Simcut Posted February 27, 2010 Report Share Posted February 27, 2010 Hey dude, Let me know when you'll be posting them so I can listen out for the postman Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aza Posted April 1, 2010 Author Report Share Posted April 1, 2010 Final batch of tapes sent off to the noble gesturing Simcut for digitising! Thank you Simcut and Nathan (once again)... Cheers Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simcut Posted April 26, 2010 Report Share Posted April 26, 2010 No problem, haven't got the tape deck back yet so it's on hold for the moment Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aza Posted April 26, 2010 Author Report Share Posted April 26, 2010 Appreciate your kind help - thank you! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tremor Posted September 15, 2010 Report Share Posted September 15, 2010 Hey guys. I realise that I have not been very productive so far with these tapes but I have not forgotten. I have finally had a couple of days break from work where I dont have any other arrangements and have digitized 4 tapes so far today. I'll hopefully get another load done tomorrow. Just doing some re-mastering on some of the wav files before converting them to MP3 for upload to the board. My plan is to wait until I've done a reasonable batch and then get them uploaded in one hit so I'll let you know when I get to that stage. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FuzzY-LogiC Posted September 15, 2010 Report Share Posted September 15, 2010 Tremor: perfect, please do let us know btw, just curious how you encode the mp3's... I reckon you know what you're doing in terms of quality, but still I'm curious what settings you're using.. VBR/CBR.. bitrate? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tremor Posted September 16, 2010 Report Share Posted September 16, 2010 Hey Fuzzy, Ok I had a little discussion with Tim a while back. These tapes are now 8 years old so they basically sound like 8 year old tapes! I am recording them from a tape deck straight into Adobe Audition. I then save the recording as a wav file which is generally about 1GB in size for 90 minutes of tape. I have made a general observation over the years that the 2nd side of a casette tends to record a little quieter than the first, especially when they turn over automatically and play back in reverse direction. So my first step is to amplify side 2 of the recording by 2dB which seems to bring it in line with side 1. The tapes tend to be lacking in clarity or treble as a general rule. I use the parametric EQ in Adaobe audition to boost the high frequencies across the recording. The recordings now sound nice and crisp where as before they were dull or muffled almost. Then I save the changes made to the WAV file. I then convert this to MP3 encoding at 128 kbps. The reason for the low bit rate encoding is simply that the original source recording is from 8 year old cassette and does not sound great. I have tweaked it to make it sound nice again but even still, you will not notice any degradation in sound quality once I have compressed it to 128kbps MP3. This also keeps the file size relatively small. I always encode CBR. I did pose the question of bit rates with Tim and he was also of the opinion that with audio coming from cassette it is rare to find anything which sounds better than 128 MP3 enoding in the first place. Occasionally you will come across a really good sounding tape but most of the time they will sound fairly dated by now. I am a sound engineer by trade so I normally would want to encode everything at the highest possible bit rate but in this instance I can not hear any audible loss between the original wav files and the mp3s for these recordings. That for me is always the ultimate test. So the files will all be 128 MP3s but they do sound good as I've done some post production on them to put the clarity back into the sets which will have been lost in the recording to cassette. I have got 7 sets recorded to date. Hopefully will add another 4 or 5 tomorrow. I must say there are some great tunes in these sets that for one reason or another I missed back in the day. I must have not been listening as regularly in 2002/2003 as I was in say 2000. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simcut Posted September 16, 2010 Report Share Posted September 16, 2010 (edited) Hiya I disagree, I feel all audio should be 192kbps CBR (Constant Bit Rate). All my audio recordings (bar one or two) are 192kbps, and it sounds fine. I have 8 year old or more tapes and the sound quality is pretty bloody good. I feel we should have all audio at the same bit rate, rather than a variation in them. We should be consistent with the audio I've dealt with recording audio for about 12 years now and 128kbps is not high enough in my opinion, not even for old tapes. 320 would be too much, but 192kbps is perfect for tapes. 192kbps CBR is the way to go I think. Edited September 16, 2010 by Simcut Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tremor Posted September 16, 2010 Report Share Posted September 16, 2010 That's a fair comment Simon but the raw recordings of these tapes do not sound great to start with. I am then applying some post production to them to make them sound nice again, all the time working with the raw file. I only then encode down to 128 at the very end. This was after a number of experiments of different bit rates and checking how they sound. I can't personally tell the difference between them in this instance. I would be able to if we were compressing a brand new digital production from a wav into 128 mp3 but we are not talking about doing that here. I dont have any issue with doing them at 192 but the slightly frustrating thing is that I have already done about 8 of them at 128 and deleted the wav files so as not to clog up my hard drives. I am not going to do those again. The other thing is that I checked with Tim if he felt there was a standard for submitting audio in terms of the quality because we are talking about such a large number of tapes and he said not to bother doing any higher than 128 except if the odd tape sounds really good and I agree that sometimes they do stand up to the test of time pretty well. It all depends what type of tapes they are and the quality of tape deck they were recorded on and for that matter what they are played back on. My tape deck may not be the best ever but I dont think it's too bad. Anyway I can do them at 192 from this point onwards if people feel stongly about it - I wouldn't want to go through all the hard work and people to be disappointed by the encoding I've used. All comments welcome. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tremor Posted September 16, 2010 Report Share Posted September 16, 2010 OK I have found the original WAV files still on my computer after all. So I could re-encode all of them at 192 kbps. In a way I do agree it would be nice to standardise everything much in the same was as there is a set format for writing tracklists. It would also be nice to be consistent with the audio archives. Fuzzy... I would be interested to hear your thoughts on this as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FuzzY-LogiC Posted September 16, 2010 Report Share Posted September 16, 2010 Hey Tremor. I somewhat understand your argument, but I can't help thinking that a 128kbit mp3 kills some of the dynamics, even though the tape is already old and worn. I can hear the difference, also with old recordings. A worn tape might sound muffled or dull, but the dynamics is still there... encoding it as 128kbit makes it sound tinny and hollow... that's at least my experience with 128kbit radio/tape material (this is also true with the LAME encoder, though the old crappy Xing encoder was really bad and should be avoided at all cost!!). I agree with Simon and is actually a bit puzzled that Tim would agree on 128kbit as I know he is keen to archive at best quality possible (without overdoing it with 320/FLAC/Wave files). 192 CBR should in my opinion be the standard for newly-ripped tapes. Harddisk space and bandwidth is not really that big an issue these days, so I wouldn't say that that's incentive enough to keep the bitrate at 128kbit. But hey, I don't want to sound negative, I'm just glad you're doing these rips... it would be great with 192's, but if you don't have the original WAVE fiels anymore, then 128 it is... It's better than nothing I hope you take this as constructive critic, as that's what it is meant as Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FuzzY-LogiC Posted September 16, 2010 Report Share Posted September 16, 2010 lol, just realised the above took 3 hours to write (I'm at work, so a bit on/off) Good to hear you agree on having a standard for the audio archive, which is exactly what I've wanted for years... it would be good to have some clear guidelines or even rules on what format and quality uploaded material needs to be in. This can of course only apply to newly ripped material, as you can't control what old rips have been encoded in. Re-encoding old material into 192 is a no-go, which I'm pretty sure we all agree on Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tremor Posted September 16, 2010 Report Share Posted September 16, 2010 Ok well I will make it all 192 then. Sorry to anyone if I seeemed a bit on the defensive in my initial reply to Simcut. I took some of the comments a bit to heart because it's not that I dont know what I'm talking about here. I'm a sound engineer and have also been recording for 10 or so years. On this particular occasion I made the unusual decision to go with 128 because in this situation I cant tell any difference. It's just one of those situations where what I'm saying seems so wrong to those who are passionate about qualiy audio like myself but I am the only one with the material here to compare. Fair enough I am not listening back on serious studio reference monitors but I would still be able to tell if there was much difference which the untrained ear would notice. I guess I felt slightly patronised but hey never mind. I want to do this properly and I'm getting the sense that people won't be that impressed with a whole load of 128 encoded new audio on the board no matter how it actually sounds. I have got the original WAV's as I'd forgotten they are all backed up somewhere else. So I will now go back through them and re-do all the post EQ'ing etc in order to re-encode at 192. This will make the files above the limit for submission to the board via the audio uploader so Fuzzy I will need to talk to you at some point about uploading them another way. Hopefully all the effort will be worth it as it is pretty time consuming but I'm sure I'll get through it all eventually. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FuzzY-LogiC Posted September 17, 2010 Report Share Posted September 17, 2010 Tremor: That sounds great, and I doubt anyone was offended :oddcake: One thing i really miss with the usual audio editors is the lack of a layer-feature, like in Photoshop or any other (good) image editor. Simply to be able to have the raw actual wavefile and a .lay file or something that holds the layer information; filter settings, markers, etc. This would allow for keeping the original wave, but also keep all the postprocessing either in a combined proprietary format or as a seperate metafile.... Anyway... digressing. Back on topic I know the feeling of being the only one who can (or can't) hear the difference of some audio. It can be very frustrating. I've took the time to read up on the technical side of the LAME mp3 encoder (which is the preferred method encoder). The following parameter is especially interesting in regards to archiving cassette tapes with radio material (Note the following only applies when encoding in VBR, not CBR). Kindly borrowed from our friends at The Mixing Bowl "-Y Advanced Setting The -Y setting is especially useful for use on audio that has been recorded from radio transmissions that do not have any audio greater than 16kHz. That generally includes most UK broadcasts, and indeed is especially relevant for older mixes that were recorded onto cassette tapes (as the cassette tape frequency limit is approx 15-16kHz). In simple terms this means that by using the switch you'll save a few KBs and produce a slightly lower VBR bitrate as the encoder doesn't have to worry about audio over 16kHz. The technical explanation goes something like: sfb21 bloat is possible with LAME settings -V0 through -V2. Due to faults in the design of the Layer III format itself, encoding audio of 16kHz and higher will cause more bits to be needed than normal. The Heavy Metal genre suffers with this sfb21 bloat problem sometimes. -V3 through -V9 do not have this problem as they have the -Y switch activated by default. This switch basically makes it where if the data above 16kHz will bloat the bitrate it is not encoded. So, you only use it on the -V0, -V1 & -V2 switches." So, with that in mind, I propose using the following commandlines when archiving audio for JJA. From cassette tape: lame -V 2 -Y input.wav output.mp3 From MiniDisc/CD: lame -V 0 input.wav output.mp3 Please comment on this and also on whether or not we should have a rule of quality control or we should keep it as an informative guideline, rather than an actual rule. On a personal level I think it would be really nice to have a standard and a easy-to-follow guide for new (and old) contributors, on how to make a mp3 with the settings that we agree on in the end. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tremor Posted September 17, 2010 Report Share Posted September 17, 2010 To be honest I am a bit lost reading your last post Fuzzy as I dont have the same level of knowlege about the detail behind the encoding of MP3s. I use Adobe Audition to record everything. As standard it records with a sample rate of 44.1k. I always save the recording as a wav file first. In the case of high quality source material or if it's a mix of mine, I'll keep the wav but will create an MP3 copy for uploading to the web due to the vast size of wav files. At this point I simply go to 'save as' in Audition, select MP3 from the list of file types, then set it at CBR, 192 for my mix uploads for example. Then I'll hit save. I have no idea what version of the MP3 codec it uses or what any of the values you mention mean or where I would change them. I do find all this interesting though so feel free to explain it a little more if you want. I wouldn't like to put people off uploading stuff if it all gets too complicated. I think we should have some guidelines in place and some good advice on encoding MP3s etc would be welcomed but I don't think it should be a rule that it has to be done a certain way. People use a wide variety of software to record their audio and some will be very experienced at it and using top end software, others will be far less experienced and will be using freeware which may not have all the required features. I think it would be hard to make very specific rules for audio uploads. Guidelines would be good - for example saying that ideally all audio should be at least 192k - I think most people will understand this and be able to implement it. It wouldn't hurt though to give a little explanation of what the 192k figure means so that anyone who doesn't understand all the numbers and jargon can get a feel for why it is important to encode at a decent bit rate. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simcut Posted September 21, 2010 Report Share Posted September 21, 2010 Yo Nath I use Adobe Audition too, but I save the .wav with Adobe and then use a program called "RazorLAME" to encode the wav to mp3, I can upload the program and the LAME Encoder for you, if you want? It's easy to use and is the best method of encoding mp3s. I would avoid using the built-in encoder to mp3 in Adobe Audition. I don't think we want to over complicate the process for encoding audio, so at some stage, I'm going to do a guide on how to record audio and how to encode from wav to mp3, with these tools mentioned before But yeah, I definitely think that 192kbps CBR mp3 44hz is the way to go Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quadrant Posted September 22, 2010 Report Share Posted September 22, 2010 I would have thought 192k is probably the safest for everything, unless it's of particularly higer quality (say MD or something) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FuzzY-LogiC Posted September 22, 2010 Report Share Posted September 22, 2010 right... finally got around to reply on this. Been ill with the flu the last five days now, which is why I haven't replied. Tremor: Sorry if I was a bit too technical, I tend to go out on a note when I'm too tired I definitely do not wish to dictate how people rip, edit or encode their tapes, but what I would like, is some sort of guideline(s) for a standard (for the sake of the quality). If that standard is just "keep it minimum 192kbps Constant Bitrate", then that's it... I have, however, thought the exact same thing as Simcut. That writing up an easy to follow guide for mp3 encoding which people can use if they like. Simply to help those who have old tapes/MDs and want to contribute, but don't know where to start. I'll have a talk with Neuro and Simcut and hopefully have some guidelines ready some time sooner than later Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tremor Posted September 23, 2010 Report Share Posted September 23, 2010 Cool, Nice one Guys. I have around 10 sets ready for encoding and uploading. Simon I will have a look at the RAZORLAME encoder. I've heard of it just never used it. I won't have time to do anything on this til next week at some point now but hpefully soon there will be a decent chunk of sets to upload. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simcut Posted September 23, 2010 Report Share Posted September 23, 2010 Cool, Nice one Guys. I have around 10 sets ready for encoding and uploading. Simon I will have a look at the RAZORLAME encoder. I've heard of it just never used it. I won't have time to do anything on this til next week at some point now but hpefully soon there will be a decent chunk of sets to upload. Cool, gimme a shout on MSN when you do, I'll guide u through it if u want. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aza Posted December 21, 2010 Author Report Share Posted December 21, 2010 Guys - thank you so much for your continued, hard-work and continued efforts! I strongly appreciate it and are sure the rest of the board do and will when they see the tangible outputs! Apologies for a lack of presence here, however, this has been one of the busiest years of my life and home front and especially work has been so so busy! Finally getting around to trying to catch up with you on here... Cheers again, Aza Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simcut Posted December 21, 2010 Report Share Posted December 21, 2010 Still not got the tape deck "back" yet Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tremor Posted December 24, 2010 Report Share Posted December 24, 2010 No worries Aza, I can feel your pain there. This has been the busiest year for me too and the busiest ever for the company I work for. I've been well and truly stretched to say the least but I have been managing to record tapes at various intervals through the year. I think I have done about 20 so far. Most of them just need a little post production and converting to MP3 and then I'll be ready to upload a batch. I'm hoping to get some time to do this between Christmas and New year but will have to see how much time I have. I want to get it done soon though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Number2Fan Posted January 2, 2011 Report Share Posted January 2, 2011 Are we nearly there yet? :thumbsup: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neuro Posted January 3, 2011 Report Share Posted January 3, 2011 I heard a rumour that Simcut is acquiring his tape deck back sometime in the next couple of weeks...? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.