Gapless Playback still not 100%

[Andy_P]

Gapless playback is essential for many Live albums and Classical concerts, as well as lots of other "concept" albums.

Looking back over various forum posts and Help pages, it seems Gaplesss Playback was implemented a few years ago, and originally it was accessible in the preferences menu (but "on" by default). Now it is not an option, but supposedly is still "on".

However, playing many albums that require it (eg Yello's Pocket Universe) a small gap is still being inserted, which is hugely annoying.

In the past, Spotify suggested the "Crossfade" feature performed the same function. I hope by now you realise it is something else entirely, performing a useful role but NOT what's needed for Gapless.

If one switches "Crossfade" on in the options and reduces the crossfade time to zero, the gap is a lot smaller, but there is still a momentary mute or glitch at the switchover point.

Come on Spotify, you said this was implemented about 6 years ago. CDs could do this right from the beginning, because Phillips engineers realised it was vitally important..

Please fix it (on all platforms AND on Connect)

[Sebasty]

Hey @Andy_P

Gapless playback is on by default as far as I can say. There are no audible gaps in my end in either the web player or desktop.

Crossfade is off when a user listens to an album. It will be turned on again when there are some queued songs, or the user listens to anything else (playlists).

What devices are you experiencing the gaps on?

Keep me posted 🙂

[Leoistsunami]

I experience the issue on my Galaxy S9+ but I also just chalked it up to the song having to load. Maybe try it with a playlist you've downloaded and check if that works for you better. I ultimately switched to crossfade 

[Andy_P]

Hi Sebasty, thanks for your reply. This is on a Windows 10 Dell Inspiron 5000 series laptop.

I took a quick screen grab of the gap I was hearing before I went to bed last night (Pic #1)

That shows a gap of about 0.25 secs between tracks 1 and 2 of the album "Pocket Universe" by a band called Yello.

After multiple experiments today with the Crossfade option switched on or off, I can definitely say the results are variable.

Using the album I was playing last night as a test and with Crossfade ON but set to 0 seconds, today there was now no discernible gap between tracks 1-2, nor was there one between  2-3, 3-4 or 4-5, but there WAS a nasty gap between tracks 5-6 when there should be continuing sounds of seagulls, seawash and synths.

...and another gap between Track 6-7 where there should be droning synths

Interestingly, it seems that the outgoing track is chopped off hard, but the incoming track gets a new fade in.

-----------------------------

Secondly, you mention that the crossfade should get automatically turned off when playing an album, but my experiments seem to refute that.

Here are the results I got when playing an (online) album with normal gaps, and  comparing with crossfade set to 'on' but at 0 seconds and with crossfade set to 10 seconds....

Crossfade On / 0 seconds crossfade time:

Crossfade On / 10 seconds crossfade time:

A perfect soution would be to have a Crossfade On/Off option with time setting, AND an additional option to apply it only to shuffled songs and Playlists OR to albums played in track order as well.

But ANY crossfade settings should be ignored if an album should be gapless.

- I'm probably asking too much!!! 🙂

Incidentally, do you know exactly HOW Spotify (or any other music player) is supposed to know if a transition between tracks should be gapless or not? There doesn't seem to be an ID3 tag for it.

[Sebasty]

@Andy_P

Your results made me go experiment as well. :')

Crossfade is definitely off (even when it's on and at max setting) when I listen to an album (not a playlist, not queued songs, an album). It's supposed to work that way I've been confirmed.

Gapless playback on the Yello album as well as everything else, doesn't matter if with or without crossfade. When crossfade was enabled, it didn't do anything because I was playing an album.

This leads me to think there's either something wrong with your Spotify client or there's a setting in your soundcard preferences causing this.

Try reinstalling Spotify by doing this:

1. Close Spotify and uninstall it.
2. Go to %AppData% in Windows Explorer, and delete any Spotify folders you find in Local and Roaming folders.
3. Restart your computer.
4. Install Spotify.

If you're using default soundcard, try disabling Sound Enhancements. Follow this guide on how to (it's pretty universal across Windows platforms).

Also, try turning off the setting that reduces volume in the event of communication. Right-click on speaker icon on Taskbar, go to Sounds. Go to Communications tab, set Windows to do nothing, click OK.

Let me know how it goes 🙂