Digitizing music
7I’ve done most of my CDs, have soundtracks and C&W left to do (about a shelf and a half). It’s pretty basic.
Now I want to do these. They’ve been in this closet since we moved in back in 1986. Brian had reinforced the shelf so it wouldn’t break from the weight. I don’t even know what’s there. I used to buy a lot of albums (two vinyl warehouses down the street from work - what else is there to do at lunch away from the office?).
I ordered one of these things from Amazon. I do have an ION turntable I bought on Woot a thousand years ago that I’ve never used, but I figured I’d get a new, updated model. It looks easy enough to disconnect and put away after each use.
So, what big plans do you have for a rest of your life project? lol…
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Big plans? Getting my mom to stop making excuses.
@yakkoTDI Excuses? For … you?
Or what?
@Kyeh Not for me. Stop by, have a beer and some chili and I will tell you all about it.
@yakkoTDI
Oh, okay. Next time I get to Texas!
@yakkoTDI Good luck with that. My mom never listened to any of my advice.
@Kyeh By Texas I assume you mean West Central Florida.
@yakkoTDI Oh! I guess I do. Gee, then I could visit @PoolToyWolf as well, and see the museum where he gives tours.
I guess it was your cacti that made me think Texas.
@Kyeh I think @PooltoyWolf is Central Central Florida or East Central Florida. There is another train museum by me so we can double up on the big iron.
@PooltoyWolf @yakkoTDI
Florida really loves its trains, huh?
I attended a wedding on a train once - it went up to the mountains and back, and it had great viewing cars and wonderful food. Most unusual wedding I’ve been to.
We’ve got a pretty big train museum in CO as well: https://coloradorailroadmuseum.org/
@Kyeh @PooltoyWolf @yakkoTDI
If any y’all pass by St Louis, there is The National Museum of Trains (tnmot.org) that has almost 200 exhibits of engines and cars to look at up close. It’s in the suburb or Des Peres, MO.
There is also the nearby Wabash, Frisco, and Pacific Railroad (www.wfprr.com) that operates Sundays only, May through October.
Along with these other area train routes:
https://www.onlyinyourstate.com/missouri/train-rides-mo/
@mike808 @PooltoyWolf @yakkoTDI Wow!
@Kyeh @PooltoyWolf @yakkoTDI hey…don’t forget me! I’m in West Central Florida too
@llangley @PooltoyWolf @yakkoTDI
Nice!!! And maybe we could swing by and ask @Weboh to let us try some of his wonderful fruit!
@Kyeh @yakkoTDI Orlando suburbs!
@Kyeh @PooltoyWolf @yakkoTDI
Stop and use the pool on the way thru central AL if you are driving…
@chienfou @PooltoyWolf @yakkoTDI
I’d love to! Thanks!
@llangley @PooltoyWolf @yakkoTDI
I’ve never been to Florida, but a summer trip there might have tipped the balance in my father’s favor when he was courting my mom. They met at the campus library, but she wasn’t sure about him. Then he and his college roomie went and camped on a Florida beach, and he wrote her interesting, funny, thoughtful letters. So she gave him a chance.
@Kyeh @PooltoyWolf I got family near Altamonte Springs and when it isn’t coviding outside I get over there pretty regularly.
@lisaviolet With these projects and your hoard of young cats, you’re now obligated to live forever.
@Kyeh That’s the plan.
I am jealous
That looks way too organized. Are you using a program to keep track or folders or….
I did just order a barcode scanner to start listing what I have in books, cds and videos. So I have started, right?
No experience with albums except playing them forever ago on a turntable double cd combo that I was very proud to own
@speediedelivery
Cue Cat?
@yakkoTDI I have a cue cat but never had good luck with it. Maybe I should try again since I just got a cancellation notice for the one I ordered. Says out of stock but I can reorder for almost double the price.
@speediedelivery I love my barcode scanner. So far, I’ve just used it for DVDs using this software. That has a lifetime license.
For CDs, I have this software. Just licensed for a year. Not that I needed it because I ripped the disks to a hard drive and that grabbed all the information needed for cataloging. I bought the software before I decided to rip them all.
I set up an NAS last year (wrote about it in my diary; I’ve since upgraded the router to an Asus, because the wifi dropouts were just too annoying, especially with the webcams in the backyard - really needed to keep an eye on Simon to see how he was getting out of the yard after decades of no escapees). I have a Buffalo NAS, just one internal hard drive and a couple of external hard drives. Music, movies and television shows. Roku shares the Plex files.
I found an app to share the music files as playlists on Alexa! A year license is six bucks.
I look at my old equipment and just shake my head. I have a technics turntable, an onkyo receiver with the pre-amp for the turntable, a dual cassette player, a 100 disk CD player, two cd recorders, only one of them worked with rewriteable disks - I’d record songs off of vinyl onto a rewriteable disk, easy enough to fix if I screwed up, once I had it the way I wanted it, I’d record that onto a regular disk. Back then, the vehicles didn’t work with disks burned via the computer. The car didn’t work with disks that weren’t labeled as "music CD’.
Technology has sure come a long way.
And I’m lovin’ it!
@speediedelivery @yakkoTDI I couldn’t get my cue cat to work. I ended up getting this one.
@lisaviolet I have folders for my audiobooks and ebooks by authors then sub folders for each book. I have done some music but still have a bunch to go. Nothing on your scale but still daunting. I will check out those links for organizing. I like the idea of accessing with Alexa. I have a nifty enabled speaker from an Irk to try it out.
I have been purchasing ebooks with the plan of downsizing my book shelves. It has not worked so far
I like the portability of my kindle and having a bunch of books to match my mood at my fingertips.
@speediedelivery There’s nothing like the feel and smell of a book.
@lisaviolet @speediedelivery
Yeah, I’ve got some old musty ones too.
@phendrick @speediedelivery I love that smell.
@lisaviolet @speediedelivery
I had an off brand kindle and downloaded a bunch of books to it. After I read those books I went back to real books. I have problems holding holding and reading both bc of nerve damage in my neck that affects my neck, shoulder, back and arm. It’s still the feel of a book and it’s more comfortable to hold, at least for me.
I used to save all my books after reading them and had a massive collection and after moving twice with them I was done. I now (usually) only buy used book and sell them when I’m done. If it was a very, very very good read I might, might keep it but I’d rather have room for new books or things like my gardening books and photo albums intend of keeping them in boxes.
@speediedelivery @Star2236 I was raised in a military family that moved every two or three years and a lot of stuff was left behind.
When dad retired and I moved out on my own, I had a really hard time getting rid of stuff. You’ll notice in my original post, next to the CDs, there’s a bookshelf full of Stephen King.
We have nice bookcases in the family room and I’d love to clean those out. A full set of encyclopedia Brittanica, full sets of the Time/Life mysteries and paranormal books. I need to find a place to donate them.
Way too many cookbooks.
I have a hard time staying focused reading on an ebook. I haven’t always, when they first came out, I enjoyed the hell out of it. But, like you, I’ve gone back to printed books.
@speediedelivery I was just using my Cue Cat for barcode scanning into an Excel sheet and it worked great.
@lisaviolet @speediedelivery
I understand why you keep things. I wish I had a good reason for my hoarding besides I just like stuff. Not saying that your a hoarder just made me think of myself.
@lisaviolet @speediedelivery
That “old book smell” is so popular that there are perfumes and candles made to convey it; you can even get a necklace with the chemical symbols for “Acetic Acid, Furfural, Benzaldehyde, Hexanol and Vanillin” strung on a chain. I have this perfume and I like it, but I’ve spent more hours in libraries than maybe anywhere else in my life, and none of them smelled like this:
@Kyeh @lisaviolet @speediedelivery Maybe you’ll just have to take a trip to Oxford & visit all the local libraries to track down the scent!
I volunteer to be your assistant! 
@ircon96 @lisaviolet @speediedelivery
Oxford UK? Or one of the 24 Oxfords in the US?
I wouldn’t mind visiting the Bodleian. But whatever library we go to I’m pretty sure the only way it will smell like that perfume is if I’m wearing it.
@Kyeh @lisaviolet @speediedelivery Lol, you’re probably right, but it sure would be fun to do the detective work!
And i concur with the Bodleian. I was assuming, since it’s a French product, they were referring to the UK, but i haven’t been anywhere in so long, i think I’d be willing to go to just about any of the Oxfords at this point!
@ircon96
Visiting the great libraries of the world could be a fantastic travel theme! Kind of like people who travel to climb mountains; not my thing at all even though I’m in CO.
@Kyeh I’m 100% with you on the library theme vs. mountain climbing.
@lisaviolet @speediedelivery
For CD ripping, I like EAC (completely free, however the metadata database lookup plugin is $8 for a lifetime license).
https://www.exactaudiocopy.de/en/index.php/resources/download/
For vinyl, well, unless you have white labels, bootlegs, rare, or non-US released remixes type stuff, you may want to consider selling it and using the money to get replacements that are already in digital form. i.e. effectively, you’re paying someone else to digitize it for you. Beware that the three biggest sources of audio content - iTunes, Google Play, and Amazon Music, all only license the music to you, and that means you are really only renting it. They can drop, revoke, or no longer allow you to play content you thought you owned. Welcome to the world of renting and subscriptions, ownership was just a fevered dream.
If it’s on youtube, there’s the app Google absolutely hates:
https://youtube-dl.org/
Other sources for stuff: Spotify, Pandora (I’m sure there are equivalents to youtube-dl for them).
Any service that offers “offline” listening/viewing is still really renting and they can cancel your “feature” at any time.
Other sources for stuff (non-mainstream, indy, rare/bootleg/DJ tracks): Soundcloud and bandcamp.
@mike808 I’m not selling them.
@mike808 I love EAC it has ripped almost every CD I have given it. I need to fire it up again and copy everything I have acquired since the last batch run.
@yakkoTDI The plugin to lookup cover art, track listings, liner notes, etc looks useful for $8.
You also want to consider your quality baselines for ripping and format. Apple devices favor AAC, the rest of the world has settled on MP3 and 128, 160, or 320 Mhz sampling, and the open source/unpatented crowd likes OGG or FLAC (for lossless compression).
Sites like YT and streaming services may not always have the best quality - especially if the uploader had a poor quality recording to start with. Or worse uploads an MP3 which is already compressed, where the service will re-compress it again, called transcoding. You might have to tweak settings to force the sites to give you a high-quality download.
By “high quality”, I mean a high sampling bit rate, meaning less compression. Lossy compression like AAC and MP3 inherently mean information is lost from the original and you can’t ever get it back. Lose enough information (high enough compression, or “low quality”) and you notice the degradation.
More important than the sampling rate is like to be the original sound recording engineer’s dynamic range shaping (also called compression, but of a completely different thing). When CDs were new, sound engineers squashed the dynamic range, which effectively made the high frequencies “brighter” and everything sounded equally “loud”, particularly for pop/radio tracks. Just like old 45s were engineered to sound “good” on mono car radios in the 50s with shitloads of midrange and almost no bass or high treble. The speakers of the time just weren’t capable enough.
Now, different genres have their own “profiles” with directional shaping, reverb, dynamic range compression and clipping, now that all of those can be manipulated programmatically.
No cassettes to digitize?
@heartny Mine are already digitized (binary), as in they either are worth listening to, or not. Mostly, not. (Those last, I just keep in my old truck with its ancient AM//FM/tape player.)
@heartny @phendrick I’ve got a few, but I was big on mix tapes back in the day. Which I made from my lps.
Most of the cassettes I have were left in my truck at work by admirerers.
Seriously. I was adorable back then. (Key words “back then”. It was over thirty years ago.)
@heartny @phendrick Yeah, I still have 2 vehicles with cassette players. They were new enough (1997 and 2000) to have the deluxe combo of cassette AND that newfangled CD thing. But sadly no 3.5mm audio jack so I can’t easily play a digital device through it (usually for audiobooks). I know they make “cassette adapters” which create a magnetic signal that might be read by the “tape head” but from my experience they are pretty bad if they work at all in your setup.
@heartny @lisaviolet I bet you’re still adorable, since “beauty is only skin deep”, as Olay and botox practitioners like to say.
@heartny @phendrick Aw, you’re too kind…
Not on the topic of digitizing, but for a streaming and download service for many “alternative” music types, check out Magnatune.com. I signed-up with them about 15 years ago. Then I forgot for a while. They are still around, and I did pay for the “lifetime” membership which still works. (you can listen without the membership, but the membership gives you download including FLAC and ALAC lossless formats.) Music styles are mostly new-age, electronica, world, classical.
@pmarin I subscribed to Pandora a long time ago. It’s why I wanted to have my own stuff on a hard drive for access around the house. I said “google next” too many times. lol But I still listen to it on occasion.
I have Alexa set up in Brian’s shop where he works all day (an old echo that has a bad speaker - using the auxiliary output to a speaker that works). The speaker isn’t the best, but he’s running machinery most of the day so sound quality doesn’t matter that much to him. He listens to country.
My father was an audiophile. I’m pretty sure I inherited this talent (cough, cough) from him.
@pmarin Same here with a slightly different theme. Curated community submissions of playlists consisting of 8 tracks in a theme. Hence the name 8tracks.com
Basically an 8 track playlist will get you through 30 minutes or so, so it’s not a huge commitment before you can switch to someone else’s playlist. And the usual auto-play and profile preferences are used if you just want curated streaming.
They just never reached critical mass and VC funding to go all on on fancy automation and pimping the shit out of it with gear partnerships like Pandora and Spotify did. So its kinda niche, like magnatune.com.
someday I will sort out all the old (analog) pictures and video tapes I have shot and digitalize them. Then I can get around to going thru the digital pics I already have and get them sorted out! I am terrible about backing up my music and old pics to multiple devices then not collating them all, because, well… life.
@chienfou Check out ScanCafe.com for digitizing photos and video. Get on their mailing list for regular sales on different services.
For hosting your media, look at Forever.com and their Forever Storage. Also watch the site for sales. It is permanent storage - not sorta-permanent (read the fine print of your cloud drive - it’s all “best effort” and “subject to change” and no guarantees. Forever also takes care of the “What happens to my pictures and video storage if I die?”.
Remember – all of the cloud companies (Google, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon) – treat your stuff as part of their contract with you, personally and individually, and there are no rights (to access, update, download, or remove) to access your account or any information you store that transfer to a beneficiary, spouse, kids, or relative.
It’s pricey, but it is permanent (your life +100 years). The best sales I’ve seen are 40% off.
I think the video streaming add-on is overpriced and don’t recommend it.
For managing the images and video, I use their Historian program to deal with media locally, then transfer to Forever
They also have some really cool tools for digital scrapbooks and amazing crafty stuff if you’re into it.
For me apparently it’s going to be the reno/remod projects at my mother’s house. I started in September, 2019 believing with all my heart there would be an end soonish. Since then I’ve completed dozens of projects and redone maybe a dozen or so when after living with it for a bit she begins to regret her color or style choice then wants it changed.
Project scope has ranged from making and installing some shelves to a replumb of the house, and total kitchen remodel. At this point I’m pretty sure this will be a “rest of my life” proposition. Or rest of her life, whichever comes sooner. I’m pretty sure it’s going to be me 'cause I swear she’s working me to death!