Eh... Don't get too excited... Nobody's saying the first incarnation of cross-fading on the Empeg needs to figure out BPM or match beats or anything like that. That's a very advanced feature that even on a PC rarely works well (a lot of human DJ's can't even do it right.) The best beat-finding algorithms on the planet are only going to work with certain types of music with easily identifiable beats... And then I have yet to see any software which even attempts to identify the measures or lead beats which would be matched up... Even on its best day, I think a PC would just be lining up two arbitrary beats up, which wouldn't make for much of a good mix.

Generally, when someone around here says "crossfading" we just mean buffering up the 2nd song with maybe 10 or 15 seconds left in the 1st song and, at an appropriate time (possibly when one track begins to fade on its own, possibly at a user-defined time like 5 seconds from the track's end, etc) the first track will fade out and the second one will to fade in. This part is comparatively easy, and yes, it does require a little more CPU to be decoding a second stream in the background, but there's definitely room for it on the Empeg if it's written correctly. It doesn't have to decode the second stream in real-time, for instance, so the amount of CPU doesn't necessarily need to double.

I'm encouraged that there's semi-official talk about this being available in a future release over in the Programming forum. But I won't be holding my breath, necessarily.

Nice comments, sorry for getting a little carried away there but I do tend to be a little bit of a perfectionist at times!

I'll be keeping my eye on this with interest.....

Something like this would rock on the RioCentral too.... wink wink

Something like this would rock on the RioCentral too.... wink wink

I think that's exactly why Rob has said that it could be "coming to an Empeg near you" in a future release. It seems they wanted simultaneous decoding on the "other product" and the Empeg will be the benefactor. They're staying true to their word of retro-fitting features into our beloved Empeg.

Take a look at the specific crossfader for Winamp I mentioned. No doubt it has seen some updates since the version I downloaded. Still very capable and the quality/performance is phenomenal. Some simple settings would still be a nice option on the empeg however. I'd like to be able to tall it not to fade songs of a certain minimal length for instance. As well as how much overlap to create on the fade.

The empeg guys are really good at coming up with creative solutions, so I'd leave any additional recommendations until after we see what comes down the pipe in the near future.

Bruno

BTW, would you mind terribly perhaps relocating the picture of your car to the small bitmap for your ID instead of in your sig? It's a little bit of an inconveniece having that huge block of graphic mixed in with all the text while reading. Especially multiple times in a thread.

Bruno, I've been using that plug-in for years (still using the old version!) It simply ROCKS. It lets you seemlessly listen to hours and hours to music. I swear any transition, even from Buddy Holly to Skinny Puppy seems to "work."

Thanks bruno,

One of the best cross-faders I've seen in action was in Mix-Maestro Professional, you could change songs at any time "on-the-fly" (even half way through a song) and it was perfect integration/mixing 99% of the time! - don't know how these guys did it but it is really impressive!


BTW, I've got rid of the car graphic now (sob sob) and replaced it with the evil face! Sorry if it was annoying you man.

I think the annoying part was the massive graphic, not the fact that it was a picture of a car. In fact, I'm sure of it. Replacing it with a picture that has a greater height could be construed as worse. Why not just leave the graphic off altogether? (Please?)

OK guys, no more picture :-(

Is everyone happy now?

thank you =]

It's just not the same seeing my posts without the car at the base Still, if it keeps everyone else happy who am I to complain!

I am definitely happier now.

Thanks!

me too.

Oops, sorry. I didn't mean for you to replace the pic of the car with another pic. It's a nice pic. But in the body of your messages it takes up a lot of space. Plus I'm on a modem, so I actually have to download it at least once per session (if IE doesn't make it load once per thread.. Ugh..) Some people put a pic of their cars into their personal pic, so you could do that instead of the Joker image if you wanted to.

And back on the cross-fader. If anyone else hasn't seen the specific one I've mentioned, download it from the Nullsoft Winamp pages in the plugin section. It really is something you have to check out to fully appreciate.

Bruno

Don't worry - graphics gone now

I think it would be useful to keep "crossfading" and "gapless" playback as distinct concepts. I think they're both useful features, and as judged by the response to this thread, potentially two of the most sought-after additions to the empeg player. (That and some better genre-based searching/playing capabilities).

One thing that's obvious is that the musical taste of the listener plays a lot into the interpretation of this feature. The folks amongst us (myself included) that enjoy seamlessly mixed music need a feature that is truly (or as best as current technology--such as some of the gapless or crossfading plugins for winamp--can produce) gapless. meaning no audible gap whatsoever. Folks that are not fans of the genre may not appreciate the difference between a minute, but audible gap, and NO gap -- or OVERLAP -- whatsoever. An overlap of a split second can be just as bad, because you lose the beat. The music in this genre actually has one song seamlessly blending into another, and the tracking that breaks the songs up into separate mp3 files is really an artifact of wanting to be able to skip around occasionally. otherwise we would just leave them as one long song.

I'm sorry to go so overboard on the description... but sometimes I get worried that people do not quite appreciate the distinctions--and it would really suck to have folks do a lot of work on this and end up w/ something short of the mark for a lot of us. Crossfading in a pop-dance club generally
is a less precise (though not necessarily easier) maneuver where the point that one song ends and another begins are not nessecarily matched precisely on the beat. Again, not looking for beatmatching... because the beats have already been matched by the DJ that recorded the album... i'm just looking for zero gap between the tracks that are already there.

BTW, has it been established whether anyone on the empeg staff is a big fan of house/trance music? It would certainly help if we had a mole on the inside....

Dan

NOT GAPLESS PLAYBACK --> "Generally, when someone around here says "crossfading" we just mean buffering up the 2nd song with maybe 10 or 15 seconds left in the 1st song and, at an appropriate time (possibly when one track begins to fade on its own, possibly at a user-defined time like 5 seconds from the track's end, etc) the first track will fade out and the second one will to fade in. "

anyone on the empeg staff is a big fan of house/trance music?

Well, I'm into dance music (not necessarily just house), and Toby and Rob are big into (psychadelic) trance.

I think it would be useful to keep "crossfading" and "gapless" playback as distinct concepts. I think they're both useful features, and as judged by the response to this thread, potentially two of the most sought-after additions to the empeg player.

Gapless playback is now a nonissue for the car player, as it can now (in version 2.0) play two tracks back to back with no gap whatsoever.

Any remaining issues with gaps are entirely the result of MP3 encoders and their inherent inability to create truly gapless files due to limitation in the MP3 format. This is all in the FAQ.

So the only remaining thing to discuss is the feature-request for a crossfader (which I will agree is a completely separate and unrelated issue).

In reply to:

---

Gapless playback is now a nonissue for the car player, as it can now (in version 2.0) play two tracks back to back with no gap whatsoever.

Any remaining issues with gaps are entirely the result of MP3 encoders and their inherent inability to create truly gapless files due to limitation in the MP3 format. This is all in the FAQ.

---

Not quite - I still have a wish for the player to use the tag that Lame adds to discard the right number of samples from the beginning and end of tracks, giving gapless playback with no extra work at encode time.

Tony,

I'm at a disadvantage in that I can't actually run the 2.0 code through its paces, but if there are still gaps between the songs (no matter who's fault they are) then gapless playback is still an issue. No offense intended. I guess I'm struggling with your comment in one line "no gaps whatsoever" followed by your slight retraction in the next "any remaining gaps..." Can you just clarify that from a listeners point of view, as opposed to an engineers... are there gaps or not?

I'm familiar with the kind of gaps between songs that are present because of limitations in the mp3 encoders, decoders,
specification, what have you. They suck. That's why I asked if there were any fans of the genre at Empeg. For those that don't listen to this type of music, they may appreciate the significance (or care).

What i'm concerned about is that when an effort is undertaken to truly remove all audible interruptions between 2 songs that are meant to stream fluidly from one to another--that a crude crossfading (slam one song approximately into the beginning of the other, perhaps even overlapping them to a degree) approach isn't favored over one that actually attempts to link the beginning of the first bit of data from the next song onto the last bit of data (silences, zeros and other mp3 padding removed) from the previous song. Or perhaps that the system would be able to be configured one way or the other.

Cheers and thanks for your attention here...

Dan

I guess I'm struggling with your comment in one line "no gaps whatsoever" followed by your slight retraction in the next "any remaining gaps..." Can you just clarify that from a listeners point of view, as opposed to an engineers... are there gaps or not?

The 2.0 player plays back the tracks exactly as they are, with no gaps between the tracks.

The problem is not the player's problem. The problem is that the MP3 files are encoded with actual silence embedded in the frames at the beginning of each song and at the end of each song. This has nothing to do with the player software, the player software already does all it can (reproduce the files exactly as they are exactly adjacent to each other).

It's not the player's fault that the FILES THEMSELVES have silent spots.

Again, this is all in the FAQ.

Tony...

OK, got it, 2.0 is gapless. but when you get around to
doing a cross-fader, or a buffering widget or whatever
the frick-n-frack it is to get the last gaps out--those "other"
gaps... you know, those ones that aren't your fault-- then
just take into consideration the need for a continuous bit stream... no gaps, no overlaps.

thanks! you guys are awesome, you really are...

yeoowwza

dan

Roger you should know by now I'm into psychedelic trance, not psychadelic trance.

Dano, you should do a lot more reading around here before starting a couple of huge posts basically just repeating what's already been said. This topic (both if you prefer) has already been discussed to death. In fact, in your rather lengthy rehash, you left out some pretty important and very specific details about the issues we're dealing with here.

It also doesn't sound like you've looked at the various gapless plugins for Winamp. At least it doesn't sound like you've investigated the one I've mentioned a few times. There's nothing "unsophisticated" about it.

Now, about taking into account "no gaps" - please, stop mentioning it from the viewpoint that this has not been addressed. It has.

If you want to be specific, what's needed now, in addition to a cross-fader, is something to automatically trim silence (to either combat inherent problems with frame alignment or padding inserted by your encoder/ripper). Something that I've mentioned before, Tony's mentioned before and a few other people have mentioned before. If you'd care to investigate the cross-fader I've mentioned, you'll find it also does automatic removal of silence. You can control the amount of overlap as well as eliminate overlap if you want.

For cross-fading purposes, you can take virtually any track and fade it into another one maintaining superb and seamless quality of transition. This usually employs the use of silence removal at the same time. I've keep some modest default settings and don't tend to ever turn them off. I've gone through a number of continuous tracks with very good results. Yeah, everyone that wants this feature should know that it's not simply for allowing the playing of mixed albums. Cross-fading, in fact being the opposite of what you claimed, is quite sophisticated (or should be implemented as such).

Now, though it would be nice, I'd hardly call a cross-fader or silence removal (to improve gaplessness or for any other reason) a very high priority compared to some other things that have been mentioned in other threads. I certainly don't think they should be addressed or looked at for 2.0 features.

Bruno

It would be nice for 2.01 though wouldn't it..

Rob

It would be nice any time. But you guys know what you already have on your plates and should obviously concentrate on what features you think are appropriate for your current contracts first. Cross-fading does make an excellent addition to a product like the RioCentral...

Bruno