From: John C. <jo...@in...> - 2014-09-26 03:22:38
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Alister, I'm guessing that the lame encoding in gwc has had a problem for some time now. Don't know if it is a problem for everyone, but it is for every install I have done. I also remember seeing that hiss problem reported in a Debian bug report a while back. I don't think they knew what caused it or how to fix it so it is still broken in the pre-packaged gwc on the Debian repository. I just installed gwc 0.21.18 on a new install of Debian Jessie on my laptop and before adding your correction to encode.c, I had the same hiss on encoded mp3 files as on my other systems. Removing the -x byteswap switch corrected it. A long time ago, maybe 10 years, some program I was using had an extra line in the mp3 config menu where you could pass extra command line switches to lame. I don't remember what program it was, but that could be a solution for gwc in case someone needed a byteswap or some other extra feature. I really wish some other gwc users would chime in here and let us know if gwc encodes to mp3 properly for them, and what version of lame they are using. It may be that it's time to remove the -x switch from the encoding process, or find an easy way for them to turn it on or off. I confirmed that when using the simple mp3 encode in gwc 0.21-19, the artist and track name entered on the track name dialog box end up in the id3 tag. I guess this would be useful for some people. I usually encode the file(s) and then use easytag to populate the id3 tags. There is a lot more info that I usually include, such as album name, year, composer, label, etc so it is not necessary for gwc to have this feature. I noticed I can just click cancel and it moves on to the encode process, but as mentioned before, it leaves a gray box on the screen and no progress dialog. I saw the settings you mentioned in the simple mp3 settings menu where one could put the artist and track name, but they aren't working yet... Not sure if this is an efficient place to put that info, especially if it persists into the next session. For me, no id3 tag stuff is needed at all. When I click on encode, it should pick up the name of the loaded wav file and change the suffix to mp3 or ogg, and I can tweak the name in the encode as dialog box if needed. I realized after I posted last night that there's no way that the sound card could be related to the byte swapping, since everything we're doing here is in software. The sound card merely plays the result. So everyone, please ignore my mention of the sound card. It has nothing to do with how lame encodes the wav file. I did try the git version of gwc 0.21-19 that Alister posted on Sept. 24, 2014, and it works. All of the above observations are based on the compile of that git version. It basically works fine, except that when using either of the encode to mp3 functions, there is no filename in the "encode to filename" box. It has to be manually typed. The stock version did pre-populate the filename as in previous versions, which I prefer. I haven't tried all of the encode possibilities, but for me the extra new track name dialog box is not what I wanted. Others may like it. Regards, John On 09/25/2014 03:44 AM, Alister Hood wrote: > Hi again, > > > John Cirillo wrote, On 25/09/14 15:40: >> Alister, >> >> Thanks for the patches. I tried the first one on my >> present home install of 0.21-11 (still using the old lame >> 3.97) and confirmed that now the mp3 files become >> byte-swapped. >> I installed the latest lame 3.99.5 and confirmed that the >> mp3 files are encoded correctly. This is a great relief, >> now I no longer have to keep using that old lame version. >> I'm not sure exactly why this byte swap code was added, >> but it might have been to correct something in the older >> lame versions. I do remember that everything worked fine >> until lame got upgraded to 3.98. I seem to remember that >> some changes were made to the syntax of the command line >> options starting with lame 3.98, so maybe that had >> something to do with it. > There is this in the LAME changelog, although x86 > processors are little endian, so it seems unlikely to me > that this is the change (not that I know anything...): > > > LAME 3.98 beta 8 April 13 2008 > > * > o ... > o fix for some endianess problem on big-endian machines > >> But it's still odd that no one else has complained about >> the hiss noise problem in these last five years or so. > I imagine it is due to these factors: > - Not many people use gwc regularly. > - A lot of them probably don't export because they process > an entire side of an LP in one go, and then use other > software to split it into tracks, because GWC isn't the > best tool for that. > - Some probably export only to ogg. > - Some probably found that this feature was broken, but > didn't report it (notice the lack of reports in the last > 19 months about the export feature freezing gwc!). > - Some probably followed the workaround you posted and > installed an older LAME. > :) >> Does that mean that on some systems gwc and the new lame >> manage to produce a correct mp3 anyway? > Good question. >> I wonder if it's sound card related. I don't have time >> to experiment with this too much but I know my home and >> work machines both use an Ensoniq ES1371. So if the >> problem is not present for most users, it would not be >> prudent to remove that byte swap code in the main gwc >> distribution. More needs to be learned about what's >> happening. I'm on an i386 architecture so I don't have >> native byte swapping, so that's not it. Hmm... >> >> I went ahead and made the three changes you recommend in >> 0.21-19 and so far so good. It didn't freeze up on me >> and encoded a usable mp3 file. >> There is something new in 0.21-19 that I'm not sure I >> understand. After I get the "encode to filename" dialog >> and click OK, I get another box that says to enter the >> track name. I didn't know what to put so I just put the >> number 1 and it took it, but the box didn't completely >> clear and there is no encoding progress bar. >> I don't know what it did with that track name? It didn't >> end up in the id3 tag info. > Good spotting. If you use the "Simple encode selection as > mp3" it ends up in the id3 tag. I hadn't got around to > comparing the "old" and "new" encode functions yet to look > for any other differences like this - I'll do so now. > If you're building and using your own copy of gwc anyway, > would you mind using my version on github, instead of just > this patch? I believe it is less buggy, but testing is > good! BTW I haven't had a chance to attempt the last > changes needed to finish porting to plain gtk, but > hopefully I will soon. >> Thanks again, I'm now using the latest lame with no issues. >> >> John > > Thanks, > Alister |