01 on the display).

Removing this gap will differ depending on what CD burning software you're using, but it's usually possible - I can't remember the name is for the setting in Nero off the top of my head but you can def do it in that. Not sure about WMP as I've never used that to burn CDs. Then your CD will play seamlessly and showcase the mad DJing skillz but still have the track splits so you can skip to whichever track you want to listen to.

Hope that made sense, I am feeling very tired and not especially caffeinated yet.
(username1, Wed 6 May 2009, 10:17, Reply)

thank you thank you all
username1 - that does make sense so much appreciated.
(Tugnut Ex of this parish, Wed 6 May 2009, 11:36, Reply)