True gapless playback not working for me in Android, iOS and Windows.
I have manny live albums and there is always a small gap between tracks.
Please help, love Plexamp but need my live albums gapless.
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You will need to be more specific, because it works fine over here. You can share app logs via a DM as well.
For example I am listening to Phil Collins Serious Hits Live and I hear a little gap between songs.
And I am using Plexamp for Windows and I don’t see in settings share logs and to what DM should I send.
Look for Plexamp.log and DM to me (elan)
I also find that gapless playback on my Google Pixel 2XL with Plex mobile app does not work. There is a 1 second gap between tracks but perhaps I need to encode the mp3s differently? Or assign an attribute using mp3tag? I’m using the Plex server on my desktop PC as the source. I’m also probably using slightly incorrect terms to describe all this. Apologies for that. Any help is appreciated.
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No it’s broken @elan; I will back @Rickytin up on this one. I just installed 3.0.3 on macOS and now I am looking to roll back to 1.1.0. I’m testing Plexamp with the soundtrack from Her which sounds amazing with sweet fades/gapless playback.
Try it with track “Loneliness #3 (Night Talking)” → “Divorce Papers”
Loneliness #3’s has ~13 seconds of silence and there’s no fading of the next track. Plexamp simply plays the next song — no sweet fades or anything. The old behavior was that “Divorce Papers” would start to fade in at about the 3:13 mark on “Loneliness #3”. In fact, a lot of tracks from Her are perfect test beds for sweet fades.
I’m also testing on Drake & Future’s What A Time to Be Alive and the old behavior was that Plexamp would fade in the next track earlier if the current track’s levels reach a low enough point/silence. And this is not happening with the new version of Plexamp.
Is sweet fades client side or server side? I ask because now I’m testing the Her soundtrack on Plex for Android (8.0.1.17410) and sweet fades is not working there either. Also, the ability to turn on/off sweet fades inside the Plex Android app is now gone; volume leveling remains. That being said, I’m going to put my money on the former.
Sweet fades changed my relationship to my library of music so much, that I’ve even considered ditching my Google Play Music subscription (and I’ve been with them since beta) and switching over to Plex even though GPM/YouTube Music has higher fidelity than a lot of my old mp3s.
I just rolled back to v. 1.1.0 (thanks Time Machine!) and sweet fades is not working either. 
Tested with Portishead’s Cowboys → All Mine.
So, does this mean that sweet fades is server side?
Plex Server Version: 1.19.3.2764
Tests for Sweet Fades has been performed on:
- macOS
- Plex for Mac (standalone) v. 1.10.0.1208
- Plexamp
- v. 3.0.3
- v. 1.1.0
- Android
- Plexamp 3.0.2
- Plex 8.0.1.17410
P.S. - I would pull the logs for you, but there is no option to pull them up in the settings section on v 3.0.3.
Update: 09-MAR-2020
Running some tests on v. 3.0.3
- So, gapless playback is working for deadmau5’s 4x4=12 album when played in sequential order. However, Sweet Fades is not when the album is shuffled.
- Gapless playback is also working on v. 1.1.0 and Plex for Android. Sweet Fades is not.
- Webster Hall’s Tranzworld All-Stars, an old bootleg, is a track-to-track album and was mixed as a continuous mix — does not play back gapless. Sweet Fades does not work here either.
- Portishead’s Dummy played back sequentially Sweet Fades is not working.
- Tested with: Mysterons → Sour Times
- Sweet Fades seems to work on radio stations as it exhibits some interesting behavior with Boards of Canada’s Seeya Later → Death Cab for Cutie I Dreamt We Spoke Again.
Seeya Later has a long fade out in which, Sweet Fades will jump not fade to the next track when -0:23 seconds left on the track.
Via Library Radio:
I Dreamt We Spoke Again → Gone Under Sea by Electrelane = 
Gone Under Sea → Pantera by Kartell =
Pantera → White Room by Cream = 
White Room → I Left My Wallet in El Segundo = /
I Left My Wallet in El Segundo → Got to Keep On by The Chemical Brothers = /
Got to Keep On → True Love Waits by Radiohead =
- Sweet Fades becomes visible in the Plex (Android) app when you select a radio station or playlist
- Throwing Mysterons → _Sour Times in a playlist =
- Plex (Android) simply jumps to the next track when there is 0:23 seconds left on Mysterons)
- The same behavior can be observed on Plexamp (macOS) v. 3.0.3
- Throwing the above tracks from the radio mix into a playlist yields the same results
Conclusion: It’s very hit or miss with the latest iterations of Sweet Fades. IMHO, Sweet Fades was working a lot better before the overhaul with more subtle fades and overlap with complementary tracks. When Sweet Fades fails on the latest iteration Plexamp and Plex “smashes” onto the next track.
Future Thoughts
I can see a time where machine learning will be utilized wherein radio mixes will take us on an audible journey through our library with tracks that truly complement one another and have a flow and synergy to them; akin to having a human DJ curate a custom live set for us on with custom fades and transitions. All that’s needed next is a smoke machine.
Dear Dev Team,
Having thoroughly kicked the wheels on this one from an end user standpoint, the app is looking great and has some great potential. I do have some notes on missing features and functionality that I’ll post up in another thread. Until then, this is Zorg signing off.
~Zorg
Update: 10-MAY-2020 @ 03:01 UTC
In doing some more testing, I’ve come to find that true gapless playback and sweet fades are inconsistent. It would appear that native gapless FLAC and ALAC albums have a greater chance of playing back gapless versus native gapless MP3 albums.
Working:
- Deadmau5 - 4x4=12 (FLAC)
- Justice - Cross (ALAC)
- Daft Punk - Discovery (ALAC)
- Daft Punk - Homework (FLAC)
- Portishead - Live at Bizarre Festival (MP3)
Not Working:
- Nirvana Unplugged (MP3)
- Portishead - Nobody Loves Me (Live) (MP3)
Sweet fades really only work when shuffle is enabled, a user uses a radio station, or there are tracks populating a playlist from different albums and/or different artists. Additionally, sweet fades tend to be enabled for compilation albums the majority of the time. Lastly, there were some albums that would trigger sweet fades when played from the beginning which was — unexpected.
It’s not “broken” because it works for most people, including myself. It’s possible that for some specific MP3 files (or something yet to be determined) it’s not working properly, and we’d rely on your help to identity the culprit, upload samples, etc.
Now you’re really confusing me. You can have either gapless or sweet fades, not both. If you shuffle the album you’ll get fades; if you play the album you’ll get gapless.
Sweet fades need server loudness analysis data; you’ll know if they’re present because playing the media will sound the nice “seekprint” visual seek bar.
Listening more closely to my live albums there is a very brief gap between tracks, less than even half a second but still very noticeable.
Let’s go with what’s behind Door #2. It’s not some specific MP3 file(s) because I ran my tests — on multiple platforms, on multiple clients — and I am able to replicate the issue.
Welcome to our (the clients) world. But I get it, this is why we have closed beta tests, and open beta tests (like we are doing now) so we can have an open discussion on what’s working and what’s not working.
Allow me to illustrate some of the confusion. But before I begin, thanks to your response, I do have a better understanding of what the differences are between gapless playback and Sweet Fades™ so, thank you for the clarification.
What was a bit confusing initially (and how I read it) to me was that, true gapless playback, Sweet Fades™, and soft transitions were all synonymous. It was confusing because that’s how well Sweet Fades™ was working. I’ll update my previous post with some new findings that I have to keep everything concise; essentially, true gapless playback is working for me. In the meantime, can we re-write the copy and/or documentation to better reflect the differences between the three?
Yes, I was able to realize this some time ago after importing music wherein I would have to wait until the scheduled tasks ran when the sound prints were generated. Rest easy, the tracks I have been testing in my initial post all have their sound prints.
However, it is still unclear as to whether Sweet Fades™ is client side or server side. According to Elan’s reply, Sweet Fades™ is client side whereas, a reply from one of the Plexamp techs on Google Play Store stated that the feature is server side.
Both of those people are me 
The server needs to compute data for Sweet Fades; if it does, you’ll also get the seek print as an easy confirmation. The client may enable or disable sweet fades.
Gapless playback needs no analysis whatsoever.
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Many thanks for taking the time out of your Saturday afternoon to interact with us. Much love to you and the dev team.
I just updated my original post with some more data and findings for you and the team. Let me know if you need screenshots, video screen capture, or audio files sent over. Otherwise, keep up the good work and let’s continue to whip the Llama’s ass. 
Begging your pardon, but something played sequentially will not Sweet Fade, instead it plays gaplessly.
Not sure what before the overhaul means, but the analysis and overlap should be essentially identical to within a few milliseconds.
You can look at the Plexamp.log file and look for lines with “overlap” and you can see the overlap time it’s computed for each pair of tracks as you play through.
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If that is the case, then gapless playback is not working properly because regardless as to whether or not a CD was mastered as a gapless album, gapless playback would work on all albums previously. Hence, the confusion between gapless playback and Sweet Fades, because Sweet Fades had been working so well prior to any changes when listening to “radio stations”.
I tried looking at the ID3 for 4x4=12 via Picard, but couldn’t find any tag or toggle for gapless playback. In fact, it doesn’t look like ID3 supports a tag for this to happen. So, I am not sure why gapless playback is working flawlessly on this album and not on Transzworld All Stars when the waveform analysis should indicate a need for gapless playback.
Do you have the location for that on macOS? I am looking under Application Support and I am not seeing the logs anywhere. Also, performed a search via Finder and nada. I pulled the logs from the server and nothing there either.
Seems that I have awoken in the wrong dimension. That can happen when the flux capacitor is on the fritz and you attempt multiple hyper-jumps in a row.
In the parallel universe I am from, Sweet Fades and gapless playback were working a lot more smoother and the overlaps came about sooner and were a lot more enjoyable. This was especially evident on the Her soundtrack which gave the album a whole new feel. That being said, in older versions of the Plex client for Android, Sweet Fades was a toggle for all music in the library. Not just relegated to playlists and radio stations as is now the current behavior.
And when I say “overhaul” I am referring to the complete code re-write as outlined in Plex’s article on Medium. And so, perhaps the issue is not so much Plexamp, but with TREBLE and any recent changes within the last month or so that went into it.
Something is amiss otherwise, I would not be here nor investing this much time into the matter. Cheers! 
We might not be saying the same thing. When we say “sample-accurate gapless” that means we take two files and play the samples continuously without any gaps. If the CD was mastered gaplessly and the encoding process hasn’t messed that up, it’ll play gaplessly. If there is silence between the tracks in the audio, you’ll hear it. There is no magic computation for gapless. (The one caveat is I believe around MP3 files, where sometimes there are some samples which need to be discarded, but I’m not 100% of this; it might be the cause of an issue you’re seeing, provided it plays gaplessly in another player).
~/Library/Logs/Plexamp/
Right. I was trying to articulate that some of the albums I tested in my previous post were mastered continuous mixes versus the majority of albums that are not mastered to play gaplessly. I just don’t know the proper nomenclature.
I’m sending the logs over to you now.
The logs have been sent. Here’s an excerpt as a reference for anyone else:
May 13, 2020 18:09:01.735 [0x08cdd000] INFO - BASS: Queueing stream (1 total, 1 handles) with identifier 45524, gain -8.8 dB, overlap duration 0 ms, start offset 0 ms (paused: 0).
May 13, 2020 18:09:01.736 [0x094e0000] INFO - BASS: Queueing stream (2 total, 1 handles) with identifier 45525, gain -8.8 dB, overlap duration 0 ms, start offset 0 ms (paused: 1).
May 13, 2020 18:13:43.393 [0x094e0000] INFO - BASS: Queueing stream (2 total, 3 handles) with identifier 45526, gain -8.8 dB, overlap duration 0 ms, start offset 0 ms (paused: 1).
May 13, 2020 18:17:10.726 [0x0a4e6000] INFO - BASS: Queueing stream (2 total, 3 handles) with identifier 45527, gain -8.8 dB, overlap duration 0 ms, start offset 0 ms (paused: 1).
May 13, 2020 18:23:48.744 [0x08cdd000] INFO - BASS: Queueing stream (2 total, 3 handles) with identifier 45528, gain -8.8 dB, overlap duration 0 ms, start offset 0 ms (paused: 1).
May 13, 2020 18:24:36.553 [0x0a4e6000] INFO - BASS: Queueing stream (1 total, 3 handles) with identifier 45526, gain -8.8 dB, overlap duration 0 ms, start offset 0 ms (paused: 0).
May 13, 2020 18:24:36.558 [0x09ce3000] INFO - BASS: Queueing stream (2 total, 3 handles) with identifier 45527, gain -8.8 dB, overlap duration 0 ms, start offset 0 ms (paused: 1).
May 13, 2020 18:25:01.946 [0x0a4e6000] INFO - BASS: Queueing stream (2 total, 3 handles) with identifier 45528, gain -8.8 dB, overlap duration 0 ms, start offset 0 ms (paused: 1).
May 13, 2020 18:30:12.000 [0x0a4e6000] INFO - BASS: Queueing stream (2 total, 3 handles) with identifier 45529, gain -8.8 dB, overlap duration 0 ms, start offset 0 ms (paused: 1).
With Sweet Fades turned on via Radio Station:
May 13, 2020 19:06:33.590 [0x094e0000] INFO - RAMP: End ramp length: 3.58 Start ramp length: 1.14 Total overlap: 4.72.
May 13, 2020 19:06:33.590 [0x094e0000] INFO - BASS: Queueing stream (3 total, 5 handles) with identifier 45554, gain -10.8 dB, overlap duration 4719 ms, start offset 0 ms (paused: 1).
May 13, 2020 19:06:33.593 [0x0232d000] INFO - BASS: We're overlapping stream 45554 (0x80000412) by 4719 ms which is in 435.0 sec, or 153480960 bytes.
Let’s properly define some terms
Sweet fades = crossfading (like a dj)
Gapless = like live album crowd sounds/etc between tracks are neither cross faded or interrupted by a silent blip, but are one continuous audio stream (or like Pink Floyd the wall or dark side of the moon)
Non gapless, non sweet fades = tracks with momentary blips of silence in between independent tracks
In another way;
Sweetfades are like inter locking jigsaw pieces
Gapless are like a solid concrete wall
Non gapless are bricks end to end
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So is there anything I can do to get gapless working on Santana Moonflower for example? Using Plex Android app streaming from Plex server on my PC.
It should just work. If not, post Plexamp log.
I’m not using plexamp. I use the Plex server on my PC. I downloaded the logs this morning but didn’t see any that had the word gapless in them when I opened the text files. Are there other logs on my Android phone? On my phone I’m using the basic Plex Android app from the Google Play store. Thank you.
I just switched to Plexamp on my Android phone and gapless works perfectly! I didn’t realize the Plexamp app would work differently than the basic Plex app for Android but it does. Thanks for gapless!
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