The Gaps

So you've given it a go, and by now you realize some things really aren't adding up.  Just want everyone to know that I'm not trying to stall for too long.  It's just that Wright really did pull a number on this one and I think really hard about the way to go about revealing things.  I've got a life too, so.  Try not to worry, there's a reason for everything... even if it's a twisted one.

The first thing you should know, is that this monstrosity is probably going to frustrate the crap out of you.  You want to see it work but you reach a point where things just fall apart.  The answer my friends is not one that's going to make you happy, but does add a little adventure to it all.  That's the reason why I'm breaking this up into pieces.

It's hard to make sense of an artist's taste absurdly combined with a major broken arm, but there's a reason why no one has found this out and that is because of two things, one is THE GAPS.  If you have an actual CD, stick it in your computer, and play it on your Winamp, you're going to listen to the program's predefined rules of playback.  Typically this means it's going to ignore the gaps in between tracks.  What's a gap?  It's just a space of time, usually a few seconds, that fills in between the tracks.  It carries no track number, even though it CAN be used to play sound.  Generally it is a manufacturing trick after the mastering process of the album itself, helping define parameters between songs they don't want to "start too early".  

At least that's the best explanation I can come up with.  There's not a whole lot of info on the web about why they're even there, but you will find that on a lot of major label album CDs, they're there.  When you play an original CD in nothing but a standard CD player, it will recognize the gap and begin the next track with i.e. -03, -02, -01, 00.  CD-ROMs will as a basic player I believe, but a media program will ignore them.

What does this mean for S.P.vs.S.P. (Scott Pilgrim VS Smashing Pumpkins as I like to call it)? Well, you have to know that Edgar, in all of his master planning, seems to have included these gaps.

You know what that means?  In case you've tried to start out the movie already, and been somewhat successful playing your MP3s, AS SOON AS YOU GET TO ZERO, IT IS NO LONGER IN SYNC.

Because between track 3 and track 4 there is a gap on the CD.  And while it may appear to keep going, you will be missing the major changes happening together.  If you follow the instructions to the tee on the post titled "Zero", you will see, and hear, the way it should actually sync with the movie.

Now that you know this, just imagine what kind of bloop this has to be with the second reason that has destroyed the tangibility of a fan's reconstruction of this hidden gem... the last big screw to turn, and a subject for a later date ...the secret of the track switch.