Crossfading - revisited

Just did a quick search through the database and did not find anything "recent" about crossfading support. Is this a planned feature?
In anycase, i guess i can start this thread in hopes of gauging how many ppl are currently still interested in crossfading support between songs and when the player starts up.

I would love it on Shuffle mode. I think I started one of those threads a while back...

Count me in ...

This would only work on Songs with real endings rather than continuous tracks ...

Personally, it could sound good, or it could sound absolutely AWFUL!!

I don't thnk it would sound aweful as long as it happens in random mode only. Try some winamp plug-ins for the experience... they rock.

Well if you're listening to continuous tracks then you don't need to enable cross-fading

If you're shuffling, it doesn't matter because two songs in a shuffle aren't going to usually flow nicely into one another unless they happen to be adjacent songs from the same album (a very odd case indeed if you have a lot of songs.) So even if they're "continuous songs" a cross-fade would make the transition a bit less abrupt. Not necessarily natural (especially if you're going from a jazz tune to a heavy metal tune) but less abrupt.

You'll be surprised how well some totally differant songs will fade into one another...

Oh, of course, and when this happens it's often very cool, sometimes very amusing.

There were some threads a while back about having some kind of system for tagging songs with metadata so that shuffle would try to line up songs that "went well" together in terms of transitions, but nobody could describe a really solid method for making it happen. That would make cross-fading even more effective.

Maybe I'm just a sucker for cross-fading because if two totally differant songs were about to play one after another - I'd rather they fade into one another. I had this plug in for WInamp and just loved it. I found myself skipping songs less because things flooooowed better.

Winamp 3 beta does not have this as a plugin anymore, but rather "built-in". In addition there is now a Alpha of Winamp3 available for linux.. maybe some code from there could be re-used with permission? or am i just waaaaaaaaaaay off.. It also allows to set the time of the crossfader.
And i agree. if its a feature you can turn on and off. then anyone could decide on their own whether it sounds good for their tastes or not.

I would think crossfading when the player starts up and continues in the middle of a song would be really nice. A sudden spike in volume isn't always the nicest thing to hear..

I would think crossfading when the player starts up and continues in the middle of a song would be really nice. A sudden spike in volume isn't always the nicest thing to hear..

Version 2.0 of the software already does this. But that's not crossfading, it's volume-ramp at startup.

I couldn't agree more. The crossfade plugin for WinAmp is one of the coolest inventions of all time, and it definitely makes everything flow better. Even if the songs are completely unrelated.

If the empeg had crossfade, I would allways have it enabled.

OK, I admit it, I'm addicted.

Cross fading would require that we run two decoders simultaneously. We did update the architecture to support this (HSX109 uses it for a different purpose) however there could be bandwidth issues doing it in real time with high bitrate (e.g. WAV) files.

Rob

Is two decoders a requirement?

I mean: if the ouput bit-stream is buffered for, let's say 4 seconds, than we've more or less 2 seconds of the current playing and queued for playing. Some other process should find the silent moment and does the cross-over.
Ok above is not wriiten very clearly, but I think I have seen above story earlier in an other discussion thread.

EiSl

Then support it for low bitrate at first.....

Calvin

Crossfading a bunch of wav files shouldnt be necessary in theory, becuase they already play without gaps in them, right? Maybe there could be some way of disabling cross fading on wavs.

Crossfading and gapless playback, while related, are two different issues. Gapless playback is obvious. Crossfading is where you have one song fade out as another comes in, overlapping for a few seconds, like they do at your favorite Top40 station. It's amazing how much better shuffle mode sounds when this happens. It doesn't seem like it would, but it really does.

I'm defintiely for it. Empeg ppl said in the past they would eventually include it in the player sw, but not in 2.0 sw version. If I recall well. Do you confirm, Empeg ppl?

Your right, I was hoping that cross fading would cover up the gaps between my songs since mp3s are not gapless.

Find the threads covering the ripping and encoding of MP3s to help with "introduced" gaps. I don't have a problem with gapless playback with most of my gapless segues. At least the gap or any introduce artifact s so small as to not cause any kind of problem or be noticeable.

Bruno

Yes, I have read all of them. I have tried using the nogap option in lame, and everything else people had suggested. The gap is almost inperceptable, but its still there. Cross fading would solve the problem, and would make all my trance sound better in shuffle mode. :-) Thanks for the suggestions though!

Sean

I'd like a configurable cross-fader as well. Mainly for use with shuffle modes and not to try and fix things that should be gapless (though it will also do that).

I use an excellent one (SqrSoft Advanced Crossfading) with Winamp for which I've set to some pretty rudimentary settings. I set it to its CLUB preset and then made some small adjustments (no fading on seek for instance, nor tracks less than 55 seconds (good number based on my other position settings)). It's worked great on anything I've played through it. Even if the two pieces of music are completely different styles and/or tempo.

Bruno

Assuming crossfading is technically feasible, it would be a really nice feature. I would imagine its pretty complicated to program, and I would imagine a big strain on the processor. But if you;re listening to loud thumping music theres nothing worse than sudden dead silence inbetween tracks. Even if the tracks dont go together well, its better just to have continuous sound IMO. Failing that even a fast fade out, and fade in (no overlap) might be better than a hard cut!

As for pre-matching which mp3's go together, Hmm, theoretically, a field on the ID3 tag could store info about pitch, BPM, and fadein startpoint and endpoint., and at the end of the track, fadeout startpoint and endpoint.
Perahps asking the machine to tweak the speed of similar BPM'd tracks (like a real DJ) might be asking a little too much however

It would be awesome if the empeg team can pull together cross fade. And also add a checkbox to emplode to mark "Never Crossfade" -- as there are music, even whole genres that do not make sense to cross fade.

Calvin

I think crossfading would be great, even between different types of music. My end goal is to create my own music "stations" based on genre but with my music and without commercials and DJ's. Crossfading would just add to the effect.

Of course, if its impossible (or practically impossible) to program, that pretty much ends the discussion.

"I think crossfading would be great, even between different types of music. My end goal is to create my own music 'stations' based on genre but with my music and without commercials and DJ's. Crossfading would just add to the effect."

I agree!

Should i really start a crossfading poll? ;->

Practically impossible? I know a few people that can probably do it. They're all on this BBS. As mentioned above by someone else, it can be a processor drain, but no one has ever mentioned anything to say it's not technically possible (for hardware or software reasons).

Have you ever used SqrSoft's crossfader for Winamp? It works very well between any kind of music. Of course it also trims leading and trailing silence (near silence actually because there's some fuzziness in the detection (which is a good thing)). Very incredible little plugin. It has far too many features than should ever be attempted for the empeg, but the basic cross-fading stuff (Club-type settings) are what we could benefit the most from.

At this time, this is something that should be handled by the player software and not a hack, IMO. Of course if the player were openned up to plugins and patches via some kind of API, that could be a difference story...

Bruno

Very interesting stuff, a subject that I too am quite interested in!

It's not so difficult to crossfade on a PC platform, resourses allow two decoders to play at different rates and the output to be mixed, I've done it in windows!

Not sure how easy it would be on the Empeg, you need processing power but also you need ram to buffer both streams and you need to pre-analise the beginning-end of each track to calculate BPM (Beats Per Minute) and work out syncronise positions!

Possible, but a little tricky to squeeze into a machine that is already performing miricles! I guess it will take a really good programmer with plenty of time on their hands to stand a chance of getting done!

Just my thoughts ;-)

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