Converting and manipulating audio files (many ideas included)

[RockPianoman]

http://www.harmonycentral.com/forum/...ideas-included

 

 

 

 

 

[WRGKMC]

That's some pretty dated stuff.

You should get into some more professional hardware, software and methods.

 

One huge benefit would be if you used an audio editor program for this stuff.

Most include limiters that will boost the loudness without letting the peaks clip.

I have no idea why you would use tape unless you're converting older tapes to digital.

If you have a good interface, and you want the best quality you record at higher sample rates, apply whatever audio tools the music needs, then down sample to either CD quality or MP3. You surely don't want to be applying any kind of limiters or noise filters below CD quality like MP3's because it will affect the sound quality drastically.

 

You dont need an additional CD burner with most Editors either. They have all the built in tools for burning plus labeling song so those all come up in your CD playes display. You can even loudness match the songs when you have some that are louder than others and add the proper time space between the tracks, all kinds of stuff to make them sound better too. Noise reduction, pop filters if you record an album, EQ if the songs need some tweaking, Limiting, You can even change the tempo of a song to fit on a disk that has limited space, or change the pitch so you can run two songs together like they do in disco mixes.

 

An editor program is very inexpansive too. Many sell less than $50.

[MikeRivers]

What program would you buy? I haven't researched them at all.....my computers are pretty old by now but I mainly use them for surfing (that's another reason I haven't really looked for newer software as I'm not sure if it would even work good on these machines).....as each needs to be replaced' date=' I'll probably move to Windows 8 as I guess it uses less resources than the others (or so I have been told).....all my computers run Windows XP Professional, Service Pack 3, but I don't use them for recording.....[/quote']

 

You have to do as much research as you can stand, and you need to be open minded and tolerant, and think in terms of what kind of music you'll be working with, not necessarily the kind of music that others are doing with any given program. They all work pretty well, but there are some big differences in the user interface and the intuitiveness of doing things that you (personally) do often. They all offer the same basic functions, some come with more plug-in processing tools, most of which you won't get around to using for a while.

 

Most of the programs have free demos and most work under WinXP. You can download and install a demo version, some of which are limited (like you can't save, or you can't record a large number of tracks simultaneously, for example) but others are fully functional. Play with them and see what bugs you and what you like. PreSonus Studio One Has a completely functional free version, as does Reaper. I don't know the demo situation is with Sonar or Cubase but they must offer something you can play with on your own computer.

 

If you're getting the programs to run (that should be easy) but you're having trouble making "clean" recordings, without clicks and stumbles, you'll likely need to do a major cleanup on the computer. There are a lot of things that get installed along with games and inadvertently with web surfing that get in the way of audio programs. Devote one computer to music, clean it up, and start grabbing and trying demos.

Actually, since I don't really make demands of my computers, they work perfect for day to day stuff, but I wonder what they could actually run properly as far as music software........I've always experienced terrible latency when trying to record with them multi-track......my Motif works like a charm on that type of recording...

 

Your Motif works perfectly because it's a good design and it's exactly the same now (other than updates you may have installed from Yamaha) as it was when it left the factory. Your well used computers are vastly different from when they left the factory, and in fact, most off-the-shelf computers have software pre-installed that can interfere with music production programs. There are a number of web sites that offer suggestions for optimizing a Windows computer for audio.

 

Also, if your stereo or computer has distortion because of settings, this increases distortion way more than what you would normally hear.....some factory CD's are terrible as far as how much clipping they have.....

 

Hmmm . . maybe I've responded to the wrong person. I hope this gets into the right hands.

 

 

[WRGKMC]

Heres an audio editor program review. It rates their options and some may have demo versions.

 

http://audio-editing-software-review.toptenreviews.com/

 

There are others like Sound Forge and Wavelab that aren't listed there so you may want to Google quite a bit a s Mike suggests.

 

I still use older ones like Cool edit and Wavelab and get fine results. You might want to make sure they have the ability to use VST plugins.

There are tons of these plugins that can are free and sold that do wondrous things for audio tracks.

 

You can also use a DAW program but most DAW programs require you to have an aidio interface with ASIO drivers to even operate. If you use a normal windows card then using an editor program should work. Just make sure you check the hardware specs.

 

Also you can find many older versions of those editor programs that may be free that have less options. I know Goldwave has been around as long as I can remember. It was the first editor I ran on Win 95, so many of those may still work find on newer versions of windows. I'd also check CNET Download.com. They are loaded with free editors you can try. Some will even let you play back an entire cassette and separate the sings into separate tracks based on the silence between the tracks.

 

[blue2blue]

What is this 'cassette' of which you speak?

 

 

Seriously, I haven't read everything here but if RockPianoMan has a system that's working for him on his particular, existing hardware, I recommend not fixing what ain't broke.

 

I'm a big fan of doing things the most efficient way -- and if one was starting from scratch, that would certainly be very different. But with the gear RPM has -- and presumably doesn't have any other reason to ditch -- his system is working and he's happy with it.

 

What I would do is try to have a pan B for any piece of gear central to the operation in case a specific link in your chain breaks.

[WRGKMC]

Actually' date=' since I don't really make demands of my computers, they work perfect for day to day stuff, but I wonder what they could actually run properly as far as music software........I've always experienced terrible latency when trying to record with them multi-track.[/quote']

 

Latency with a normal windoes sound card is bad because they don't use the same drivers and professional cards nor do that have direct monitoring. You may want to think about getting a professional card or interface that uses ASIO drivers. If you multitrack with them you hear the input signal in real time with the play back tracks and the tracks you add are in sync with the previously recorded tracks. Windows cards consist of a maybe $2 in chips and may be fine for multimedia stuff recording from tape. If you want some better fidelity you really need to have a better card that records at at least 24/44.1. Then if you use any audio tools to enhance things like loudness or adjust frequencies there is less fidelity losses after you down sample to MP3 or normal Wave files.

 

There are some better windows cards out there now. HP machines all come with stock Realtec cards now and they are capable of recording up to 24/96 but they all have the same problems using windows drivers. You can buy a pro grade interface or card as cheap as $50 new. If you like having the card built in, you may want to look at buying an M-Audio Delta card. You can buy the stereo ones used for chump change. You just need to be sure you have a PCI slot open. Most newer computers have PCIE slots now. If this is a lap top then I'd get a USB interface. You can find used ones by the hundreds for $25~50 on EBay. If you buy new take a look at the Lexicon Alpha. It will do all and more for what you're doing.

[RoadRanger]

AFAIK the only 16-2/3 RPM records were spoken word - ancestors to the "books on tape" .

[blue2blue]

Absolutely. Higher speed = higher potential fidelity achieved more easily. The trade-off, of course, is playing time. Of course, same with analog tape. (There can also be a trade-off of diminished low bass with higher speed, but hiss is shifted up an octave and becomes less noticeable with every doubling of tape speed.)

 

Growing up, at least until I built my first stereo at 12, I always associated 45's with crummy sound -- because they almost always sounded crummy -- but, ironically, they sounded crappy because a) the labels just didn't care what teen music sounded like because they 'knew' they'd be listening to it on shirt pocket transistor radios and incredibly awful sounding 'teen' phonographs, and b) because the single record format was often used in jukeboxes and on the radio, both places where being the loudest record in the queue was seen as a strong competitive advantage so they'd use heavy program limiting to make it as loud as possible -- but, of course, just like modern ear-grinders, removing almost all the dynamics much of the time.

 

Since we're talking comparative speed here, it's probably worth noting that the beloved vinyl record has much greater potential frequency response as well as better signal-to-noise ratio at the outer edge of a record than at the inner groove -- because the needle-to-groove speed can be so very much higher at the outside of a big disk like an LP.

 

So if someone tells you the quality of a given record deteriorates as you get to the end of the side, they're not making that up. It's unavoidably true.

 

Just one of the many things that the vinyl-uber-alles types like to ignore in their rhapsodies about the 'superiority' of grooved records.

[MikeRivers]

"Vinyl" isn't another word for "phonograph record." Maybe today the weirdos pressing 78s are doing it on vinyl, but the rare 78s were made from a shellac based material. But I suppose that "vinyl" (the word) is the new "wax."

 

As for 16-2/3 RPM records, that was the preferred format for talking books before tape caught on, but there was a short-lived record player for cars that played 16 RPM records. The idea was that you didn't have to turn it over or change it so often while you were driving.

[MikeRivers]

A lot of people anymore wouldn't touch vinyl with a ten foot pole, but the fact is that if you want certain albums from history on CD, quite often you'll have to convert them yourself....so much will never appear on CD......I don't know if I would ever try to save wire recordings as finding wire players that work right and good quality wire recordings would be really hard to find and probably very expensive, and also the fidelity of wire recordings was really bad compared to vinyl.....probably much that was available on wire is also available on vinyl.....

 

Why would you want a vinyl record on CD? Why not play it on a turntable. Sit back, relax, listen to the music, and enjoy reading the liner notes. If you just want to preserve the disk, seal it up and put it on a shelf. If you want to play it 100 years from now, you'll probably find it easier to get someone to build you a turntable than a CD player.

 

Wire recording was never, as far as I know, used for commercial music release. The reason why people want to reclaim wire recordings is because they're of great grandad telling a story or little Susie's first piano piece. It's history.

[RockPianoman]

Vinyl degrades in listening quality surprisingly fast....capturing a perfect digital copy of it is like a time machine that years from now will sound exactly the same but the original will keep getting more and more pops and noise and possibly skips.....the main reason certain types of media players disappear or become rare is because they are so inferior to newer formats......this isn't the case with CD's and DVD's.....they are the first forms of media that can literally last forever, even if they are played constantly (the discs can definitely out-live the players ! )......

 

Once I digitize something and burn the digital master to DVD and have Nero verify it's a perfect copy, it will last forever and you can play it as often as you want with absolutely no loss of quality.....I back everything up on DVD and (so far) I've never had a single DVD ever go bad.....also, sometimes it's really tricky to get a good recording of something due to the age it is or the condition it's in, but once you "get it", every play is perfect....on tape decks, the heads wear the tape....on vinyl the needle wears the record but with CD's, DVD's and digital music on memory cards and thumb drives, playing them doesn't cause physical wear.....

 

Hard drives that aren't SSD have physical wear and will eventually fail if they get used long enough, thumb drives and memory cards and SSD's can fail too so it seems the most reliable media at this time is DVD and you should definitely make some backup copies of anything you archive (the blank DVD's I use cost about 20 cents per disc and can hold close to 100 albums on each with MP3's that are 128 bitrate....maybe more if they are old albums which were shorter)....CD's with data definitely fail and sometimes sooner than you'd expect....so far I've never had an audio CD fail except for the CD text on it (the CD text disappeared from some that I have but they still play fine).....

 

With audio CD's, the song sizes are comparable to the size of wave files (huge) and I think that's why they don't fail....large data on CD's lasts.....with DVD's. whether the data is large or small, it doesn't matter.....it all stays good and doesn't go corrupt.....of course if a DVD gets physically damaged, then that is a different story......always check the record side of a DVD for defects before you trust it (mass production has it's price).....I use Nero 6 to burn DVD's and Nero verifies every disc against the source immediately after burning....if you have problems with burnt copies verifying correctly, you're burning them faster than your burner is capable of....slow the speed down and try again....if they don't verify correctly, they haven't burnt correctly...make sure you don't bump the computer when it's burning as this can make it burn incorrectly (especially with laptops)....

 

​If files and folders have names that are too long, they won't burn in Nero without warning and error messages (and Nero handles things like this much better than other burning programs I have tried).....the same thing can happen with foreign languages unless Windows is set to use these languages (at least this seems to be the case with Windows XP).....maybe newer versions of Windows don't have these problems......as a rule, keep files, folders, bookmarks, MP3's and favorites names as short as possible.....also, some burning programs use the whole path to the folders and files which causes problems, so, if you put folders on the main C drive area rather than on the desktop you drastically shorten the length of the path (this really can mess with burning programs.....it's too much).....here's an example....if I put a folder with MP3's on the C drive area, the path is C / MP3's / and then the MP3 folders are visible.....on the desktop the path is C / Documents and Settings / Dell Laptop / Desktop / MP3's / and then the MP3 folders are visible......(the Dell Laptop part was my computer's name...every Windows XP computer has it's name in that location in that string).....you can see how many extra characters that is before you even arrive at the folders with the MP3's and each folder of MP3's add a ton of characters into the string....first you have each folder's name which is each MP3 album's title and then all the song titles inside each folder after that !! ......That adds up to a TON of characters in that particular string....Using names that are too long can make files, bookmarks, MP3's and favorites corrupt and even if you re-name them after this point, sometimes they can be broken beyond repair and never burn right again (some I have re-named still seem to work but they won't burn right...some have completely quit working for me and never have worked again).....Windows shouldn't have put limits like this in place as many things take a ton of words and characters to describe or name......what would have been better is a protocol where after X amount of characters, the rest are ignored and would not be displayed which would eliminate these problems completely....additional information that was needed could be put on a document and included.....the best solution would have been to not limit the amount of characters in any way.....who's to say what application any computer would be used for and this is a big problem that should have never existed in the first place.......

[MikeRivers]

Vinyl degrades in listening quality surprisingly fast....capturing a perfect digital copy of it is like a time machine that years from now will sound exactly the same but the original will keep getting more and more pops and noise and possibly skips...

 

That's not degradation, it's "building character."

 

Once I digitize something and burn the digital master to DVD and have Nero verify it's a perfect copy, it will last forever and you can play it as often as you want with absolutely no loss of quality.....

 

Not to be critical of your lifestyle here, but how much do you actually play a record? Playing a song over and over until the record is worn out used to be what teen aged girls did (do they still, even with a virtual disk?). Today most people have so much music in their collections that it's rare that any record will get played enough to wear out, unless you have a really bad turntable. If you have records that have already worn out, it can indeed be an interesting project to try to pull the best copy you can from it, but I tend to reserve that for individual songs that are really special. I think I've done about three, and really it was just an exercise in restoration. I may have listened to one of those restored copies once or twice over maybe a ten year period. I did have a sense of accomplishment when I was happy with a restoration, but it isn't something I'd do on a routine basis.

 

Hard drives that aren't SSD have physical wear and will eventually fail if they get used long enough, thumb drives and memory cards and SSD's can fail too so it seems the most reliable media at this time is DVD and you should definitely make some backup copies of anything you archive (the blank DVD's I use cost about 20 cents per disc and can hold close to 100 albums on each with MP3's that are 128 bitrate....

 

I agree with the potential eventual failure of hard drives and memory. DVDs fail too. You just haven't experienced one yet. And is hearing a record with a few ticks worse than listening to a 128 kbps MP3? That's a backup, but hardly what I'd call a preservation.

 

With audio CD's, the song sizes are comparable to the size of wave files (huge) and I think that's why they don't fail....large data on CD's lasts.....with DVD's. whether the data is large or small, it doesn't matter.....it all stays good and doesn't go corrupt.....

 

That's a unique theory. CDs and DVDs only work because of very strong error correction and interpolation. The biggest problem with playing CDs is the player itself, and, ultimately, the obsolescence and eventual rarity of drives. I rarely burn CDs any more, but just yesterday I made one of a concert for a friend. When I tried to check it out in a real player before sending it to him (I always do this) I found three players (one CD, two DVD) in the house that didn't work any more. After the CD that I made failed to play in the first one, I tried a commercial CD and that wouldn't play either. Same with the other players. To be fair, I've found that quite a number of DVD players won't play a CD-R, but the fact that two of the three players couldn't even get the tray out and back in smoothly shows how little I play CDs these days, too. The "industrial strength" TASCAM in the studio played everything, still, as did the player in my car. But now I guess I have some fixing to do.

 

I'm not terribly interested in whether my recordings and copies will play in 100 years, but I'd like them to last as long as I do.

[WRGKMC]

Two things mentioned. SSD's do have a lifespan which is allot shorter then most think.

With the cost of Terabyte drives today you can buy three or for and back up a lifetime collection worth of music even in wave file format several times over.

This way you have backup copies and those copies will be the same as the originals.

I have stacks of drives I have backup copies of my studio music in case one of my computers have a catastrophic failure. I can always get the information off a backup drive.

[BushmasterM4]

Ive been converting vinyl and tape (33's 45's 78's R2R's & Cassettes) since the beginning of time. And while I get great results with the gear Im using, the digital results will never replace the sound and experience of listening to an lp or r2r on a good stereo system. Long live Vinyl !!!!!!

[RockPianoman]

I use 320 bitrate when archiving albums so I can use MP3 Gain to remove any clipping and make the songs the same volume.....I was using the 128 bitrate example to show how much can be fit on if you would want as much on a disc as possible....

 

Some albums I play a lot, some albums I play very regularly and never seem to tire of, (good examples are "BOSTON - Don't Look Back" or "The Best Of Atlanta Rhythm Section" or "BLUE OYSTER CULT - Fire Of Unknown Origin" and "BLUE OYSTER CULT - The Revolution By Night"....these are 4 of many that I cycle through regularly) but most everything that I play often is still commercially available.....but then I think to myself how many albums were commercially available when I was a kid (I'm 52 now) and I wonder when the albums I like most are going out of print......I bet they will eventually.....

 

Considering how much of my favorite music I've archived to DVD for just my own personal use (I don't share it) and how not even one DVD has ever given me even the slightest problem (only some of the players), I will probably be dead before my music is.....that's good enough for me.....DVD players, those fry out every now and then, but the discs live on.....usually instead of the DVD players frying out, they get fussy where you need to wash discs for certain players to play right.....other players play every time with no problems.....these are the ones I use.....fussy players collect dust.....some work great when they are new and as they age they become fussy.....I have a Memorex DVD player that never, ever has failed to play all DVD's perfectly and it also has an SD card slot and USB jack right on the front so you don't even have to burn stuff if you don't want to.....I've been playing that Memorex player daily for over 4 years.....sometimes I clean the lens in it, but not because it's acting up....I usually clean it when I'm cleaning my other players......it is so reliable that I would have to say it gets 5 stars with no hesitation......that remote you have to hold up in the air higher than with my other players but that would be my only complaint....that's how it needs to be for the player to read the remote well....it reads all tracks on any media.....I have an older Sony DVD / VCR that won't read all the albums if there are too many (not the Sony I list below)....some DVD players that play MP3's only read MP3's from CD and not DVD (some Magnavox players are this way and I've seen other brands like this too)....

 

I'm really impressed with how much CD's have improved from when they first came out......the noise level is amazingly low and the clarity is second to none.....I used to think cassettes sounded warmer when CD's first came out.....now there's no comparison.....cassettes seem very noisy now.....CD's sound right now.....I compile my CD's to DVD and even at 320 bitrate I can get a ton on a disc....320 is the bitrate I use but I have experimented to see how much more fits on at 128 bitrate (over twice as much fits)....

 

I like the Sony DVP-SR101P to play my DVD's on.....it can access all the albums and songs even if you use a double layer DVD and it has a screen saver that kicks on after 15 minutes, but since I play it through my stereo, I just turn the TV off after I start what I want to hear....double layer DVD's offer quite a selection of music on a single disc.....DVD players won't play wave files or I'd probably use those (no compression with wave files)....my wife thinks 128 sounds the same as 320 but to me 320 sounds fuller and richer and more like the real thing......I think if she did a side by side comparison she'd hear the difference but with our stereo even 128 sounds great......it's an average stereo (all separate components) and it sounds really good, but with a better stereo differences become more obvious.....

 

If you have a super nice stereo, you won't be happy with 128 bitrate as it will be too different from 320 and you may find you can't enjoy MP3's at all....I'm glad I don't have a stereo that nice as I really enjoy them on my stereo......

[WRGKMC]

Ive been converting vinyl and tape (33's 45's 78's R2R's & Cassettes) since the beginning of time. And while I get great results with the gear Im using' date=' the digital results will never replace the sound and experience of listening to an lp or r2r on a good stereo system. Long live Vinyl !!!!!![/quote']

 

If you get a high quality Tube Phono preamp (or use the aux out of a high quality Hi Fi) and use a high quality interface with a good preamp and converters (not a cheap windows sound card) you can match anything you get from the album.

 

Simplest way to verify it is to record from a Hi Fi Preamp out, then pump the signal back into that same Hi Fi through an aux in and do an A/B comparison switching back and forth between the actual album playing and the computer playing back through the same Hi Fi system.

 

If there is a difference its likely do to a gain staging issue either in tracking or playback. (or both) Most magnetic cartridges have a hot output when driving an analog preamp and any distortion should sound musical.

 

The problem when you record to digital is you tend to back off on recording gain and clean it up for playback play the file in windows at a lower levels and this flattens out the dynamic response and how it pushes an analog preamp within its sweet spot. If you do the A/B comparison and match the gain curves, you come close enough to likely failing in a blind comparison. It does however need to be a good quality wave file of at least 24 bits and not a compressed format or you will have that rolling off the high frequency response.

[MikeRivers]

I use 320 bitrate when archiving albums so I can use MP3 Gain to remove any clipping and make the songs the same volume.....I was using the 128 bitrate example to show how much can be fit on if you would want as much on a disc as possible....

 

If you set the record level correctly, you wouldn't have to run it through a process to remove clipping because you wouldn't have any clipping - unless of course the clipping was on the record. You'd want to keep that, wouldn't you, for authenticity? And make all the songs the same volume? Isn't that boring? You could record at a level low enough so that you don't clip anything in the chain, then normalize (which does no harm) to get the peaks up to full level. I'm not sure but I think that Replay Gain is sort of like a leveler and not just a normalizer. But then if the fidelity is good enough for you, and you don't distribute your recordings, that's all that counts.

 

The more you put on the disk, the more you'll lose once that disk becomes unreadable. And it will.

[RockPianoman]

You're right that the clipping is on the record......many, many CD's have clipping.....they sound so much more pure without it.....when I make all the songs the same volume, when I use random play on certain players, I never have to touch the volume....clipping is distortion and I like them much more without it....

 

I don't understand why noise from vinyl or clipping could ever be considered a good thing.....none of that was present

on the original master recording....

[BushmasterM4]

 

If you get a high quality Tube Phono preamp (or use the aux out of a high quality Hi Fi) and use a high quality interface with a good preamp and converters (not a cheap windows sound card) you can match anything you get from the album.

 

Simplest way to verify it is to record from a Hi Fi Preamp out, then pump the signal back into that same Hi Fi through an aux in and do an A/B comparison switching back and forth between the actual album playing and the computer playing back through the same Hi Fi system.

 

If there is a difference its likely do to a gain staging issue either in tracking or playback. (or both) Most magnetic cartridges have a hot output when driving an analog preamp and any distortion should sound musical.

 

The problem when you record to digital is you tend to back off on recording gain and clean it up for playback play the file in windows at a lower levels and this flattens out the dynamic response and how it pushes an analog preamp within its sweet spot. If you do the A/B comparison and match the gain curves, you come close enough to likely failing in a blind comparison. It does however need to be a good quality wave file of at least 24 bits and not a compressed format or you will have that rolling off the high frequency response.

 

 

 

Im currently using a Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium HD which works great. In the past I used my DAW rig to convert vinyl. But last year or so ago I built a dedicated rig to do vinyl conversions and the SB X-Fi THD works very well. And I have always used vintage Sansui and Pioneer (70's) component systems to play the original material. Since changing to the dedicated rig I upped my rates from 24/48 to 32/96. But the Creative Labs X-FI is a great card for converting and listening to streaming and or converted material. Especially since its an rca jack card and geared towards quality sound.

[MikeRivers]

 

I don't understand why noise from vinyl or clipping could ever be considered a good thing.....none of that was present

on the original master recording....

 

Because that's how they made the record. Like I said, if you think you're improving on the sound that the producer, engineer, artist, and mastering engineer wanted, that's fine. Have your fun. There are a lot of commercial recording that I'd like to re-arrange or re-mix, too, but when I combine my laziness with my respect for the creators, It may not be hearing it just as I prefer, but it's how the record sounds. I agree that clipping is prevalent in many pop recordings, but those just don't make it into my collection. I really wouldn't like them any better if they weren't clipped, so for me, it's a moot point.

[BushmasterM4]

Some albums I play a lot, some albums I play very regularly and never seem to tire of, (good examples are "BOSTON - Don't Look Back" or "The Best Of Atlanta Rhythm Section" or "BLUE OYSTER CULT - Fire Of Unknown Origin" and "BLUE OYSTER CULT - The Revolution By Night"....these are 4 of many that I cycle through regularly) but most everything that I play often is still commercially available.....but then I think to myself how many albums were commercially available when I was a kid (I'm 52 now) and I wonder when the albums I like most are going out of print......I bet they will eventually......[/color]

 

Ebay !! You can find replacement albums there quite easily. Since many of the new pressings are junk, try and find original pressings. BOC - Fire of Unknown Origin is a good album. Many didnt like it, but I think its quite good. Same with BOC - Mirrors, many thaught it was crap, but its one of my favorites. Secret Treaties is my favorite BOC album, well I do like On your feet, On your knees, but thats a live album

 

 

[RockPianoman]

I like Blue Oyster Cult a lot too (Mirrors is another very good album but really, I like them all....Mirrors has Satanic forward masking (not backmasking as it's not played in reverse, but it is high speed)....I think they did this to get the Christians all upset (no such thing as bad press).....listen to the song, "You're Not The One (I Was Looking For).....right after the line "All of the fancy ladies, oh they would talk, and talk...."....you can hear it....I have heard it slowed down and filtered and it's something like "Worship the devil" and other things (it's been 30 years since I heard it that way).....what's stupid is that Christians actually thought it would influence people.....if somebody walked up to me and said the same thing to me as clear as day, I'd be like "Whatever your thing is dude" and I'd walk off....

 

Jeff Lynne put backmasking on some of ELO's songs but it was never evil words....it was more in theme with what the song was about....(for example, the ELO songs: Fire On High - Waterfall - Secret Messages)....and others.....

 

If Satanic messages don't affect you if someone walked up and spoke them to you, they sure won't affect you played backwards or at high speed......it would have about the same meaning to you as if someone was speaking to you in a language you absolutely don't understand.....

 

Ebay is good and I buy and sell a lot there, but Amazon is an important place to look before you buy.....they have tons of used CD's for 1 cent and $3.99 shipping so 4 bucks total.....some are more expensive, but often that is all they cost....they are rated as to their condition as well....a disc has to be pretty screwed up for my players not to play it perfectly......Amazon and Ebay are both great for customer service.....I bought a used video game on Amazon and it didn't work and I told the seller and they refunded my money and sent me a factory sealed copy too and they told me not to return the original....

[Beck]

Vinyl degrades in listening quality surprisingly fast....capturing a perfect digital copy of it is like a time machine that years from now will sound exactly the same but the original will keep getting more and more pops and noise and possibly skips.....the main reason certain types of media players disappear or become rare is because they are so inferior to newer formats......this isn't the case with CD's and DVD's.....they are the first forms of media that can literally last forever, even if they are played constantly (the discs can definitely out-live the players ! )......

 

Ummm.... sounds to me like our chains our being yanked. These posts sound like they're being cut and pasted form some old bbs from 1990 or we're meeting RockPianoman in a time warp.

 

We've known how terribly CD's and DVD's failed at lasting forever for the last 20 years.

 

RockPianoman, what year is it where you are and who is president of the United States, or whatever country you're from?

 

Here in the US in the year 2014 our old CD's and DVD's are nicked and scratched beyond recovery, and tapes and vinyl twice the age of the CD's are still playing fine. Some a little worn but still playing. When you lose enough 1's and 0's on a CD or DVD it won't play at all and never will again.

 

[MikeRivers]

Here in the US in the year 2014 our old CD's and DVD's are nicked and scratched beyond recovery, and tapes and vinyl twice the age of the CD's are still playing fine. Some a little worn but still playing. When you lose enough 1's and 0's on a CD or DVD it won't play at all and never will again.

 

Well, you need to take into account that CDs get handled and played in all sorts of ways and environments that vinyl LPs weren't (though cassette tapes had their abuse problems with car players). Collectors of 78s rarely find a disk in good condition because people didn't have 5,000 records so they tended to play the few that they owned over and over, and on not very gentle equipment. Many people in the 1950-1980 era had large LP collections and little if any playing portability other than taking a record over to a friend's house, so, with a few exceptions, each record simply got fewer playings.

 

CDs are amazingly robust, but because of that, people tend to be more careless with them. Also, CD players fail more often and in more catastrophic ways than turntables and tape decks. If you care about it, you can usually tell if your turntable or tape deck needs some maintenance, and they can nearly always be repaired to as-new condition. CD players, however, are, with a very few exceptions, built as cheaply as possible and with little consideration for maintenance. So lots of CDs won't play in flaky players.

 

But in any era where we still have tools, it wouldn't be difficult to build a record player from what's laying around the farm, but darn near impossible to build a CD player. So we may not know really which one, if you can accept the sound of wear, preserves the music or other content for a longer period of time.

 

[RockPianoman]

I'm always very careful with my discs and when they aren't being played they are in their cases.....no exceptions....and the only discs I have had go bad are data CD's and I have had a lot of data CD's go bad...not audio CD's and absolutely no DVD's....not a single audio CD or DVD that has burned and verified correctly have ever gone bad for me other than CD text disappearing from some of my audio CD's but they still play like new.....

 

If I burn a disc too fast and the burn process fails, the disc gets thrown away and I slow down the burner and try again and I'm not counting these as that doesn't even happen that often......I'm talking about every disc that has burnt and verified properly which is 99% of them (Nero verifies the disc immediately after it burns against the source).....

 

I'm sure if people aren't careful with them they will not last.....I never said they were indestructable....if you knew how many discs I have, you'd know why I have complete faith in them......this is nothing new for me......in 2018 it will be 20 years of heavy use and burning which makes it 16 years so far.....nothing that is said will change this.....these are just the facts and the absolute truth from my personal experience with them....sometimes I wash them with a Dawn dish soap & water solution and rinse them well and I use very soft terri cloth wash cloths for both washing and drying....I clean my laser lenses on my players when they need it but other than that, no other care is needed.....the only problems I've ever had other than what I mentioned above is when the players or the burners act up but the discs live on......I replace players and burners when I need to and all is good.....

 

I'm not going to lie and say I've had other problems when I haven't no matter what anyone says....when I have good luck with gear or whatever, I like to let people know and I appreciate it when other people share their experiences with me and I never stop learning....people can believe what I say or not believe it but it won't change the truth either way......I'm not losing any sleep over it either way.....if you have the batting average I've had with discs, (you should unless you're rough with them) it's not rocket science....it's fairly old technology by now and it seems to be the one that works the best (and I'm definitely not making assumptions when I say this)....