Topic: Play inserted silence between tracks?

[Dowlphin]

I cannot find such an option, but it would be really useful. Can XMPlay not insert a certain amount of silence between tracks when playing them?
Ideally even a fixed total one that incorporates any silence that might exist in the tracks themselves.
AFAIR this has even been an integral feature of CD players back then, and/or maybe the CDs themselves.
The closest functionality I found is "Trim ending silence" in the MOD playback settings, so that is an ability to detect silence in tracks. Something to build on for what I am looking for.

[Ian @ un4seen]

XMPlay doesn't currently have that option. It may be possible to add it but finding a suitable space for it in the options window could be an issue. If you don't mind it always being applied (at least until XMPlay is restarted) then it could perhaps be added as just an XMPLAY.INI file setting.

[Dowlphin]

I guess with making the ini read-only that could work. Although that could cause other issues if I forget about that and want to change settings.
I think I can manage for now. It was just one new track I added that made me aware of this and I made a version with added silence now.

[Ian @ un4seen]

Just to clarify, when I said "If you don't mind it always being applied (at least until XMPlay is restarted)", I meant that you wouldn't be able to change the setting until restarting XMPlay because that's when the XMPLAY.INI file is read. The setting wouldn't change by itself, so you wouldn't need to write-protect the XMPLAY.INI file.

[Dowlphin]

Ah, that sounds good then.
No hurry, though. Just if you, too, think it is a good feature to add.

Because I also just thought that this could open up further questions: How to handle this for loop play? Should it always assume seamless loops like for MODs? Or offer options specifically for such behavior?

[brycco]

Why do you want silence? Nostalgia? Do you want vinyl noise as well?

Genuinely curious. XMPlay already has fading and crossfading, so gentle transitions can be done.

It was originally a technical limitation in the first CD players, intended for being able to differentiate between tracks. And on vinyl, it was just there to make it clear when moving the needle, to place it before a new song started.

[Dowlphin]

It was originally a technical limitation in the first CD players, intended for being able to differentiate between tracks. And on vinyl, it was just there to make it clear when moving the needle, to place it before a new song started.

That seems to make little sense. It is a digital medium. The player can read a TOC and start/end marks if needed.
I mean, I remember issues with old methods of audio extraction in regards to bit accuracy, but that was due to PC drives and their speed reading limitations and the fact that audio extraction used a sped up play mode or such.

And why is the desire for inter-track silence so hard to understand? It is the norm, because having seamless transitions between unrelated tracks is very weird. And there is no norm for how much silence to include in the tracks themselves.

In one practical example that prompted me to look for such a feature, I was listening to a track but wanted to decide manually how often to repeat it before switching to the next one, but it would immediately switch to the next one before I could repeat-play it. That was annoying.