Gapless MP3 export not working

Cubase
#1

I’m trying to export an album in which there are three tracks which are gapkess - ie continuous play between tracks.

Every attempt at exporting MP3 from CB 10.5.12 results in a click/pop between tracks.

I’m using 320kb high quality MP3 settings.

This should work, right?

Tested the output files on several players. All click. These players play other gapless MP3 files without clicks.

Just to be obvious, the tracks play perfectly in CB without clicks. There is no processing going on - no plugs/strip or other manipulation. This is an album master mix which I am just cutting up in to tracks.

Just tried real-time export on these tracks. Same problem.

If I export WAV, the gapless playback is perfect. Also tried pushing the gapless WAV files through a LAME encoder and that isn’t producing gapless MP3 either.

Sure I’ve done this before without problems, but not now. Maybe I’m wrong or have overlooked something…

Anyone got a suggestion how to do gapless MP3 these days?

Regards,

#2

Hi,

I would recommend to make a very short Fade Out and In at the end/beginning of the Audio events. Are the Audio events overlapping?

#3

HI Martin.

Even the shortest fade out in would not be gapless. I’ll try it and see. I assume you mean very short indeed, so as to hopefully be inaudible?

This seems to be a limitation of the Cubase encoder. Apparently most encoders cannot do gapless compressed audio files.

I have made gapless MP3s years ago using other encoders, so I know it is possible. But apprently the encoders which can do it achieve it by not compressing the first/last small part of the MP3 file. which makes sense to me. I can undestand how a lossy compressed file cannot easily be gapless as the encoding of the last bit of a file will not be considering the encoding of the start of the next file.

#4

The minute fade ou/in doesn’t work and still leavesa a gap.

It seems that my previous success with MP3 gapless playback was using the LAME encoder and a player which supported the LAME MP3 info tag. So in general, gapless MP3 is not a thing.

Learn more here if you are interested.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gapless_playback