Books, Movies, Music & Entertainment - Issues with MP3's

I've got an older MP3 player(20GB Creative Labs Nomad Jukebox 3, to be exact) and I'm having some problems with file corruption or something. Seemingly random songs lose lyrics/music for some reason. A recent example is The Beatles' When I'm Sixty-four. It came on the other night at work and had only one line(about halfway through the song) audible. The music sounded fine, it was just the lyrics were missing for some reason. The same track on my computer plays fine so it's got to be the player. This has happened with songs from Slayer, Johnny Cash, Metallica, Sepultura and many more. I keep my player on shuffle most of the time so that I can just push play and forget about it. I rip all my CD's to stereo, 128kbps MP3's. I also try to maintain it well(removing files, rebuilding the library, etc.). Just wondering if anyone else has had similar issues with their players and what to do to correct it. Might just have to track 'em down and change 'em out, but sometimes it's hard to remember which songs are messed up with almost 5000 on there.

"Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I'm sixty-four?"

Sorry, if they're corrupted you're stuck tracking them down one at a time and replacing them. Icky.

Yeah, that's kinda what I figured when I got no replies...

Thanks, tho.:)

Karldar, that's easy fault of the mp3 player or your headphone connectiong to the player.

Remove the battery/reboot the player. It should work fine. The tracks are not corrupted.

Of course i'm not ruling out any other possibility but everytime i've had that on my mp3 player, simple reboot fixed it, if not I had to interface it with the computer again and then take it back out.

Rare though.

Karldar, that's easy fault of the mp3 player or your headphone connectiong to the player.

Remove the battery/reboot the player. It should work fine. The tracks are not corrupted.

Of course i'm not ruling out any other possibility but everytime i've had that on my mp3 player, simple reboot fixed it, if not I had to interface it with the computer again and then take it back out.

Rare though.


Well, I'm running my player through my worksite radio(I can't wear headphones at work). They're connected with a 12" Radio Shack mini-stereo cable(from the line out jack on my player to the aux jack on my radio). I'll try the reboot as I don't do that every time I have trouble out of a song. I don't usually have time at work being in a high-speed production environment. Thanks for the advice.

My Creative MuVo does the same thing, the files aren't corrupt, the player just sucks. I had a tape-recorder thingy that did the same things, it could edit out certain words and sounds too. I figured out that it was connected to the pitch aa well as sound, only distorted guitars and screams were removed.

My Creative MuVo does the same thing, the files aren't corrupt, the player just sucks. I had a tape-recorder thingy that did the same things, it could edit out certain words and sounds too. I figured out that it was connected to the pitch aa well as sound, only distorted guitars and screams were removed.


Yeah, my Nomad is getting pretty old and decrepit, but I don't feel like springin' for a new MP3 player. I noticed that it's definitely related to certain frequencies. Might be time to update my software.

I think operator was on the money.....if the songs play fine on a computer its either the player or the head phones.

Things to do/check:
Do they play fine on comptuer?
Can you try player with new batteries?
Can you try player with different (known to be good) headphones?
Do songs always have sound issues in exact same place of song?
What bit-rate are you recording them at (or downloading them at)...could be a low bit rate that superior sound on PC doesn't have issue with, but inferior MP3 player does have issues with.

Generally speaking, it is not possible to remove vocals from a song.

Even by accident.

Generally speaking, it is not possible to remove vocals from a song.

Even by accident.

Interesting. I'll try to save a sample from my player to compare against the file on my computer. Anyone know a good sound recorder? I've had Cooledit and something else recommended by a fellow audiophile, but haven't checked it out yet.

I am curious what it sounds like. Hearing it may help people narrow down the problem. I didn't mean that in a negative way. I just work with audio quite a bit, so I felt compelled to post that. If the distortion is brief, it may sound like that, but I suspect something else is going on.

* Clarification: On some older recordings, you can invert the left channel, and add it to the right, and get a very rough version of the instrumental, because the technique at one time was that all the instruments would be panned, but the lead vocal was dead center.

Anyone know a good sound recorder? I've had Cooledit and something else recommended by a fellow audiophile, but haven't checked it out yet.

I've used CDEX for a number of years and always loved it. However, in the last year I've had bought some new CDs that didn't record properly...probably anti-piracy software on CD.

It's been stated for a number of years that EAC (Exact Audio Copy) is the best free MP3 ripper out there, but its not a no brainer like CDEX. For legal purposes, you have to find and plug in your own LAME codec dll and there are more options than many know what to do with.

Generally speaking, it is not possible to remove vocals from a song.

Even by accident.

Yes it can happen by accident. I've experienced it before. Faulty conenction or player error, you will hear the instruments, but the vocals don't come through at all save for some bits and pieces.

There is also a winamp plugin that you can use to remove vocals from songs on playback. The effect is similar but not perfect.

Yes it can happen by accident. I've experienced it before. Faulty conenction or player error, you will hear the instruments, but the vocals don't come through at all save for some bits and pieces.

There is also a winamp plugin that you can use to remove vocals from songs on playback. The effect is similar but not perfect.

I'm aware of the winamp plugin. I'm also aware of hardware products that claim to do the same thing as well as a whole list of other techniques. And that's great, except for one thing.

They don't work.

I don't know what you heard, maybe you heard a part of the song that actually didn't have vocals played at the wrong time.

Unless the vocal is panned dead center with no reverb, it is not possible to remove it. Even then, most of the time the resulting instrumental will sound different, as if it were mixed badly.

I know what I'm talking about, but if you don't believe me, here are some links that explain what I'm saying.

http://www.ethanwiner.com/novocals.html
http://www.futureproducers.com/forums/showthread/threadid/93153

Maybe you should read the last sentence of my post.

I still don't know exactly what's been happening. I was going to record the beginning of When I'm Sixty-Four off of my computer and mp3 player and upload them so the differences could be heard, but now it plays fine. *shrug* Whatever. I haven't rebooted my player in a while, so that's not the fix. Just more random weirdness, I suppose. I am leaning toward the connection, however, as my volume was greatly decreased at work the other night until I adjusted the cable connecting my player to my work-site radio. Hmm, that can't be it, though. I just realized that the last time I duplicated this event, my player was hooked up to my computer via SB1394, not my radio. A true mystery for the ages...:lol:

Hate to revive a dead horse for more flogging, but I think I may have isolated the problem(s). It seems to be an issue with the interface between the player and radio. I'm pretty sure it's the jack on the radio, actually. Either that, or the way they were recorded/remastered. The vocals seem to be the only part of the songs affected. I thought the vocals were non-existent when played through my radio, but they're still there-just very faint. It's almost as if the singer is across the room from the mic. Music sounds fine.

Of the three songs I've had trouble with lately(Hendrix - The Wind Cries Mary, The Beatles - When I'm Sixty-Four, and Crowbar - High Rate Extinction), I can't really find any common denominator. The Hendrix song was recorded in 1967, but remastered in 2002. It's taken from a Smash Hits compilation. I've had no problem with any of the other songs off this CD. The Beatles song is also from 1967, I believe, but was released in 1987. It's from the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band CD. No problem with other songs from this, either. Crowbar's song was recorded and released in 1993 on their self-titled album. The other songs seem to play fine on my MP3 player as do the thousands of others by other artists.

When played through my home stereo, from the MP3 player, they sound great. That hookup is a mini-stereo spike(player end) to RCA stereo plugs-the familiar red/black(stereo end). Player to radio hookup is mini-stereo to mini-stereo. Tried a cable with gold-plated plugs, but couldn't tell any difference in playback/sound quality. Also tried the 4 channel setup on my player with my home stereo and the radio to no avail. Home stereo sounded fine, but vocals on the radio were still muted/distant on both line 1 and 2 outputs from my player.

Any more ideas on how to fix this? Only thing I can think of, short of remastering, is upping the quality of the MP3's(currently all are at 128kbps). Not sure if that will do anything or not....

operator, I've rebooted and deleted, then replaced the offending songs(or maybe I rebooted after that), but I'm still getting the exact same performance issue. Seems like I'd have trouble with more songs if it were just the interface between player and radio, especially from the same albums. Ah, well, I tried.

P.S. Disregard the post before this one. I don't think I knew what I was talking about then.

Not that anyone cares, but I'm back at it. I've even half-answered my questions.:o I'd kinda like the other half, tho. I'll try to be brief.

Checked out the aforementioned songs and, evidently, the way they were recorded is the problem. For example, When I'm Sixty-Four and The Wind Cries Mary vocals become very faint when I listen to just the right channel--as if the vox were recorded to the left channel, but was barely picked up on the right. Another song alternates between left and right. You can see the difference in the left and right channels in the waveforms, too. I've tried amplification, equalization and normalization(through software-Audacity, to be specific) to "fix" things, but no dice.... I'm not a sound engineer, obviously, so I might not be using the accepted terms here.

Any ideas on what I can/need to do to get audible vox on my radio, without screwing up playpack on the computer/stereo? Do mini-stereo connections not reproduce both channels? Any further insight much appreciated.