Ok, I realize this probably seems like a stupid question, but hear me out:

Every so often, quite rarely really, I notice blips and glitches in songs that I never noticed before. Usually I'd notice them in older songs that I hadn't listened to in a while, so I assumed that the glitches had always been there and I just never noticed due to inexperience or lack of familiarity with the song or whatever. However I was listening to an mp3 today and I noticed two obvious glitches that I KNOW were never there before. It's a song I've listened to often and am intimately familiar with, so there is no chance that this is a result of an oversight on my part. Furthermore, the file has remained, unedited, on the same hard drive for over a year, so any data loss can't be due to gratuitous copying and pasting.

Does anyone know what might be causing this? Would defragging the hard drive do it (although I don't defrag very often)? Anyone have similar experiences? It's disconcerting to think that files might be able to degrade with time (as improbable as it seems).

Though this doesn't belong here. I'll try to answer anyway.

There could be few reason causing those glitches.
Fragmentation of your hard drive could cause it, though it is highly unlike. But running defrag every now and then is worth the effort.

Or your hard drive can have physical bad sectors which cause the data to be unreadable by normal programs.

another possible problem could be maybe a virus??? many mp3s are chalk full of virus' that spread to other mp3's. i KNOW i have (and had) some and i KNOW i gave them to my brother's computers (which are on my network). heh, oh well, its the price to pay for my mp3 collection...

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quote:

Originally posted by ezbeats another possible problem could be maybe a virus??? many mp3s are chalk full of virus' that spread to other mp3's. i KNOW i have (and had) some and i KNOW i gave them to my brother's computers (which are on my network). heh, oh well, its the price to pay for my mp3 collection...

You are full of shit. Mp3s cannot contract viruses.

"Fortunately, since MP3 files can't execute by themselves it is not possible to infect them with computer viruses. "

http://www.mp3newswire.net/stories/2001/virus.html


Thunder: If he has bad sectors.. there would be a fuck of alot more going wrong than just his mp3's poping :| I thinks.

I think it's just in his mind.

es

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quote:

Originally posted by Thunder5 this doesn't belong here.

Sorry. I guess I thought people in the Production forum might have a bit more technical knowledge than people in Music Discussion. My apologies.

quote:

Originally posted by Vert You are full of shit. Mp3s cannot contract viruses. "Fortunately, since MP3 files can't execute by themselves it is not possible to infect them with computer viruses. " http://www.mp3newswire.net/stories/2001/virus.html es

Was just about to make that thing clear...

Though there might be viruses that mess around with your mp3s though viruses can't be spread as mp3s.

Check my edit ^^.

es

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quote:

Originally posted by Vert Thunder: If he has bad sectors.. there would be a fuck of alot more going wrong than just his mp3's poping :| .

Well if he is lucky enough, then only the mp3 is fucked..

Data cannot degenerate like analog material can. Your pops and clicks and whatnot is most likely caused by heavy fragmentation...although the virus idea is possible - virus comes in, screws up mp3 data...I just can't see the point of writing a virus that would only put in minor pops and clicks and such. The only organization I know of that would write such a thing would be the RIAA, and if they were going to do that they'd go all out, not just a few pops anc clicks.

could aslo be a 'skip' or some error in downloading. especially if it's P2P

*TA does not support file sharing*

could be lack of cpu sound card buffering shorts in your wires..etc..

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Try burning them to a CD as audio. Play it through your stereo and see if the glitches are still there. If they're not its more likley to be something to do with your PC hardware (soundcard/etc)
Also as far as a virus is concerned - I've heard of virii deleting/moving or renaming MP3s, but not corrupting them. I wouldn't be surprised if one exists tho'!