Tech: Burning mp3 to CD without gaps

Subject: RE: Tech: Burning mp3 to CD without gaps
From: Bernard
Date: 09 Jul 10 - 10:44 AM

MP3 is nowhere near 'standard' on modern CD players. I frequently need to spec such things for installations in schools and theatres, and they are few and far between. As I've already pointed out above, they tend either to be portables or broadcast standard, with very little in-between.

However, almost all DVD players will do it, AND they will play audio CDs. The only problem is you need a video display to see what's going on!

Subject: RE: Tech: Burning mp3 to CD without gaps
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 08 Jul 10 - 07:39 PM

Aqualung is a Linux (I'm using Ubuntu) 'gapless' audio player, btw, for those who want such a thing....

Subject: RE: Tech: Burning mp3 to CD without gaps
From: IvanB
Date: 08 Jul 10 - 03:06 PM

When creating a data disk of mp3 files, make sure you "finalize" the disk. Many CD players capable of playing mp3's won't recognize the disk if it hasn't been finalized. Your burner program should have a check box to do this automatically.

Subject: RE: Tech: Burning mp3 to CD without gaps
From: Joe Offer
Date: 08 Jul 10 - 02:59 PM

Hi, Mattkeen-
I would agree that on certain recordings, MP3s can produce sound that is of significantly lower quality than a lossless recording. But there really aren't that many times when I'm able to listen to recordings in a situation quiet enough for me to tell the difference.
I listen to music mostly when I'm driving my car or working on my computer, and either the road noise or the computer fan blocks out the fine points of the music I'm listening to.
And I listen to a lot of reissues of recordings that are 40 or more years old, and most of them don't seem to suffer from being converted to MP3.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Tech: Burning mp3 to CD without gaps
From: GUEST,Woodsie
Date: 08 Jul 10 - 01:13 PM

MP3 playback is more or less standard on modern CD players even the cheap ones. MP3 is transfered to the disc as DATA and the players have a small chip inside to read this. What type of pklayer do you want? If you are talking hi - fi then that is a contradiction as MP3 is Low-Fi

Subject: RE: Tech: Burning mp3 to CD without gaps
From: Bernard
Date: 08 Jul 10 - 12:01 PM

'MP3 quality is horrible' - a sweeping generalisation, as there is such a thing as lossless MP3.

The sample rate is what makes the difference, 64K bit is only really useful for speech, 128k bit is usually tolerable on most cheap equipment, 196k bit is nearly comparable with CD quality (most companies use it as the download standard), and uncompressed is, well, uncompressed, so equivalent to a WAV file.

Sadly, there aren't that many CD players able to play MP3s, most of those that do are either portables or broadcast quality expensive ones.

Simple answer... MP3 player, iPod or whatever!

Subject: RE: Tech: Burning mp3 to CD without gaps
From: wilbyhillbilly
Date: 08 Jul 10 - 06:08 AM

When I tried them as data files, my CD players (all 3) didn't want to know. Ah well......stick to wav.


whb

Subject: RE: Tech: Burning mp3 to CD without gaps
From: GUEST,mattkeen
Date: 08 Jul 10 - 04:26 AM

I dont really understand why you would want to do this?

MP3 quality is horrible - especially for acoustic music

We use an ipod and download/store tracks as Apple lossless files not MP3's - then ipod sits in its dock in the living room (or its in the car) with 100's of good quality recordings on it on shuffle

Its like having my own radio station

Subject: RE: Tech: Burning mp3 to CD without gaps
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 08 Jul 10 - 04:10 AM

whb - as I mentioned in the original 2008 bit of this thread, I (at that time) had a CD player that also would play MP3 files. When I first tried to make a CD to play on it using MP3 files on my computer, I ran into a similar time limit on what the CD played.
If I recall correctly, I discovered that the CD Burning software I was using (no idea which one) had decided I was burning an "audio" disc, and was automatically converting the MP3 files to standard CD-audio format (essentially a "wav" file), which is a much larger file than the equivalent MP3, so the CD filled up to the 78 minute audio capacity and no more.
As has been suggested, the workaround was that I had to specify to the CD-Burning Prog that I was making a Data-CD.
Quack!
GtD.

Subject: RE: Tech: Burning mp3 to CD without gaps
From: Bernard
Date: 07 Jul 10 - 12:31 PM

You cannot put more than 80 mins audio on an 80 minute CD... as our anonymous guest posted above, you need to put the files on the CD in data format, and then you can fit 700mb worth of mp3/wma files. If they are 120k bit MP3s, you'll probably fit over 160 tracks on one CD, assuming each track to be roughly 4.5Mb.

Instead of selecting 'burn an audio CD' you need to choose 'burn a data CD'... wording varies according to the software you use, but it can be done in XP without any additional software.

Insert a blank writable CD (don't use rewritable, they aren't worth the grief) and drag the files onto the CD icon in 'My Computer'. When you click to write them to the disk, you will have the choice of audio or data CD. Choose data!

Subject: RE: Tech: Burning mp3 to CD without gaps
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Jul 10 - 12:15 PM

Burn it as a data CD rather than audio

Subject: RE: Tech: Burning mp3 to CD without gaps
From: wilbyhillbilly
Date: 07 Jul 10 - 11:54 AM

I wish someone would explain in plain language, because I have tried and tried after converting music files from wav to mp3 to get more on an 80 min disc, but find that whatever format it is, it still will only allow 80 mins playing time and that means not many more mp3 files than wav.

I am obviously doing it wrong.

whb

Subject: RE: Tech: Burning mp3 to CD without gaps
From: Jack Campin
Date: 07 Jul 10 - 08:16 AM

74 minutes WAS the original design limit (apparently because the designer wanted to put his favourite Mozart symphony on one!)

Beethoven's 9th. None of Mozart's are longer than half an hour.

Subject: RE: Tech: Burning mp3 to CD without gaps
From: Mr Red
Date: 07 Jul 10 - 07:16 AM

Audacity is freeware (you also need the Lame encoder)
It lets you edit audio and if you are prepared to let it run for a time it will produce a large file. We do it at StroudFM every day to produce a one Hour programme. I often go in and remove silences and ERs etc. You would presumably have to rip the original or download it, edit the beginning and end for silence and insert at the end of the previous.

Having said that, our Playout system (it auto selects to fill hours not yet allocated) runs tracks into each other with a 3 second fade-out fade-in. You don't really want one sudden end to be followed by a sudden start, but Audacity lets you tinker for best effect.

The hour programmes take up typically 85Meg, but trying to concatenate 10 of those - I shudder to think of the conversion time. Choose good bit rates, and despite the generational losses I would advise not to work with WAV files - it will take so much longer.

Have you got a fast PC, free of memory hogging "stuff"?

Subject: RE: Tech: Burning mp3 to CD without gaps
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Jul 10 - 06:32 AM

I have a usb stick and i want the music to play non stop without gaps how can i do this

You can buy a suitable player. It isn't rocket science....

Subject: RE: Tech: Burning mp3 to CD without gaps
From: GUEST,kay
Date: 07 Jul 10 - 06:29 AM

I have a usb stick and i want the music to play non stop without gaps how can i do this

Subject: RE: Tech: Burning mp3 to CD without gaps
From: Bernard
Date: 17 Mar 08 - 06:26 PM

74 minutes WAS the original design limit (apparently because the designer wanted to put his favourite Mozart symphony on one!), but 80 minute CDs have been around for ages - both as commercial 'glass mastered' and as burnables. I haven't bought 74 minute blanks for years!

My portable CD player plays MP3 CDs, too - and I can usually put in excess of 180 tracks on a CD, roughly equivalent to 10 audio CDs.

Subject: RE: Tech: Burning mp3 to CD without gaps
From: Bernard
Date: 17 Mar 08 - 06:16 PM

Ah, but that's only as 'Audio CD', not as MP3...

Subject: RE: Tech: Burning mp3 to CD without gaps
From: Bert Fegg
Date: 17 Mar 08 - 04:39 PM

Of course it is and there are loads of progs around which will let you set the burning time between tracks to as minimal a period as you like.

Subject: RE: Tech: Burning mp3 to CD without gaps
From: Bill D
Date: 17 Mar 08 - 04:35 PM

I have disks full of MP3s which, if played in a compatible player, will indeed play for several hours. We had a car player that would do it,(and even had an input jack which would take a minidisk or tape player) but had to junk the car and the new car will NOT play anything but standard CDs.

For my van, which I do not drive much, I have a tape-player adapter that I can plug my portable CD/MP3 player thru, and play any portable device.

Subject: RE: Tech: Burning mp3 to CD without gaps
From: pavane
Date: 17 Mar 08 - 08:34 AM

Yes. I have a disk which has 7 albums burned (from my own vinyl copies) onto it in MP3. I can drive from Luxembourg to Swansea on two disks.

I have experimented with formats, including CD-RW, but my car player will NOT play it if recorded as a data disk, only an audio disk with MP3 (in which format the files are read-only), so I can't easliy change the contents.

Subject: RE: Tech: Burning mp3 to CD without gaps
From: M.Ted
Date: 17 Mar 08 - 08:09 AM

Do these MP3 disks play for "hours" as Bonzo3Legs says?

Subject: RE: Tech: Burning mp3 to CD without gaps
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 17 Mar 08 - 05:30 AM

M. Ted - about the same time as the solid starte MP3 players came out, some firms started selling CD players which would also play a CD which had mP3 tracks burned to it. I've got one somewhere, although I found that some MP3 files would play, and others it didn't like. Can't recall if it just skipped them or if it messed up playing the following tracks.
I think that a bunch of car radio/CD players will play MP3s on a CD.
The MP3 discs will not play on a standard CD player.
Quack!
GtD.

Subject: RE: Tech: Burning mp3 to CD without gaps
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 17 Mar 08 - 05:23 AM

"haven't had any luck getting more than about 74 minutes of music onto an audio CD"

That's because THAT IS the design limit.

Subject: RE: Tech: Burning mp3 to CD without gaps
From: M.Ted
Date: 17 Mar 08 - 12:27 AM

I haven't had any luck getting more than about 74 minutes of music onto an audio CD, regardless of the format.   I can, of course, store a lot of MP3s as data, but none of my CD players will play them--if there is a trick I am missing, I'd be much obliged to know it--

Subject: RE: Tech: Burning mp3 to CD without gaps
From: Bernard
Date: 16 Mar 08 - 05:41 PM

Unfortunately it can't be reliably done without combining the MP3 files into one track. MP3 compression uses 'blocks', which means it's a bit of a lottery how much silence you get at the start and end of a file.

Some MP3 players remove the silences, but most don't - and you'll sometimes get the start and/or end of a track cut slightly short by some players...

Ho hum!

Subject: RE: Tech: Burning mp3 to CD without gaps
From: Nick
Date: 16 Mar 08 - 05:08 PM

Trim the mp3s - go to Mptrim and download it. If you leave no space or minimal then that's how they will play

Subject: Tech: Burning mp3 to CD without gaps
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 16 Mar 08 - 05:04 PM

Is it possible to burn mp3 files to CD without annoying gaps appearing between each track? I want to preserve the mp3 format in order to have several hours playing time on my personal CD player which does play mp3 files.