End-of-File Indicator? Track Stops Playing Too Soon

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kboasso
Posts: 20
Joined: Tue Dec 14, 2010 10:36 am

End-of-File Indicator? Track Stops Playing Too Soon

Post by kboasso »

There's probably a real simple answer to this, but I can't find anything on my Amadeus Pro (v2.1.6 (1517) because I'm still running OS X 10.6.8 on my 8-year-old MacBook Pro) or other software. Hopefully, Martin &/or the community can help...

Editing sound files. I usually start with MP3s but sometimes with M4As or FLACs or others. I may be trimming the file (e.g., to remove unwanted sounds or silence), or I may be joining multiple files (e.g., when the recordings of two songs run together, but the CD track increment automatically creates two files). Every now & then, the resulting file will not play back all the way to the end -- usually playback is happening on iTunes or an iPod/iPhone, but it happens elsewhere, too.

If I open the resulting file in Amadeus, I can see the entire wave diagram & play the sound to the end. But when I've saved the file to MP3 for playback, it will not play to the end. It will always stop at the same place. This doesn't happen with all of the files I edit but with enough of them that it's an issue.

For instance: I just edited a 22-minute FLAC file. I grabbed the last 5:46 minutes and saved to a new MP3 file. When I play back in iTunes, it plays until 4:17 minutes and then skips to the end & stops.

If I use the mouse to click the playback progress bar past the 4:17 mark, the song will play to the end.

This suggests to me that there's something in the wave that is indicating end-of-file, but I can't see it.

Any ideas? Driving me crazy...

Thanks!

kpb

kboasso
Posts: 20
Joined: Tue Dec 14, 2010 10:36 am

Post by kboasso »

OK: Sorry, all. I figured this out on my own.

(Reason I was having a hard time with it was the problem wasn't happening all the time, and I couldn't see what the commonalities were in the incidents when it was happening...)

I just figured out that the problem is somewhere in iTunes. In creating the "new" edited MP3 file, I was overwriting a file that already existed in my iTunes dbase. The "old" (i.e., existing) MP3 file was shorter than the newly-edited file, but iTunes was playing the known (i.e., "old") duration and segueing to the next track in the queue.

Using the example from my original post: I edited 22-minute FLAC file, copying out a 5:46-minute segment to create a separate MP3 file. I was doing this to replace a (lesser-quality) 4:17 minute MP3 file that already existed in my iTunes library.

What I should have done was (1) remove the original 4:17 minute file from my iTunes library, (2) remove the file from my drive, (3) save the new 5:46 minute file, and (4) import the "new" file into my iTunes library. Instead, I merely overwrote the "old" file with the "new" one. Clearly, iTunes wasn't recognizing the change.

Sorry, all (especially Martin). I *knew* this was some kind of dumb user-error.

kpb

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