Imported WMP MP3s have a loud pop

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Rocsee
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2011/09/28 16:49:55 (permalink)

Imported WMP MP3s have a loud pop

When importing an MP3 (drop-drop from the Browser), the clip starts with a loud pop of seemingly random data. It looks like Cakewalk is considering part of the metadata (or ID3 tags?) to be actual audio. The only other 'application' with which I have this issue is my car's MP3 player, which in fact is the main reason why I want to further investigate this. In Sonar it's dead easy to cut away the burst in the clip, so that's not the problem.

I want to understand what in the MP3 is causing this behavior. I already found that Windows Media Player is at least part of the problem. An MP3 that was created through EAC+LAME results in an MP3 that doesn't exhibit the problem in Sonar. Once I let Windows Media Player detect the MP3, the resulting MP3 has the pop in Sonar. The only way I could get the pop to disappear was to remove all tags with MP3Tag. And as soon as I added a new ID3 tag, the pop would reappear.

Note that an answer like: "don't let Windows Media Player touch the file" won't help me much. I already have a library of over 1000 albums and I'm definitely not going to re-rip them all. If I better understand the true cause, I might find a way to batch process those 10k+ MP3 files to solve the problem.

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    bitflipper
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    Re:Imported WMP MP3s have a loud pop 2011/09/29 12:35:34 (permalink)
    Interesting. I've never seen this problem, but then I rarely import MP3 files into SONAR. I would have expected any metadata to be ignored on import, but perhaps there is something in there (DRM?) that doesn't conform to normal standards for metadata.

    Are you saying that merely playing an MP3 in WMP alters the file? That seems unlikely. Any chance you could send me a sample?


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    Rocsee
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    Re:Imported WMP MP3s have a loud pop 2011/09/29 17:04:21 (permalink)
    The changes happen not even when playing but by merely dropping the MP3's in one of WMP's library directories. WMP a.o. goes fetch cover art, extra information on composer etc...
    In doing so, WMP must be changing something else, because if I then delete all tags again, except e.g. Artist, even then I get the burst. The only way to get rid of the burst is to remove all tags, and even if I then manually add 1 tag again (say Artist again) I get the burst again. So it's more than just the meta-data, but I have no clue what exactly.
    I could send you a file, as about any rip I have acts like this...






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