Hello! I want to export WAV’s for streaming, and I want it to sound the same as my recently exported DDP, including all the crossfades in between songs when played back on for example iTunes (but with slightly adjusted headroom for streaming codec etc).
However, I have all songs lined up on 2 separate tracks with CD markers and I chose “All marked regions” in the Render tab, and “CD tracks”. I render and get all the WAVs in my folder, but when playing them back in iTunes or VLC there’s a short “cut” or gap in the transition. “Crossfade” box in iTunes is unchecked.
My guess is that you didn’t use CD Track Splice Markers and that in your montage, there is space between the track end marker, and the next track start marker. Remember, you’re asking WaveLab to render the regions, not the space in between the regions.
This is why I always use CD Track Splice Markers, because it’s more black & white. One track ends, and the next one starts at the exact same time. This way, the spacing between songs is always built in to the files when rendering.
That being said, if you prefer the old style of markers (with space in between the end and next start marker), there is a setting that should help the situation. See attached.
That said, I would consider using CD Track Splice Markers instead for a simpler and cleaner look in your markers tab, and less chance for things like this to go wrong.
Sharing a picture of your Markers Tab could help us better understand what’s going on as well.
Thank you!! But no, I do use the splice markers. Unless I fail to understand some part of your reply, I think something else must be causing my problem I even rendered all FX into the file to make sure there was no hiccup in the processing (not sure if that’s a valid point though)
Interesting, are you sure that VLC doesn’t have a setting that is adding a crossfade to songs?
I would suggest making a reference track in the montage that you render the files from, and then load in the rendered files back to back (no extra spacing) and see how they look visually compared to the montage they were rendered from.
Ideally, the rendered files are perfectly in sync with the files in the montage they were rendered from. If not, we can try to figure out why.
No crossfade setting as far as I can see, in VLC. But iTunes behaves the same, and there crossfade is unchecked. Now a friend checked in his computer as well, with the same result.
I’m not sure I follow exactly what you suggest as far as “reference track”, but I’m also low on blood sugar right now
And also, do you really have no plugins active when rendering the final files?
I could see a 3rd party plugin causing an issue like this too but if you’re not using any plugins on the final render, and using splice markers, the resulting files should be in sync with your source montage.
Ok, so - not sure exactly what to do, but here’s what the audio looks like when I’m importing it. After track 1, it all gets a bump to the right, but that’s NOT how long the added “pauses” are. They’re just fractions of a second.
No, no plugins. See pics. Also, “tracks” and “output” have no plugins.
The first comment I have is that on your reference track, the files should have no space between them because that’s how they’ll be treated by a streaming service and/or media player. You can manually fix that, or change this setting so that when you import files, 0 seconds is added between the files:
Like this? The reference tracks sounds stellar now. No gap, no pops, all good.
So this is a safe way to know that what I’m delivering will sound right when played back by the streaming services, unless the users playback settings would change any of it?
I would trust checkin the rendered files loaded back in to WaveLab over anything that a media player might be doing.
You can also just make a new montage to test the files, but using a Reference Track in the original montages helps you visualize things too compared to the timing of the source audio before rendering track by track.
If it sounds good when loaded back into WaveLab, I would trust it. However, I would consider investigating whey VLC and iTunes are not playing the files correctly. It’s often a user setting.
J River Media Center is a pretty good prosumer media player that can be good for testing too.
No problem. Generally speaking, if the WAVs sound correct when butted up back to back with absolutely 0s of space between them in a new test montage or Reference Track, then all is OK.
Of course, you can be strategic about where to place the track marker (nearest a zero crossing or lull in the audio) before rendering the master WAV files so that it sounds as smooth as possible when you skip to that song.
However, the end result on streaming will always be up to the streaming service, user settings, and any buffering and/or networks settings vs. if the files are downloaded locally for offline use. And also, remembering that most lossy encoding adds a few ms of silence at the start of a file doesn’t help.
So because of all that, my philosophy is that as long as the master WAV files are glitch free and perfectly gapless when tested in a new montage or Reference Track in the original montage, that’s the best you can do.
I don’t know VLC at all but at one point, iTunes was pretty good at gapless WAV playback but in the last few years, it has become unreliable for gapless WAV testing.
J River Media Center remains solid as a 2nd opinion and of course, checking the rendered files back in WaveLab is a good place to start too.
I even rendered all FX into the file to make sure there was no hiccup in the processing (not sure if that’s a valid point though)
