0

I have a relatively large music library (about 55,000 songs - primarily .m4a and .mp3), some of which was ripped from scratched CDs. How can I either fix the files, or get a list of ones with issues? Most tools I have found that claim they can do this only work for .mp3 files, and foobar2000 2.0 doesn't find any issues with a track that has atrocious skipping.

mark5000432
  • 3

3 Answers3

1

The files are likely neither detectable nor fixable - the files themselves are not 'broken', the audio within them is what's broken. The file is an accurate translation of what a skipping CD presents at data output [which is why you need adequate error-correction at read on scratched CDs.]

Tetsujin
  • 50,917
0

Without knowing how the digital media was ripped and encoded it will be difficult to answer your question. The more information you provide in your question about how the media was created can be useful to those who provide answers. I say this because there are several kinds of 'skips' that can result from ripping audio:

  • the original CD had something that was blocking the laser, so when it was being read, information was missing.
  • the .mp3 was encoded wrong, or has become corrupted
  • Not so common today, but in the past codec issues can cause skipping in digital audio.
  • The media player itself can have issues with .mp3 files that are encoded with certain codecs.

What can I do to fix my .mp3 files?

If the digital audio file was recorded from CD in real time with the skips there isn't much you can do other than editing the audio file which might not be worth the time and effort considering how easy it is to come by digital music in today's era.

If you really want to fix a song with a skip in it you could open the file in a DAW, and edit the file, but depending on how bad the skip is, the method of fixing will vary. For small skips I found a YouTube video that explains how to fix them with a free DAW called Audacity.

There are also other tools that help restore issues with .mp3 files. One I found is mp3diags which "Finds problems in MP3 files and helps the user to fix many of them". This program might help flag problematic audio files, but I haven't tested it so you would have to check that on your own.

There is also a list on this Microsoft forum page that has links to various other tools that may be able to help spot and or repair damaged audio files.

Kalamalka Kid
  • 2,728
0

Collected from comments; This might not be a true answer, but may be a lead forward...

Audacity - audacityteam.org - has "Click removal" as a function, might be there is a corresponding command line tool or a suitable macro?

I believe Audacity is for manual editing, but Macros might be one way to attack your "problem" - https://manual.audacityteam.org/man/macros.html
Note here also; https://manual.audacityteam.org/man/scripting.html

If the "skipping" is an endless repetition of a (random) section of the music, then Audacity will not help much. That is the worst version of it, destroying the music-piece, yes.

But "skipping" might be much less, and depending on how it actually has ended up, e.g. with a repeating scratch, you can actually get a decent repaired piece out of it. So it might be possible to "mend", e.g. by simply cutting out a slight portion of sound, assuming one can find an even slightly matching position (to where you start cutting) further down in the sound / music / stream.

I have personally sampled entire LP:s (Vinyl), at times with slight scratches and repaired the result as indicated above, leaving a piece of music with genuine "analog" feel in the playback and a good representation of the original.
Without automation it takes quite some time though...

Hannu
  • 10,568