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More => Old Versions => Media Center 17 => Topic started by: RedJ on March 30, 2012, 06:17:40 pm

Title: Linking Two Songs Together
Post by: RedJ on March 30, 2012, 06:17:40 pm
What's the best way to link to tracks together so they play back to back as if they are a single track?  There are certain tracks that traditionally are almost always played consecutively (Heartbreaker+Living Loving Maid, Eruption+You Really Got Me, Sirius+Eye in the Sky, The Happiest Days Of Our Lives+Another Brick In The Wall Part 2, Brain Stew+Jaded, for instance), yet come in as separate tracks when ripped from a CD and so don't end up next to each other in any randomized smartlists.  I would like to avoid the extra steps and mess (and re-compression) of outputting the tracks to a separate combined file.  I can create a stack out of these tracks, but it observes my crossfade settings which ruins the transition and there are some other things that don't seem to work ideally for this (stack naming, track order).  Is there any other method I'm missing that works great for this?
Title: Re: Linking Two Songs Together
Post by: Skidood on March 30, 2012, 08:30:54 pm
A track is a track.. You can splice songs together using Audacity. (free)
Title: Re: Linking Two Songs Together
Post by: RedJ on March 31, 2012, 02:31:05 pm
A track is a track.. You can splice songs together using Audacity. (free)

"I would like to avoid the extra steps and mess (and re-compression) of outputting the tracks to a separate combined file." 

I'm looking for a way to do this virtually within Media Center, not the extra hassle and redundancy of creating merged tracks, no matter what the method.  I would also like to maintain the integrity of the original album, which creating a mega track does not accomplish unless I omit the album name from the combined track's tag.
Title: Re: Linking Two Songs Together
Post by: RedJ on April 02, 2012, 10:36:55 am
Maybe now that the weekend is over, some audiophiles will weigh in.  I'm hoping there's a clean, non-brute force way to make this happen in MC (after all, it's the media manager of choice for those who care about these types of things).

If it's not possible, I hope JRiver will consider working this into their near-term feature roadmap.  Ideally, I'd like something that works like stacking, only I want the top-level to be a virtual container that can be named separately from the tracks it contains with the ability to be treated as a single entity for purposes of playback.  Actually, I'd really prefer stacks to work that way as a whole, aside from the single entity thing which only seems to apply to audio tracks.
Title: Re: Linking Two Songs Together
Post by: wig on April 02, 2012, 11:02:43 am
Maybe now that the weekend is over, some audiophiles will weigh in.  I'm hoping there's a clean, non-brute force way to make this happen in MC (after all, it's the media manager of choice for those who care about these types of things).

If it's not possible, I hope JRiver will consider working this into their near-term feature roadmap.  Ideally, I'd like something that works like stacking, only I want the top-level to be a virtual container that can be named separately from the tracks it contains with the ability to be treated as a single entity for purposes of playback.  Actually, I'd really prefer stacks to work that way as a whole, aside from the single entity thing which only seems to apply to audio tracks.

As I mentioned in another thread, I think this would be a great extension for the new Particles (http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Particles) features. Ideally, you'd be able to click on multiple tracks, then choose Stacks/Advanced/Particles, creating a phantom copy of the combined tracks.
Title: Re: Linking Two Songs Together
Post by: RedJ on April 02, 2012, 11:28:54 am
Maybe they could call them "Molecules"  ;)
Title: Re: Linking Two Songs Together
Post by: fitbrit on April 02, 2012, 12:42:43 pm
Maybe they could call them "Molecules"  ;)

I had exactly this idea for a name for the same feature that wig suggests. I didn't bother posting it to the Beta board, as I quickly persuaded myself that other members wouldn't care about this request.
Title: Re: Linking Two Songs Together
Post by: wig on April 02, 2012, 12:53:25 pm
I had exactly this idea for a name for the same feature that wig suggests. I didn't bother posting it to the Beta board, as I quickly persuaded myself that other members wouldn't care about this request.

I always want to hear Young Lust after Empty Spaces. Every. Single. Time.

Molecules could make this happen. It could fill the final places.
Title: Re: Linking Two Songs Together
Post by: maliceme on April 02, 2012, 01:21:35 pm
Weird. Was just thinking this morning that this would be a cool feature. It would be very helpful pulling together multi-movement classical works.
Title: Re: Linking Two Songs Together
Post by: rick.ca on April 02, 2012, 05:14:14 pm
As I mentioned in another thread, I think this would be a great extension for the new Particles (http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Particles) features. Ideally, you'd be able to click on multiple tracks, then choose Stacks/Advanced/Particles, creating a phantom copy of the combined tracks.

The mechanism for Particles doesn't seem to lend itself to combining files. I don't know if this is feasible either, but it adding codes to [Playback Range] to 'play previous' and 'play next' would be much easier to use. That would allow any number of consecutive tracks to be strung together. If any one of them were picked by a smartlist, the whole sequence would be played. If only 'play next' codes were added, it would play from the entry point to the end. Or if only 'play previous' were added, it would play only the previous and then the selected track. It could even be used to play the previous and next tracks, skipping the selected track (i.e., "p, 0-0, n").

This solution wouldn't require any other tagging or changing of the original tracks. The Player Bar, Playing Now, etc. would work exactly as they do now—showing information about the actual file playing. I suppose it would be best if the mechanism were only applied in smartlists, so individual files could still be played "manually" and included explicitly in playlists. If it's part of the smartlist system, that also means the list generated would always show exactly what is to be played when it's generated.
Title: Re: Linking Two Songs Together
Post by: wig on April 02, 2012, 05:51:18 pm
The mechanism for Particles doesn't seem to lend itself to combining files. I don't know if this is feasible either, but it adding codes to [Playback Range] to 'play previous' and 'play next' would be much easier to use. That would allow any number of consecutive tracks to be strung together. If any one of them were picked by a smartlist, the whole sequence would be played. If only 'play next' codes were added, it would play from the entry point to the end. Or if only 'play previous' were added, it would play only the previous and then the selected track. It could even be used to play the previous and next tracks, skipping the selected track (i.e., "p, 0-0, n").

This solution wouldn't require any other tagging or changing of the original tracks. The Player Bar, Playing Now, etc. would work exactly as they do now—showing information about the actual file playing. I suppose it would be best if the mechanism were only applied in smartlists, so individual files could still be played "manually" and included explicitly in playlists. If it's part of the smartlist system, that also means the list generated would always show exactly what is to be played when it's generated.

I like it.
Title: Re: Linking Two Songs Together
Post by: maliceme on February 25, 2013, 12:12:16 pm
Anyone in the know know if this feature is being explored?