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Who knows about audio and computers ? - 11/23/2007 4:19:20 AM   
Termyn8or


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Joined: 11/12/2005
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Well this is off topic discussion right ?

A couple of years ago I bought a Christmas album, and with an Audio Technica AT13Ea I ripped it to my harddrive. I ran it not through some reciever, but a Marantz CD4 demodulator, which is, by nature one of the very best phono preamps available. It must be to do CD4.

FYI CD4 was a scheme pretty much like FM stereo, it involved an ultrasonic subcarrier. That means the whole turntable and cartrige system must faithfully reproduce twice as high as you can hear, approximately 40,000 Hertz.

The world has changed. I modified an FM to decode TV stereo when it first came out, I am no babe in the woods, but there are a few things I do not know. I mean I used to be the wiz of all wizzes until digital came out. Then I got lost.

So I got this really good rip of a very old Christmas album I would like to share. I mean I turned the furnace off for this. I loaded my AT13Ea at about three grams, I mean I considered this for transcription purposes. Two things have happened.

First, the signal to noise ratio is phenomenal, and dynamic range is great. Distortion is very low. We are talking an overweighted three by seven hyper eliptical here, it is as about as clean as is gets.

My problem now is that I would like to share it. You can take it or leave it, tell me it sucks, all that, but I will still do what I do. And will have done what I have done.

This is an entire album in WAV format. It is 400 MB. It will not fit in my FTP, and I don't think it would fly in an email, although it might, but that is not the point. But there are really two points. First of all I have to compress it to an MP3 to share it with anyone. It is just too big, even for people with broadband. If I download 400MB I expect a video, in fact a movie.

Now I know I will have to get an MP3 compressor, and in the end it will probably be less then 30 MB, that is a fact. But there is one thing.

The record of course had a few pops and ticks. These are magnified in the digital recording, and I believe that happens because these things overload the A-D converter. However it seems that if I burn a disk of it, the ticks and pops are not all that bad. It seems that when you play the CD of it, it sounds alot better.

Now, first of all I need an MP3 compressor of course. I intend to share it, it is from 1967 or so, damn. Let the RIAA come after me, I'll  have a good time. We will talk about public domain. They will likely lose.

Anyway, when I burn a disk of it usually the ticks and pops sound like they did during the rip. I had the speakers on but a a low level to prevent feedback. But when the file comes through my PC soundcard every tick and pop is magnified.

I could figure this out and I know that a tick or pop on a vinyl recording could go higher than the designated digital range, but there is one thing. Why doesn't it do that when you play a disk I burned of it ?

The secondary question is that, once I convert the file from WAV to MP3 will this become permanent, if so it isn't so bad. But I want to know. When I burned it I burned directly from the WAV file.

Boy this is about as off topic as it gets, but if anyone has anything to say, I would like to compress this down and share it. But even my FTP will not hold a 400 MB file. I think MP3 compression runs about 30 to 1, but less if the material is complex. This is complex, I doubt I can get it under 30 MB actually, but you never know. And it's only forty minutes !

But I like this rip. The recording started before the needle hit the groove, and you can hear that. Then when the album was turned over, you hear it again. I also included about two minutes of the exit track. It is really like the old days. Plus side two precedes side one, which is the way we played it.

I am interested in all forms of recording, especially if someone knows of a soundcard for a PC that can record more than two channels at once. I have never been able to find one.

Whatever. Whatever you want to say, sometimes you get tired of the political issues or the new and improved morals issue. Sometime you just up and say "Fuck all that",

Fuck all that.

T
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RE: Who knows about audio and computers ? - 11/23/2007 10:10:46 AM   
farglebargle


Posts: 10715
Joined: 6/15/2005
From: Albany, NY
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FLAC.

http://flac.sourceforge.net/

what is FLAC?

FLAC stands for Free Lossless Audio Codec, an audio format similar to MP3, but lossless, meaning that audio is compressed in FLAC without any loss in quality. This is similar to how Zip works, except with FLAC you will get much better compression because it is designed specifically for audio, and you can play back compressed FLAC files in your favorite player (or your car or home stereo, see supported devices) just like you would an MP3 file.

FLAC stands out as the fastest and most widely supported lossless audio codec, and the only one that at once is non-proprietary, is unencumbered by patents, has an open-source reference implementation, has a well documented format and API, and has several other independent implementations.

See About FLAC for more, or Using FLAC for how to play FLAC files, rip CDs to FLAC, etc.

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It's not every generation that gets to watch a civilization fall. Looks like we're in for a hell of a show.

ברוך אתה, אדוני אלוקינו, ריבון העולמים, מי יוצר צמחים ריחניים

(in reply to Termyn8or)
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RE: Who knows about audio and computers ? - 11/23/2007 1:56:34 PM   
Real0ne


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Joined: 10/25/2004
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FB have you by chance scoped it out?  I dont know of any compression utility that can claim totally lossless unless they are doing a 2:1 maybe?

A lot depends on your card too, a sound card usually has 41-44m, then semi pro is 92 and studio is 192mhz sampling.

just the digitizing process is lossy though i ageee that people may not hear the difference.

On my system i can usually tell the difference between a 448 320 and 256 bitrates if played side by side and that is considered in the mp3 world as near lossless.

.




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"We the Borg" of the us imperialists....resistance is futile

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Yesterdays tinfoil is today's reality!

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RE: Who knows about audio and computers ? - 11/23/2007 6:51:08 PM   
farglebargle


Posts: 10715
Joined: 6/15/2005
From: Albany, NY
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Yes, I've used FLAC extensively. It is a lossless compression format. You can recover the original wav file, but since most of my music player software handles FLAC, I don't bother decompressing it.



_____________________________

It's not every generation that gets to watch a civilization fall. Looks like we're in for a hell of a show.

ברוך אתה, אדוני אלוקינו, ריבון העולמים, מי יוצר צמחים ריחניים

(in reply to Real0ne)
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RE: Who knows about audio and computers ? - 11/24/2007 3:23:35 AM   
SugarMyChurro


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Joined: 4/26/2007
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They are saying Flac is rife with security issues:
http://it.slashdot.org/it/07/11/20/0137240.shtml

Maybe try Ogg or Ape:
http://www.vorbis.com/
http://www.monkeysaudio.com/

(in reply to farglebargle)
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