As you all probably know, I prefer high-resolution digital files for listening. Barring that, I increasingly prefer vinyl if I have a quality turntable and cart. After that, i'll settle for CD if it hasn't been compressed to death. I'll listen to an mp3 or AAC filed from iTunes only if there is absolutely no other alternative, or if i'm in the car.
What about you?
Depends on what I'm doing. Listening, I'm open to most anything, my stereo is good but not so good that super high quality recording show any difference. But....
.....and it's a big but. I still do mix tapes, and I much prefer working with cassettes and/or reel to reel than attempting to mix on the computer. Call me oldfashoned if you will, but I'm more comfortable working in that medium.
Have you tried making compilations on the computer?Quote:
Originally Posted by Doug-Morgan
For me it's so easy. Since all of my music has been added to hard drives, all I do is type in the name of what I want in Windows 7's search, and all of the songs on my hard drive with that title come up. I just pick the mastering I want and copy it to a folder. When I get all of the songs I want together, I tweak the files if needed. Then I run a script in Audition to equalize the RMS. Them, I put all of the songs in Roxio and do CD layouts. When I get the sequence I want, I save the FLAC files as CD-length collections. Then I tag everything in MediaMonkey, make mp3 copies, and archive.
It sounds much more complicated than it is, but my results turn out much more professional that they ever did when I did it on tape.
Anyone have a preference for one format over another?
Bumpity-bump!
I am converting all my 45's to mp3's
plus now I can convert MIDI's to mp3's also
With the resources on the net to extract audio from videos,
I can finish up collecting the songs
which I missed as a youngster.
edafan
May I suggest converting them to a lossless format to preserve the full fidelity first, then making mp3 copies from that? That's what I did. I have lossless copies of my entire music collection of over 70,000 songs on hard drives, then made mp3 duplicates of those too. That way, I have undamaged master files.Quote:
Originally Posted by edafan
I still have quite a few of my old vinyl albums [['long'players' :)), and a working turntable for them.
There's also a large, deep drawer of cassettes which are either straight recordings from vinyl,CD and radio [[and a few tape-to -tapes), or my own compilations.....
But none of them are ever played now, as I prefer CDs. Portable, practical and neat.
Not got into downloads yet, as not sure if I'll receive the same sound quality.
I'm not a completist collector of Motown, I just buy what I like...and as long as it sounds good to me, I'm happy.
I am at this second in the final stages of completing a needledrop of the Doobie Brothers' "One Step Closer" album. I'm doing a quality control listen before I dither it to 16-bit and tag it for archiving. It's not a very good album, but still worth saving.
I hate to take it down to CD level because I lose sound quality. But, I have decided not to keep the original hi-rez master.
Like you, I am not a completest with anything. l just collect what I like. No point in keeping what I don't. But I do have the entire Beatles catalog. :)
I suppose this fits the topic. I have just re-upped my studio, going from one digital tape format [[Adat) to Tascam. I have tried the Pro Tools route and other computer programs, but I'm old school. I need to hear the whine of the recorder transports as you wind the tape to the top. I loved Adat and it served me well for fifteen years. I'm curious to see how things go with the Tascam format.
I have also replaced my poor old tired and wheezing Mackie 32-8 board for a Tascam M1600. I have always been a fan of Mackie, but I think this Tascam board is about to blow me away.
Again, all of this is pretty old school and I'm sure some of the younger recording musicians out there think me archaic. Don't sweat it dudes, it gets the job done.
Ralph, That's all that really matters. If you get the results you want with the tape-based format, all the power to you. I have a friend who got ADAT a decade ago and he was frustrated with it. He was used to analog tape [[with DBX, no less!). I tried to convince him to give the DAW a try with his TASCAM board, then he sort of lost interest, other than with trading tracks with his brother for a collaboration. I digitally mixed a few of his demos made on analog, but I was getting my feet wet, and made the rookie mistake of using a compressor. Part of the problem is that he did a fair amount of bouncing and added reverb to his vocals because he was uncomfortable with his voice. The compression was kind of necessary at that point.
Me? I am quite comfortable with the DAW, but my interest is mastering. Tracking digitally also frustrates me, but mixing can be fun.
Nothing wrong with compression, Soulster. As you said, you were just getting your feet wet. Its not unusual to over compress at that stage.
Oh, I know that compression is vital. But, I felt I had little choice because of the nature of what I had been given. I had to find a way to make the over-wet vocal blend with the music. I did overdo the compression when I mastered it, though.Quote:
Originally Posted by ralpht
Its pretty hard to deal with an over-wet track. You probably did all that was possible no matter where the compression dial was.
Around the same time, I was given a complimentary CD by this very pretty local girl. She cut her own album in her living room and had a bunch of CDs made. Here's why, after ten years, i'm still seeing new copies on the local store racks: she engineered the thing herself and had no idea of what she was doing. It sounds like shit! Everything had massive amounts of reverb on it and the FQ was on another planet. The whole thing sounds like it was recorded by someone on an acid trip. I'll put up a sample of it so you can get scared.Quote:
Originally Posted by ralpht
Well, I could not be bothered to dig out the original CD, but I did "fix" it the best I could and made my own copy for archival purposes. Here is a sample of one of the worst tracks: http://ppl.ug/bbYOwixCCfE/
What you hear here is much better than what is on the CD. Trust me. I EQ'ed the hell out of the sucker just to give it some coherence.
I'm just getting hip to downloading and MP3s. I still don't know everything, all of the jargon. But it is certainly faster and convenient and once I learned I could convert YouTube videos to digital music files and burn 'em onto a digital disc, I was sold. My nephew BooBoo is a whiz at downloading music from the Net. If some rap artist that he likes puts something on the net or YouTube, Boo's got it.
Vinyl most definitely .