As of iTunes version 11.0.2, there is not a selection for “Gapless album” in the options. However, once you set your series of songs up to be part of a compilation, you are presented with the option to “Join CD Tracks” which gives you the same end result as this how-to article.

So, the solution is to use Pro Tools – a magnificent, high-end professional audio editing software, that costs a few thousand dollars, and should only take you a month or two (or ten) to learn how to use it.

My solution: download Quicktime 7 (yes, it’s still up there) and upgrade it to a “Pro” version. QT7 Pro can edit audio and video. I already had an ancient Quicktime Pro license, and I dragged Polythene Pam and Bathroom Window to my desktop, opened them both and copied one to the other. Voila! Done! Except for one little “bump” at the cut point.

Now, iTunes is not a precision software, and you may discover, as I did, that there is a fraction of a second overlap or gap between the songs. You can live with this very minor bump, or, if you’re like me, you’ll spend several hours compulsively using the wrong tools to fix it. By “wrong tools” I mean QT& or something like CD Spin Doctor.

Now, CD Spin Doctor is a great tool for digitizing vinyl record albums. I’ve converted hundreds of 60s-70s records to iTunes with it. But version 11 was indecipherable (to me anyway). So I tried V10; but I had forgotten that 10 had a known bug that I never quite got around to fixing (the bug is that it doesn’t open). So I opened Version 7. Like Pro Tools, it displays the audio waveform. I could SEE the audio “bump!” But I also discovered that CD Spin Doctor really is not happy when you try to “cut” a fraction of a second from an audio clip, despite a “sync start time to previous clip.” No matter how I manipulated the “tracks” it wouldn’t define a space that small it.

So, I went back to Quicktime 7 Pro. Now, Quicktime, like iMovie, is not a precision software. You can’t move the mouse “fractions of a second.” But you CAN make the QT7 timeline about ten screens long by extending it and shoving the left side of the time-line off the screen. As the line gets longer and longer, the increments seem smaller and smaller. In any case, by these methods (and shear luck), I was able to “not copy” the last redundant fraction of a note from “Polythene” and when I cut it to “Bathroom,” it was perfect (yes, I am musically trained – I know of which I speak). I then exported the result from Quicktime to AIF and imported back into iTunes and created an AAC.

Simple, ey? No? Not simple? Well, you’re right; it’s not simple. It’s ugly. So, you mean the dudes at Apple can be as inept as the rest of us? How refreshing. Apple can screw up it’s flagship software. Let’s hope government is never run like a business.

In each song to be grouped, put a common string in the Grouping field in Get Info. This has nothing to do with Gapless Albums (though that may also be desirable) or Compilations.

It doesn’t actually work that way.

I just tried exactly what you said (using the Led Zeppelin songs “Heartbreaker” and “Living Loving Maid” (two songs meant to be played back to back).

I then added these two songs plus two others to a new playlist, selected one of the other songs, pressed “play”, then pressed “shuffle”. When the current song completed, iTunes played “Living Loving Maid” then the fourth song in the playlist and then “Heartbreaker”.

Epic fail.

Also… once I made the change suggested here, the song order for the album (e.g. Led Zeppelin II) was now broken.

I’ve since reverted all changes suggested by this article.

It is my opinion that the suggestions made by this article do not render the stated results.

Please feel free to try for yourself and report your own results.