Contrast Podcast- Monkeys and Apes

This week the Contrast Podcast goes ape. I cannot wait to hear what everyone came up with for this one. Listen or download here.

I am new to the podcast and positively astonished at the amount of music my compadres have on their computers. Eiron mentioned that he has over three hours of music about cherries and over two hundred versions of House of the Rising Sun. My hero The Vinyl Villain has over 12,000 songs on his iPod alone.

These kinds of remarks make me wonder if we aren't a bit behind the times here at A Sweet Unrest World Headquarters, where every CP submission involves drifting from room to room to peek into all the little nooks where the CDs live, plus at least two trips to the garage to look through the archives. Perhaps a more aggressive digitization policy is in order.

So if you have time to comment and don't mind getting technical, I'd love to know how you have your music stored- what size hard drive, how you get the vinyl and bootleg concert cassettes into the shiny machine- that kind of thing.

Comments

[Eiron Page]

Writing this on a Nintendo Wii as my computer has given up for the time being, so I would appreciate it if you read this very slowly indeed.

Bear with me as my words per minute have plummeted from around 90 to closer to seven. I used to use a free program called CDex for ripping, but now use dbPowerAmp. I have a device for recording from an auxilliary output, but my setup is a little contrived as I have to connect my vinyl turntable through my DJ equipment through a secondary mixing desk for levelling then into my computer for mastering. I understand there are easier ways. The Andrews Sisters track I submitted to the Contrast Podcast was recorded by this method.

You can just get USB plug-in devices which do the same without the mad scientist look to the operation.

[James!]

Yeah, I have a 160GB hard drive connected to my laptop. It's good except for when the dog chews the power cord and immediately eliminates access to it.

As for ripping non-CD media, they definitely have vinyl rippers and I'm pretty sure I've also heard about cassette-rippers.

[adam]

Any audiophile would be horrified but all I do for analogue/digital conversion is run a simple audio jack line from headphone output to mic input and capture with audacity. I go through phases of converting loads of stuff and then just kind of forget and leave it for a while - I feel a session coming on soon.

I had a laptop with a 37g hard drive and my new one is double that - on my old one the music was getting in the way of the rest of the machine working, but I could live with that.

[Dirk]

Dear Greer,

well, over at Sexyloserland, much to the dismay of Mrs Loser, it's something like 2000 vinyl records and - so I would guess - 150 CD's. This means that whenever I choose a song for the CP, it will most likely turn out to be on vinyl. And because I'm a total twerp when it comes to technique or computers, I had to find the easiest option in order to even come halfway to terms with it, and for me this option is the Nero Wave Editor. I think it even is included in the Microsoft Standard Package and if this not the case, it surely is easily downloadable for free. Just connect record player and computer, choose 'record', put the needle down and press 'start'. Dead easy really. With having done this you've created a '.wav file', which you just need to turn into an .mp3-file. I use 'Audiograbber' for this(easy to serve, freely available). And that's about it really. And of course this all works with cassettes as well, you just have to connect your tape deck with the computer instead of the record player.

Just try it!

Good luck,

Dirk

[FiL]

Dearest Greer, I'd let the ripping process evolve naturally. I have about 100 records, plus over 500 CDs. A lot of that has ended up on my PC, but usually as a result of me leafing through the collection - sometimes inspired by a hunt for a CP track, sometimes by the search for the right song to complement a blogpost, and sometimes just because.

I use Audacity (free to download & easy to learn) to mix my CP intos, and also to rip vinyl. Regarding the latter, I have an ancient turntable plugged into a pre-amp ($50 at Radio Shack), which is in turn plugged into my PC. Audacity converst it into an mp3 easy-peasy.

As for storage, my one piece of advice: BACK UP REGULARLY ONTO AN EXTERNAL HARDDRIVE. Especially once your digital collection grows.

[jc]

The first thing to establish here is that size isn't everything.....

I've around 2000 CDs and 1000 bits of vinyl - and I've transferred about 70% to the PC.

For the shiny metal things, I simply put them into the CD writer where they are saved quickly in i-tunes as MPEG4 files which are OK to put onto i-pods.

If I want to take one of the MPEG 4 files and shove it on the blog, I convert it via aa audio file format converter called 'Easy CD-CA'

For the vinyl, I use a USB Turntable that is plugged permanently into the back of the PC. I use Audacity to make a recording of the vinyl, save it as a very large file and then convert it into a smaller mp3, again via 'Easy CD-DA'

I realise I've made this sound an awfully lot more complicated than it really is.

I'm actually a bit of a technophobe, and I learned to do all this via trial and error, but its all second nature to me nowadays.

But if you find yourself really stuck, really stuck, maybe I should do the honorable thing and get over to California and show you how....

I've also taken FiL's advice in recent times and purchased an external hard-drive...just in case.

One thing I haven't learned to do is convert tapes....which is just as well as I've box after box after box of the things stored in a cupboard under the stairs.

One other thing to mention....if there's a particular track you're looking for to go with a post or as a CP contribution that you cant easily get a hold of, then I'm sure any of your friends would send over a file if asked.

But I'm rather low on George Michael things (outside the Greatest Hits of Wham!)

Ciao

[adam]

You can get USB tape decks now, from the people who bought you USB turntables. The guardian keep trying to sell them to me but I tell them I only read them for the cookery. You can do it from an old walkman with an audio lead but it will sound a little bit iffy. There are some crazily detailed insructions out there somewhere - my favourite one talked about 'wetplaying' vinyl.

[Greer]

Hey! Thank you all so, so much for the feedback!! This is very helpful and I think you guys are right, I will just have to play around with it.

I noticed that many of you mentioned Audacity so I read about it and think I'll download it. It looks like it does more than GarageBand, which is what I've been using. The CP is definitely bringing me more up to speed with the times :).

I would love to travel around and visit everyone's music collections! That would be my dream vacation :).

[adam]

>>>>I would love to travel around and visit everyone's music collections! That would be my dream vacation :)

Isn't this just what the blogs are? :-)
x

[Greer]

Yes, of course you're right. But there's something about actually seeing walls and walls of gorgeous vinyl & cds stretched out before me that makes me extra happy :).

[Dirk]

I've experienced no differences between converting vinyl and tapes when using the aforementioned Nero Wave Editor. Therefore I find it strange that some of you seem to have problems with that .... but then again I am a total loser when it comes to computers, so who am I to judge?

But another thing: apparently most of us seem to use Audacity for the CP. So why is it that there are such vast differences in the (recording) quality of our intros? For example, Tim's, FiL's - and also J.C.'s - intros are ALWAYS brilliantly clear and understandable (okay, J.C.'s are quite hard to understand, I admit, but that's because of his accent *smile*) whereas my intros (amongst a few others) constantly sound pretty shitty ... as though as if I had recorded them in the middle of the Pacific, 10 feet under water.

Is it just because my microphone is too cheap? Or are there some hidden secrets in the Audacity-recording function tool that I haven't found yet?

Any advice would be highly appreciated, friends!

Cheers,

Dirk

[jc]

I suspect its down to the quality of the microphone.....

I spent next to nothing on the one that I use (just in case I couldnt get it to work properly), and what I need to do now is upgrade.

Maybe soon....

And sorry to disappoint you Greer, but all the vinyl I have is sort of hidden away in a huge cupboard...mind you it does look not too bad when I open the doors...

[Dirk]

Yeah, J.C.: just like me! I gave 5 Euros for my mike, therefore I can well imagine that one for like 10 times this price would make my intros sound a little bit better ...

But let's wait for a few more responses. Perhaps someone has to tell us something interesting about the [correct]use of Audacity ..

[adam]

I use an inbuilt mic on the iMac which is alright but not terribly directional so it picks up people walking down the corridor and so on, and sometimes a usb mic that comes with a headphone set which is okay but picks up clicks and bumps from the casing it's in. The only audacity trick I have it to 'normalise' the stuff before exporting it as mp3, which gets rid of some of the top and bottom ends. I have a long 'guide to using audacity' somewhere which I'll try and find, and see if it's an online thing. I'm not sure that I've ever read it, to be honest.

[FiL]

I find mike placement is key; keep your mouth very close to it, but have it slightly off to the side to avoid explosive "p" and "b" sounds.

I also record as wav files, then convert to an mp3. I also select a high bitrate at which to encode the files.

On top of that, I find a red chicken sacrificed once a month at a full moon helps greatly.

[Greer]

OK, Now we're getting somewhere. I need to find a red chicken immediately.

I'm glad you guys brought this up about the mikes. Right now I, like Adam, use the one on the computer. I've been thinking about buying a separate one but I haven't gotten around to it yet.

[Dirk]

Hmmm ... perhaps it's a combination of both: way too cheap mike plus me using the Audacity boost function after having recorded. But then again: if I don't do that, my speech is hardly understandable.

On the other hand though: perhaps we all send our intros out in an absolutely perfect condition and it's Tim who messes them all up deliberately, so that only HIS contributions sound fine?! Now, this theory would have been a great contender for the 'Mysteries & Conspiracies' - episode!!

Cheerio,

Dirk

[adam]

I didn't realise we were being so honest. I think your problem is that it's a red chicken, what you want is a golden cockerel, held upside down until it's still, throat slic..

oh my.
My chickens are watching me type.
Beady eyes staring.
Beady eyes glinting.

I'm going upstairs for a bit of a lie down.

[Greer]

Yes, you go have a nice rest while I go vegetarian. Before the chickens get me.

[Wayne the Irate Golden Cockerel]

Bok bok bok B'GOK!!
Bok bok bok B'GOK!!!
Bokbokbok.....B'GOK!!