Gapless MP3 loop

Envato Authors AudioJungle
1

Someone posted a link to an mp3 utility that allows creation of ‘gapless’ mp3 loops.
Does anyone have that link / thread?

TIA,

Toby

2
tobybrez said

Someone posted a link to an mp3 utility that allows creation of ‘gapless’ mp3 loops.
Does anyone have that link / thread?

TIA,

Toby

Why doing this with the mp3 file ? Create a gapless, nice looping WAV file in your DAW, and it will loop still fine once converted to mp3 !? Not working on your side ?

3

Thanks for the quick reply Sonic.

I use Soundforge to create both .wav and .mp3.
The .wav will save exactly how you render it… i.e. with no gap.
But, there is something about the mp3 spec that whenever you save as mp3 it adds a slight gap at the beginning and I believe end of the file.

Thanks,

Toby

4

Correct me if I am wrong for I’ve never heard of the software you mentioned, but it has never been previously possible to guarantee perfectly loopable mp3 content due to the nature of the mp3 file format. WAV is the preferred format for looping audio seamlessly. :slight_smile:

5

For many years I was convinced that, once I save mp3 from perfectly-looping wav file in Audacity, it also loops seamlessly. But then it turned out (at least I think so) that Audiacity (and many other audio applications) save looping information which some players can read (like my foobar2000). As Scott said, I don’t think there’s a way to guarantee seamless mp3 playback, and I think that it happens because of ID3 information stored at the end (or beginning) of mp3 file… I might be wrong, though :slight_smile:

6

Thanks for the responses. I believe you guys are correct. It is inherent in the MP3 specification that it add a tiny gap.
But, I thought someone posted a utility which would allow you to clip out the gap and re-save the file.

The reason for my concern is… I had a file approved but, the reviewer indicated it was not a loop. The .wav file is indeed a perfect, seamless loop. The mp3 preview however has the a fore mentioned gap. This is the only reason I can interpret that the reviewer would indicate it is not a loop.

I have sent in a support ticket inquiring. I’ll let you guys know if we figure it out. :slight_smile:

Thanks again,

Toby

7

The software you are referring to is mentioned in this thread.

Good luck. :wink:

8
LfO said

The software you are referring to is mentioned in this thread.

Good luck. :wink:

Perfect! Thank you, sir. :slight_smile:

Toby

9

I also must add that many game developers prefer to work with mp3. They know about Flash being able to convert wav to mp3 or other things, yet they ask us, authors to send them the mp3 files, smaller and smaller and mono, and even smaller than that.

Whatever is AJ file quality policy, clients want the files as THEY want not as reviewers or AJ officials tells us we MUST provide.

10

The tool doesn’t work. I’ve checked so many programs:

  • MP3Loop
  • Audacity
  • WinLAME
  • even directly exporting from the DAW

nothing helps. MP3Loop does the job somewhat OK but doesn’t work on my current project where I have to encode something with 60kbps. when I load it into Audacity afterwards and try to loop it, the gap is still there. it’s exhausting. why is there no real tool available? I am working on a mac by the way and had to test out all these tools with a VirtualBox…

OK here is what I did to circumvent the problems I had with MP3Loop (you can download it here: https://www.compuphase.com/mp3/mp3loops.htm)

  • save your wav file in a lower sample rate, convert it to mono if necessary
  • start up virtualBox if on Mac, import into MP3Loop
  • save as MP3
  • DONE