Couple of cd queries, model numbers later
 

Huge said:
On 2016-02-06, Jim Lesurf wrote:
In article , Bob Latham
In article , Eiron

So I should bite the bullet and convert all my CDs again to FLAC.

I fully concur with that idea.

In some ways I guess I was fortunate in coming a bit late to the party of
using computer files for audio. Meant I didn't have to worry so much as I
might in the past about the storage requirements.

Tell me about it. I'm going to have to re-rip all my CDs. I'm not so much
bothered about the actual ripping, as getting the tags right, which has
taken years. And that's not hyperbole - I'm still finding errors after
[consults directory listing of music] 7 years; Sunday 4th Jan 2009,
The Imagined Village, is the oldest file there.

I've been doing some of that, and have more to do. For commercially-produced
CDs, I seem to be finding that the internet databases have info on most of
what I have, the ripping software (linux - abcde) fills in the tags
automatically. There is the occasional speeling mistake, etc, but it makes
it much less of a big deal than doing it all manually.

Far worse is, I have several dozen gigabytes of home-made pocket-recorder
stuff going back to the early 80s, which would be far more useful if I
hadn't always been too intimidated to even start labelling them. kid3 is
much the most useful tag-manager I know of, if you can run KDE progs. I
particularly like the ability to import/export between tags and filenames;
belt and braces.

--
Richard Robinson
"The whole plan hinged upon the natural curiosity of potatoes" - S. Lem

My email address is at http://www.qualmograph.org.uk/contact.html

Couple of cd queries, model numbers later
 

On 06/02/2016 12:44, Bob Latham wrote:
In article ,
Eiron wrote:

So I should bite the bullet and convert all my CDs again to FLAC.

I fully concur with that idea.

Except that the new Sony Blu-ray player inserts a short but annoying gap
between tracks even with WAV or FLAC.
And the car won't play WAV or FLAC. So I might as well stick with the
easily accessed and logically indexed CD collection. :-)

--
Eiron.

Couple of cd queries, model numbers later
 

In article , RJH
wrote:

Mmmm, had a look but still can't make it happen. It does work fine with
iTunes.

Still not sure why you don't use a media server. You can still select
'old school' by folder. Plus all the other stuff - vast search and sort
(composer, year, artist etc). Also my latest toy - lyrics :-)

Linux makes it easy enough to search via details of filenames, etc. And all
my metadata tends to be things like scans of the cover, booklets, etc. Most
of what I have on file isn't from commercial CD or a commercial download.

What I have starts (in chronological terms) with recordings from the radio,
first made using my old reel-to-reel tape recorder (1970s), and tapes from
elsewhere. e.g. some of the 'show' tapes from 1960s Armstrong show demos.
Then goes though my cassette recordings (1980s on) from radio and old LPs,
etc.

Offhand I'm not quite sure what the earliest radio recording may be. Most
are classical/R3 type material. But the one that comes to mind is a
Joni Mitchell "Sounds of the 70s" R1/2 broadcast where James Taylor
came up on stage as well. I keep meaning to ask the BBC if they still have
it as I found out a few years ago that they'd lost and then found the
Play where Kenneth Williams plays Azrael. Despite what you might think,
an amazing performance in a serious play. Nothing like his comedy.

All organised as makes sense to me, to make searching easier.

Since I can do it already to suit me and can use it from various machines,
etc, I can't see much point in adopting a 'media server'. The hard bits are
making the transfers from analogue, de-clicking the poorer LPs, and
scanning.

Jim

--
Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me.
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html
Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html

Couple of cd queries, model numbers later
 

In article ,
Richard
Robinson wrote:
Far worse is, I have several dozen gigabytes of home-made
pocket-recorder stuff going back to the early 80s, which would be far
more useful if I hadn't always been too intimidated to even start
labelling them. kid3 is much the most useful tag-manager I know of, if
you can run KDE progs. I particularly like the ability to import/export
between tags and filenames; belt and braces.

I did look at metadata tags ages ago and decided it was designed for pop,
rock, etc. Not really ideal for classical music. Again, to me it was
simpler to just give things informative file names and locations in
directory trees in a convenient arrangement that makes sense to me.

Jim

--
Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me.
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html
Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html

Couple of cd queries, model numbers later
 

Jim Lesurf said:
In article , Richard
Robinson wrote:
Far worse is, I have several dozen gigabytes of home-made pocket-recorder
stuff going back to the early 80s, which would be far more useful if I
hadn't always been too intimidated to even start labelling them. kid3 is
much the most useful tag-manager I know of, if you can run KDE progs. I
particularly like the ability to import/export between tags and
filenames; belt and braces.

I did look at metadata tags ages ago and decided it was designed for pop,
rock, etc. Not really ideal for classical music. Again, to me it was
simpler to just give things informative file names and locations in
directory trees in a convenient arrangement that makes sense to me.

I agree with the impression that they're a bit lowest-common-denominator.
Also, the way that they're stored in the audio file is not the best of
ideas, from the POV of keeping backups, it'd be more convenient if a monster
session of proper labelling only needed to back up the metadata, instead of
marking all the audio data as changed.

I'm only starting to play with music-payers seriously. But Amarok, for
instance, uses them in ways that'd have me wasting hours writing scripts
for, if the info was only in the filenames. Random playlists from particular
combinations of field values, for instance.

--
Richard Robinson
"The whole plan hinged upon the natural curiosity of potatoes" - S. Lem

My email address is at http://www.qualmograph.org.uk/contact.html

Couple of cd queries, model numbers later
 

In article , Bob Latham
wrote:

I would have thought that the list below would be useful for classical
users just as much as pop music.

Quite possibly. And the tagging systems now may be better than they were.
But I doubt I'd bother now I'm many files into a different approach that
actually suits me just fine.

I'll be honest and say that I think you're missing a big chunk of the
advantages of having a library with a search engine

Depends on how the files are organised and named, and how you *want* to
search for things.


and control from a small portable device.

I use a wireless mouse. This seems small and portable and works fine
across, say, the living room. The 'mouse mat' is actually the top of a
cheap 'magazine and remote control holder' that sits over the arm of the
sofa and has a flat top - designed for a cup of tea and biscuits, but
useful for a mouse. It isn't as fancy as a natty tablet machine, but does
the job OK. :-)

TBH If by 'portable device' you do mean a mobile phone or an iplop-alike,
then I'd find that a PITA when using things. When I listen to music on the
real hifi I take off my glasses. When I use the AV system in the living
room I'd have to keep swapping over my distant and reading glasses. No such
problems with a mouse, etc. Also no worry that in a few years time later
such devices can't support what I'd done, or give problems. So cf below...


This laptop functionality and treating your music as just computer files
is missing the point a bit. IMHO of course.

Perhaps you miss the point that what suits me may differ from what suits
you. :-)

Jim

--
Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me.
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html
Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html

Couple of cd queries, model numbers later
 

On Sat, 06 Feb 2016 14:34:05 +0000, RJH wrote:

====snip====

Obviously, the problem with one large file is selecting tracks. And as
you say, it should 'just work'.

I used to 'cheat' when I first started "ripping vinyl" (or R2R tapes of
vinyl) to CDDA for playback on a cd player by just treating each (or even
both) sides of an LP as a single continuous track.

It wasn't too long before the novelty of being able to listen to some of
my vinyl / tape collection via the medium of CDDA wore off and the total
and utter inconvenience of not being able to jump straight to the start
of a chosen track had me investigating how best to create my ersatz music
CD versions of vinyl records.

I was using Nero's audio cd 'wizard' and it took me a few experiments in
burning music cds before I grasped exactly what was required to avoid the
*additional* 2 second gaps of silence on top of the intertrack silence
that had been recorded into the single spiral track of a vinyl record.

In essence it was a case of editing the track list to eliminate the 2
second gaps and the use of DaO (or it may have been TaO - this was well
over a decade ago with a quad speed SCSI connected TEAC CD writer (no re-
writer capability, that came later with the 8x MAX IDE and faster drives).

The trick was to slice the digitised analogue recording (LPCM - I'd
never dream of using on-the-fly conversion straight to MP3) back into its
constituent music tracks which would then comprise Nero's audio
compilation track list. The most critical part of the splitting was to
pick the last bit of silence of the track preceding the one you wanted to
provide the entry index point for, just prior to its beginning.

This worked quite effectively on 'Concept Albums' and 'Live Performance'
albums where tracks were often cross-faded into the next (with or without
audience applause as the case may be). The priority being how it would
effect the beginning of a 'selected track' because the previous track
would continue playing into the following track anyway without manual
intervention to stop or pause the CD playback.

Obviously, there would be some compromise due to cross-fading from the
previous track or live number but since the picking out of a particular
track from a 'Concept' or 'Live' album was already a violation of the
producer's wishes, it was no big deal.

Listening right through from start to finish would be precisely the same
experience as if you'd auditioned the original vinyl or tapes from start
to finish. Splitting each recording into 'tracks' just gave you 'user
convenience' in being able to instantly select a favourite track without
having to get up out of the easy chair to manually drop the stylus into
the intertrack space of the desired track or else fast forward the tape
to the point where you were *expecting* to find the start of the desired
track.

I burnt a few (well not exactly[1]) "Coasters" before I'd learnt the
knack of duplicating vinyl or tape recorded music into the CDDA format,
complete with track entry index points.

[1] Strictly speaking, not exactly "Coasters" in the original sense of
failed CD burning attempts, more like "archival backups" that just
happened to be playable on a standard audio cd player (but with
unintended additional 2 second gaps between the tracks).

--
Johnny B Good

Couple of cd queries, model numbers later
 

On Mon, 08 Feb 2016 23:17:40 GMT, Johnny B Good
wrote:

On Sat, 06 Feb 2016 14:34:05 +0000, RJH wrote:

====snip====

Obviously, the problem with one large file is selecting tracks. And as
you say, it should 'just work'.

[big snip, because AFAICS you've missed out an important step]

As explained briefly here ...

http://www.macfh.co.uk/JavaJive/Audi...storation.html

.... the correct way to burn to CD a continuous album where the tracks
run into each other is:

!!! Use *.wav files, not *.mp3

!!! Ensure that either/both/all of the recording/wave editing/cd
burning software can split the *.wav file EXACTLY on the nearest CD
sector boundary to each track boundary.

!!! Set the CD burning software NOT to insert silence between the
tracks.

This will leave a CD which any player properly meeting the
specification will in the normal way play continuously without
inserting silences between the tracks, but will also allow jumping to
a particular track.
--
================================================== ======
Please always reply to ng as the email in this post's
header does not exist. Or use a contact address at:
http://www.macfh.co.uk/JavaJive/JavaJive.html
http://www.macfh.co.uk/Macfarlane/Macfarlane.html

Couple of cd queries, model numbers later
 

On Tue, 09 Feb 2016 16:58:19 +0000, Java Jive wrote:

On Mon, 08 Feb 2016 23:17:40 GMT, Johnny B Good
wrote:

On Sat, 06 Feb 2016 14:34:05 +0000, RJH wrote:

====snip====

Obviously, the problem with one large file is selecting tracks. And
as you say, it should 'just work'.

[big snip, because AFAICS you've missed out an important step]

As explained briefly here ...

http://www.macfh.co.uk/JavaJive/AudioVisualTV/Vinyls/
VinylRestoration.html

... the correct way to burn to CD a continuous album where the tracks
run into each other is:

!!! Use *.wav files, not *.mp3

I'd made it *quite* clear that I never directly ripped to mp3. If I
needed to create mp3 versions of the LPCM rips, I'd do so using a better
tool for the job. Just in case that wasn't clear, LPCM is a reference to
44.1KHz sampled 16 bit stereo wave files (aka *.wav).


!!! Ensure that either/both/all of the recording/wave editing/cd
burning
software can split the *.wav file EXACTLY on the nearest CD sector
boundary to each track boundary.

I think this may have been the reason for selecting DaO (or perhaps it
was ToA?), whatever it was, it seemed to produce the results I was after,
glitchless start to end playback and neat clean starts to selected tracks.


!!! Set the CD burning software NOT to insert silence between the
tracks.

I did rather emphasise this point. In my case, you have to select all
the *.wav files that comprises the list of tracks in the Nero audio CD
wizard and edit out the default 2 second inter-track gaps before burning
your compilation using the Disk at Once option (or possibly it was the
Track at Once option). I rather think it was the former but, after all
this time, I can no longer recall for absolute certain which option
applied. In any case, I think this was the key to splitting the *.wav
files EXACTLY on the nearest CD sector boundary to each track boundary in
the Nero Burning application.

This will leave a CD which any player properly meeting the specification
will in the normal way play continuously without inserting silences
between the tracks, but will also allow jumping to a particular track.

That was certainly the result I obtained after a little bit of 'trial
and error'.

There is just one other important detail you failed to mention and that
is in regard of the burning speed which, in the case of modern CD/DVD
writers which specify a MAX writing speed (but not my now ancient quad
speed TEAC), can cause playback problems with a lot of CD audio players.

The trick here is to avoid step changes in the writing laser power level
by forcing it to write in CLV mode only. You do this by selecting a
writing speed just under half the max speed rating of the writer for that
type of media if the media speed rating itself doesn't already restrict
the speed to just under half or slower.

If there are any doubts about this choose a speed closer to one third of
the MAX rather than one just barely less than half. By doing this, you're
allowing the disk to be spun up fast enough to satisfy the reduced speed
requirement from the very start of the track and the linear writing speed
will remain at this speed, neatly avoiding step changes in laser writing
power which can otherwise confuse a music CD player (or even a CDROM
drive when operating in music CD playback mode where the audio appears on
the internal audio connector and optional headphone socket).

Forgetting to restrict the speed when the media itself has a high enough
speed rating to permit a greater than half MAX speed to be enabled by
default, can lead to a playback glitch or two in a lot of music CD
players.

--
Johnny B Good

Couple of cd queries, model numbers later
 

On 09/02/2016 16:58, Java Jive wrote:
On Mon, 08 Feb 2016 23:17:40 GMT, Johnny B Good
wrote:

On Sat, 06 Feb 2016 14:34:05 +0000, RJH wrote:

====snip====

Obviously, the problem with one large file is selecting tracks. And as
you say, it should 'just work'.


waves that was me, not JBG.

[big snip, because AFAICS you've missed out an important step]

As explained briefly here ...

http://www.macfh.co.uk/JavaJive/Audi...storation.html

... the correct way to burn to CD a continuous album where the tracks
run into each other is:

!!! Use *.wav files, not *.mp3


? Why would you record to mp3 nowadays?!

!!! Ensure that either/both/all of the recording/wave editing/cd
burning software can split the *.wav file EXACTLY on the nearest CD
sector boundary to each track boundary.


Well yes, obviously, if you go through that faff. It's recorded as one
large file.

!!! Set the CD burning software NOT to insert silence between the
tracks.

This will leave a CD which any player properly meeting the
specification will in the normal way play continuously without
inserting silences between the tracks, but will also allow jumping to
a particular track.


OK, thanks, that's good to know. It's been a long time since I did it.

I seem to remember the same continuous-with-tracks effect could be
achieved in software like Audacity by inserting markers of some sort
into the single file. And that some how sorted itself out when burning
to CD?


--
Cheers, Rob