importing mixed cds without hateful gaps between tracks

I'm sure the engineers probably have thought of this feature. But if they don't have permission to implement it, they can't. You aren't the only person to express a wish for this feature. You should send your feedback to Apple using this Feedback page.

Since iTunes does not support gapless playback the only way to not have any gaps is to import all the tracks on the CD as one track by using the "join CD tracks" feature. Alternately you can set the crossfade to about one second, which is not a perfect solution but is a solution.

To join the tracks on a CD: put in the CD, highlight all the tracks, and pull down Advanced > Join CD Tracks.

Another solution is detailed here. Basically, it involves importing all your songs as one track using "Join CD Tracks", then setting chapter marks like in an audio book or podcast. I haven't tried it, though, so I can't say if it really works or not.

best,

charlie

But you lose the ability to see what the individual songs are.... and the ability to scan through the CD easily.. you can only hold the FF button and just be patient.

This is a hardware issue.... so don't expect a fix for your current iPod.

In fact, I would not hold my breath for a fix to this problem at all.

This problem has been known since the 1st Gen iPod... and Apple has done nothing. We're now on 4th Gen.

The Rio Karma was able to playback all file formats as gapless. Wav, MP3, Flac, Ogg Vorbis. So it can be done.

There is no excuse, other than it would require a different hardware config, which Apple isn't springing for.

This article explains gaps:

http://www.pretentiousname.com/mp3players/

I have a Karma and care very much about this issue. The closest thing to a solution on a Mac right now is to use Chapter Tool, but it's too clumsy a process to really recommend to anyone at this point. I posted a write-up on how to use it very shortly after the command line tool was released, but I don't know if it's online still or not.

I'd also point out a very important fact regarding this issue: There will be no point in implementing gapless playback in iTunes and iPod unless both the MP3 and AAC encoders Apple supplies are modified to support gapless playback. That would definitely have to happen first, as I don't reckon it would make much sense for Apple to introduce gapless playback when it would only support LAME MP3s and Nero (PC-only) AACs. Of course Apple Lossless, AIFF and WAV are gapless, so it would still be nice to see proper playback support for at least these formats...

I have read the ChapterTool tutorial that has been posted on the internet, so I do know of the workaround you speak of.

Unfortunately, ChapterTool is a Mac OSX program.... and I only have PCs at the moment.

So am I just out of luck on that, or is there a way to do it with PC?

If I ever get an iPod, I'll most likely use it with my PC as well. I wouldn't be too surprised if something eventually showed up on rarewares or elsewhere to allow Chapter Tool (or something like it) to run via foobar2000. I use that program for all of my conversions (FLAC to other formats), and it allows the joining of tracks already stored on your hard drive when running a conversion (in that way it's better than the Join CD Tracks feature in iTunes). I would think that kind of solution would be fairly simple to implement, and probably the way I'd handle things if I did have an iPod.

There is an easy way of doing this. Once you've imported your CD go to 'Preferences' in the iTunes menu. Select the 'Playback' button and click on the 'Crossfade' check box. Then slide the slider to '0 seconds' and your mix CDs should play on iTunes fine.

What this doesn't work for is burning another copy of your mix CD - the CD will have the little gaps in that you can hear on all CD players (even if the burning preferences are set to 'no gap'). Now if someone can tell me how to get around that....

You're missing the point here. I don't really see why anyone would care if iTunes can play gapless. We care about playback on the iPod.

There is NO WAY currently to import a mix CD, retaining the trackmarks, and making it playback properly on the iPod.

The only ways to do this are:

Import the CD as a single track. (This will play gapless, but you cannot see track information nor move quickly through the selection)

Rip the CD as a single file, and then use ChapterTool to create markers. But this solution is only for Mac, as ChapterTool is a Mac program.

Rip the CD as a single file, and then use ChapterTool to create markers. But this solution is only for Mac, as ChapterTool is a Mac program.

And this is a Mac forum 🙂

Of course I can't speculate on what Apple may do with any of their products, existing or otherwise, but it would at least seem possible that Chapter Tool could be made to run under Windows. If not, I don't see what would stop someone from making another tool for Windows that would accomplish the same thing, using Nero's AAC encoder or the iTunes encoder (which can already be used via other front ends).

You may "join tracks" on import - In this case the whole CD will be imported into one track without gaps.