Approximate Methods
Heuristics are used by some music players to detect silence between tracks and trim the audio as necessary on playback. Due to the loss of time resolution of lossy compression, this method is inexact. In particular, the silence is not exactly zero. If the silence threshold is too low, some silences go undetected. Too high, and entire sections of quiet music at the beginning or end of a track may be removed.
Digital signal processing (DSP) algorithms can also be used to crossfade between tracks. This eliminates gaps that some listeners find distracting, but also greatly alters the audio signal, which may have undesirable effects on the listening experience. Some listeners dislike these effects more than the gap they attempt to remove. For example, crossfading is inappropriate for files that are already gapless, in which case the transition may feel artificially short and disturb the rhythm. Also, depending on the length of untrimmed silence and the particular crossfader, it may cause a large volume drop.
These methods defeat the purpose of intentional spacing between tracks. Not all albums are mix albums; perhaps more typically, there is an aesthetic pause between unrelated tracks. Also, the artist may intentionally leave in silences for dramatic effect, which should arguably be preserved regardless of whether there is a track boundary there.
Compared to precise gapless playback, these methods are a different approach to erroneous silence in audio files, but other required features are the same. However, this approach requires more computation. In portable digital audio players, this means a reduced playing time on batteries.
Read more about this topic: Gapless Playback
Famous quotes containing the words approximate and/or methods:
“All fashions are charming, or rather relatively charming, each one being a new striving, more or less well conceived, after beauty, an approximate statement of an ideal, the desire for which constantly teases the unsatisfied human mind.”
—Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867)
“A writer who writes, “I am alone” ... can be considered rather comical. It is comical for a man to recognize his solitude by addressing a reader and by using methods that prevent the individual from being alone. The word alone is just as general as the word bread. To pronounce it is to summon to oneself the presence of everything the word excludes.”
—Maurice Blanchot (b. 1907)