From: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org (ecto-digest) To: ecto-digest@smoe.org Subject: ecto-digest V10 #40 Reply-To: ecto@smoe.org Sender: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk ecto-digest Tuesday, February 10 2004 Volume 10 : Number 040 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: MP3s? [Steve VanDevender ] Re: Jonatha Brooke ["John Zimmer" ] Thea Gilmore US dates update ["Adam K." ] Re: mp3 abc [dmw ] Re: mp3 abc [Greg Dunn ] RE: Jonatha Brooke ["Collected Sounds" ] Re: MP3s? [Nadyne Mielke ] Garmana live [Mark Chapman ] MP3s -- The non-technical discussion [Valerie Richardson ] Re: mp3 abc [Leon van Stuivenberg ] Re: MP3s -- The non-technical discussion ["Wade Alberty" ] Re: Jonatha Brooke [fingerpuppets ] Re: [loud-fans] re: eMusic [dmw ] New CD release by my sister [Dave Torok ] Re: [loud-fans] re: eMusic [dmw ] strange angels [Damon ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2004 22:51:15 -0800 From: Steve VanDevender Subject: Re: MP3s? andrew fries writes: > (BTW, does anyone remember that research paper that did a few rounds on > the net a while ago, suggesting listening to sounds in compressed > formats could be, in large doses, physically harmful to our hearing? I > wonder if that was proved or disproved - or simply ignored...) The item I saw was not so much a research paper as a web page, and there was a lot of kook-sign in the web page, as I recall; the claims involved a lot of hand-waving and supposition about the audio artifacts introduced by lossy audio compression and their effect on the cochlea. One might as well claim that listening to poorly-recorded audio tapes or scratchy vinyl records is damaging to hearing, in the sense that the audio played back is distinctly different (and degraded) from the audio that was recorded. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2004 23:56:01 -0800 From: "John Zimmer" Subject: Re: Jonatha Brooke Meredith asked: > Anybody catch Jonatha Brooke on "Last Call With Carson Daly" last > night? She was pretty good. Yep, and I quite agree. Two full songs even, as opposed to the usual rushed version of the artist's current single we get from other talk shows. The songs were "Better After All" (from the upcoming _Back in the Circus_), and a cover of "Fire and Rain". I managed to miss Sarah McLachlan's scheduled appearance on the Sharon Osbourne show that same day, unfortunately. It's supposed to repeat locally in a couple of weeks, though; hopefully it'll be worth it. John ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2004 11:03:43 -0000 From: "Adam K." Subject: Thea Gilmore US dates update Hi - a while ago I posted Thea's US dates -- these have been updated to include gigs in NYC and Chicago , and I so I'm now reposting with the additional ones: March 16 - The Mucky Duck, Houston, Texas March 17 & 18 -- South by South West Festival, Austin TX March 20 - Lobero Theatre, Santa Barbara CA March 21 - Gunther Murphys, Chicago March 22 - One Trick Pony, Grand Rapids MI March 25 - club Cafe, Pittsburng March 26 - Skippers - Tampa, FL March 27 -- Eddies Attic, Decatur, Georgia March 31st -- Joe's Pub, NYC As I've said -- go and see her. She's fantastic. adam k. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2004 09:05:04 -0500 (EST) From: dmw Subject: Re: mp3 abc On Sun, 8 Feb 2004, Steve VanDevender wrote: > Wade Alberty writes: > > There is a great guide on how to make GREAT mp3s at: http://www.ubernet.org/ > > I find it amusing that their writeup almost makes it sound like CDs are > an analog medium, given that they _require_ a specific ripper. Wouldn't > any ripper that handles CD error detection/correction be fine? After > all, it's _digital_ data, and the CD format uses an error-correcting > code specifically designed to handle (small) scratches, so you can get > correct data even from a scratched CD, or detect when a frame is > uncorrectable. You probably know this already... but since, what, 1997 or so...not certain of the exact date... most CD-ROM drives distinguish between data and audio discs...they serve data with bit-accuracy, but audio goes through the CD-ROMs native firmware extraction and is far from bit-accurate. EAC is one of a handful of products (certainly the best-known) that does extraction in a psuedo-data mode (lower level) rather than accepting the firmware's output ... it does multiple reads of the same sector until it gets satisfactory checksums. the .wav format file doesn't get the benefit of the CDRs error correction. i'm pretty sure that CD-player/CDR's internal error correction throws out or averages data points that are extreme outlyers. so you can have a CD that plays fine in almost any CD drive, but that will have quite audible errors (clicks and pops) in .wav format. (I did an audio narration session once in which I recorded voice talent onto a drive that I thought had been defragmented, but hadn't. When we started working with the files, we discovered that many of them (not the ones we checked at the beginning of the session, of course) were riddled with little clicks. When I inspected the waveforms, it turned out that the clicks were almost always a single data point in the wave file that had a value of zero -- we hypothesized that when the hard-drive was seeking for a place to keep writing the file to, it just lost a bite or two from the incoming A-D stream...anyway, the point is ONE wrong data point is often clearly audible.) anyway, the extractor you use makes a huge difference. when i prepare a premaster to ship out for duplication, i'd never trust anything other than EAC. and >>>>> andrew fries writes: > (BTW, does anyone remember that research paper that did a few rounds on > the net a while ago, suggesting listening to sounds in compressed > formats could be, in large doses, physically harmful to our hearing? I > wonder if that was proved or disproved - or simply ignored...) The item I saw was not so much a research paper as a web page, and there was a lot of kook-sign in the web page, as I recall; the claims involved a lot of hand-waving and supposition about the audio artifacts introduced by lossy audio compression and their effect on the cochlea. One might as well claim that listening to poorly-recorded audio tapes or scratchy vinyl records is damaging to hearing, in the sense that the audio played back is distinctly different (and degraded) from the audio that was recorded. <<<<<<<<<<<<<< Well, but the most noticable artifacts of mp3 compression are mostly similar to a guitar "phase" pedal, a "mono" switch, and the "pumping" of an audio compressor. Sounds like utter hogwash to me *unless* part of the point is that people turn the volume up to damaging levels to overcome the effects of compression artifacts. which still sounds like hogwash, actually. i'm much more concerned about people turning volume up to damaging levels to drown out ambient noise (e.g. in a subway or in a car) On the other hand, there's no doubt that i find listening to music that's been excessively squeezed with forward-looking peak limiters (i.e., extreme *audio signal* compression, not *data* compression) fatiguing i wouldn't be at all surprised if someone could show that you get measurable hearing damage from listening to extremely-squeezed sounds at substantially lower peak dB levels than sounds with more "traditional" dynamic range. but that's a whole 'nother kettle. - -- d. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2004 01:28:35 -0500 From: Greg Dunn Subject: Re: mp3 abc >Much of the error correction happens in the CD driver software or CD >drive hardware itself; as I said before, the digital data on a CD is >encoded with an error-correcting code that allows limited detection and >correction of read errors. In more detail, each frame of data has extra >bits added to it in such a way that if read errors change up to so many >bits in a frame, it's possible to reconstruct the original frame; if >more bits are changed, it's still possible to detect the error under >most circumstances. While the read speed may affect the number of read >errors, typically either a data frame with errors is recoverable or not, >and repeatedly re-reading it can't reconstruct data that is beyond the >ability of the error-correcting code to reconstruct. EAC can't do magic >to work around a badly scratched or deteriorated CD, and there are other >rippers besides EAC that apply "paranoia" in reading CD data and >flagging errors. All true; but as I've seen in copying old CD-Rs that are starting to deteriorate, sometimes re-reading a CD a dozen or so times will eventually yield an error-free copy of dodgy data. Undoubtedly what is happening is that the ECC bits are right on the edge of being read correctly, and for whatever reason the hardware will occasionally be able to read the block and the checksums will match, allowing the data to be validated. I've even moved a flaky disc to several different computers in the hope that one of them will have a brighter laser, or a quieter detector circuit, or whatever it takes to up the contrast on a bit transition. When all else fails, re-reading a block isn't such a bad remedy; the worst it can do is waste your time. ;-) - -- | Greg Dunn | You dream about her, can't you | | gregdunn@indy.net | see? She's only shining bright | | The Sultan of Slack(tm) | 'cause she's so out of reach | | http://www.indy.net/~gregdunn/ | Heather Nova | ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2004 10:06:41 -0600 From: "Collected Sounds" Subject: RE: Jonatha Brooke John said: > I managed to miss Sarah McLachlan's scheduled appearance on the > Sharon Osbourne show that same day, unfortunately. I missed Jonatha because I didn't find out about it until the following day, but I did catch Sarah on Sharon. I didn't know about that either, but I've got my TiVo set to record anything she's on (yes, I'm a huge Sarah geek). It also recorded her on Ryan Seacrest's show (I didn't even know he HAD his own show, sheesh). And that was great as well. Both shows did pretty long interviews. Way more talking than I expected which was really nice. She sang "Fallen" of course (god, she's got to be sick of that song, even I'm sick of it!). It was lovely, I hope you all get a chance to see it. I'd make tapes, but I already erased it :( ~Amy Lotsberg Producer - www.collectedsounds.com A Guide to Women in Music > -----Original Message----- > From: owner-ecto@smoe.org [mailto:owner-ecto@smoe.org]On > Behalf Of John > Zimmer > Sent: Monday, February 09, 2004 1:56 AM > To: ecto@smoe.org > Subject: Re: Jonatha Brooke > > > Meredith asked: > > > Anybody catch Jonatha Brooke on "Last Call With Carson Daly" last > > night? She was pretty good. > > Yep, and I quite agree. Two full songs even, as opposed to the usual > rushed version of the artist's current single we get from other talk > shows. The songs were "Better After All" (from the upcoming _Back in > the Circus_), and a cover of "Fire and Rain". > > I managed to miss Sarah McLachlan's scheduled appearance on the > Sharon Osbourne show that same day, unfortunately. It's supposed to > repeat locally in a couple of weeks, though; hopefully it'll > be worth it. > > > John ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 09 Feb 2004 08:31:04 -0800 From: Nadyne Mielke Subject: Re: MP3s? At 10:48 PM 2/8/2004, Wade Alberty wrote: >FLAC at home....Your wish has come true: http://www.slimdevices.com/ !!!!!! I've been vaguely keeping an eye on SliMP3 in the hopes that they'd start supporting lossless formats. I apparently haven't checked recently enough. Yay! Gimme a couple of hours to do my homework, and I expect to order one of these Real Soon Now. /nm ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 09 Feb 2004 11:43:10 -0500 From: Mark Chapman Subject: Garmana live I thought Garmarna were great when I saw them. If you have the right software, you can view/hear their concert at: http://www.kennedy-center.org/programs/millennium/archive.html#search They accompanied some dancers at the beginning, starting off slowly and doing very traditional folk. They slowly got more rocky and in "party mode." They seemed to really enjoy playing. I would recommend them, Neal, if you can bring them to your neighborhood. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ September 25, 2002 Garmarna are inspired by Swedish folk of the medieval period, to produce a mix of ancient and modern music. Layers of strings, guitars, hurdy-gurdy and percussion swirl around traditional vocals. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~Mark C. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 09 Feb 2004 12:09:46 -0500 From: Valerie Richardson Subject: MP3s -- The non-technical discussion I'm sure that artists receive only a small percentage from MP3 sales from the big distributors: I-Tunes, Napster, etc. I'm hoping that in the next couple of years we'll find more and more DIY artists and small labels setting up their own MP3 sales on their sites. Why couldn't Jane Siberry or Signature Sounds, for example, sell MP3s on their sites? I'm sure, however, that some artists abhor the idea of selling individual songs from a CD that was envisioned as a whole work. I can't imagine Veda Hille wanting to sell individual songs from Field Study. CD Baby has started distributing MP3s through the big distributors. I'm an enthusiastic subscriber to emusic.com, which is now carrying a couple hundred or so of the CD Baby artists (Stan Ridgway is there; Edie Carey and Rachael Sage are not). I would guess that each artist decides whether he or she wishes to go the MP3 route. I've been an MP3 addict ever since the technology was developed and the first downloads were available. I did do the old Napster, not because I wanted free music but rather because I wanted immediate gratification when I heard about an interesting new artist or song. I'm happy to pay for the songs now that they are available for sale. My husband gave me a 40 gig ipod for Christmas, and I'm already up to 1200 songs almost entirely in new downloads. I've hardly put anything from my CD collection on it. - --Valerie Richardson ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2004 12:25:42 -0500 From: "Connell, Michael P" Subject: RE: MP3s -- The non-technical discussion Valerie lamented: >> I'm sure that artists receive only a small percentage from MP3 sales from the big distributors: I-Tunes, Napster, etc. I'm hoping that in the next couple of years we'll find more and more DIY artists and small labels setting up their own MP3 sales on their sites. Why couldn't Jane Siberry or Signature Sounds, for example, sell MP3s on their sites? I'm sure, however, that some artists abhor the idea of selling individual songs from a CD that was envisioned as a whole work. I can't imagine Veda Hille wanting to sell individual songs from Field Study.<< About a month or two ago there was a feature article in the USA Today about how many experts in the music industry are predicting that along with the death of the CD format they are also predicting the nearby death of the "album" as we know it due to the digital era. They figure most artists will not be "recording albums" in the next decade but rather tracks here and there or a handful of tracks, to be sold on a song-by-song basis or a few songs at a time either at stores on a variety of meadia, the artists web sites or music websites. I imagine the article can be found in the online archives of the USA Today. Mike NP - The Moody Blues - Seventh Sojourn ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2004 12:29:20 -0500 From: "Connell, Michael P" Subject: RE: MP3s? By the way, I JUST started to jump into the MP3 era due to a recent purchase of an Ipaq 2215 Pocket PC (which doubles as a great MP3 player (as far as I can tell)) and the (tomorrow) purchase of a SONY VAIO Multimedia/Enetertainment PC, so I am quite interested in this discussion and taking many notes :-) Keep up the discussion! Mike NR - MP3 For Dummies ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 09 Feb 2004 18:42:16 +0100 From: Leon van Stuivenberg Subject: Re: mp3 abc dmw wrote: > On Sun, 8 Feb 2004, Steve VanDevender wrote: > >> I find it amusing that their writeup almost makes it sound like CDs some of the intricacies of ripping are explained here: http://www.xiph.org/paranoia/faq.html#play ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2004 11:52:04 -0600 From: "Wade Alberty" Subject: Re: MP3s -- The non-technical discussion As sad as the possibility of the death of the album seems to me, I also see a great benefit in some cases. For example Tag Team who put out the song "Whoomp there it is," wouldn't have needed to clutter the earth with 12 others songs. There are several other groups which this could have been a big "benefit" to all people. :-) Wade - ----- Original Message ----- From: "Connell, Michael P" To: "'Valerie Richardson'" ; Sent: Monday, February 09, 2004 11:25 AM Subject: RE: MP3s -- The non-technical discussion > > About a month or two ago there was a feature article in the USA Today about > how many experts in the music industry are predicting that along with the > death of the CD format they are also predicting the nearby death of the > "album" as we know it due to the digital era. They figure most artists will > not be "recording albums" in the next decade but rather tracks here and > there or a handful of tracks, to be sold on a song-by-song basis or a few > songs at a time either at stores on a variety of meadia, the artists web > sites or music websites. I imagine the article can be found in the online > archives of the USA Today. > > Mike > > NP - The Moody Blues - Seventh Sojourn ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2004 12:00:17 -0600 From: "Doug" Subject: Re: MP3s? Thate "MP3 is Not a Crime" slogan (recently seen on a bumper sticker) makes me laugh. It's really rather silly, if you think about... - --Doug "Instructions are for those people who don't know what they are doing." - Bob the Builder ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2004 14:03:32 -0500 From: fingerpuppets Subject: Re: Jonatha Brooke one time at band camp, John Zimmer (tiefe@dsl-only.net) said: >I managed to miss Sarah McLachlan's scheduled appearance on the >Sharon Osbourne show that same day, unfortunately. It's supposed to >repeat locally in a couple of weeks, though; hopefully it'll be worth it. it is -- sharon osbourne may be a bit a of a kook, but she gets a great interview out of her guests, especially the musical ones, e.g., the chat she had with tori when she was on the show in december. maybe it's because she's the wife of a performer or maybe it's just because her style is relaxed and informal. whatever the reason, sarah's guest appearance was no different; it was easily the most interesting interview sarah's done on television while promoting afterglow. one warning: she's the first guest so don't make the mistake of just recording the end (a technique that works great with the late night shows) else you will miss it. woj ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2004 18:14:24 -0500 (EST) From: dmw Subject: Re: [loud-fans] re: eMusic On Mon, 9 Feb 2004, Stewart Mason wrote: > > Wonderlick -- WONDERLICK / A side project from Tim Quirk and Jay Blmenfeld > of Too Much Joy that on one listen, I'm pretty sure I like more than any > TMJ album. It's a lot more musically varied and *much* less jokey, for one > thing. anybody who shares my biases though will be disappointed by *not enough real drums *too much use of extreme pitchshifting as a deliberate effect What i really wanted to hep folks to, though, was the John Oswald/Plunderphonics material recently added. Some of the most monstrously headfucking music this side of Christian Marclay, and pretty much the ur-source for mash ups. He's less interested in making something you can dance to than most of the current followers, and the oldest pieces aren't the most exciting ... but cripes, he did 'em by splicing tape. And the best of it .. i like the flirting-with-accessibility queen/metallica one an orful lot fer eggzample... is almost transcendant. yeah! y-y-y-yuh-yuh-huy//huy// yeah! ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 09 Feb 2004 20:29:37 -0500 From: Dave Torok Subject: New CD release by my sister Well after years of work and other projects my sister (Dina Torok) has released her first CD! She's based in Los Angeles and put together a great group of musicians for the CD, including great guitar work. Although I exposed her to Happy's music years ago I can't say that it's been any influence ;-) although she does sound amazingly like Sarah McLachlan on at least one track. She has 2-minute samples of 6 tracks on her CDBABY site: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/dinatorok If you like it, please support her 100% true independent release. - -=$>Dave<$=- ecto since 1991! ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2004 20:54:40 -0500 (EST) From: dmw Subject: Re: [loud-fans] re: eMusic On Mon, 9 Feb 2004, dmw wrote: > On Mon, 9 Feb 2004, Stewart Mason wrote: > > > > > Wonderlick -- WONDERLICK / A side project from Tim Quirk and Jay Blmenfeld erm sorry about that. misdirected email. as you were. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2004 19:48:53 -0800 From: Damon Subject: strange angels hello ecto! just curious to see if anyone else here has ever come across the winnipeg folk-pop-rock duo "strange angels"? (no, nothing to do with either laurie anderson's or kristen hersh's releases of the same name.) i found their (apparently last) 1997 release, "dancing with the living", a year or more ago at a local secondhand shop and picked it up based just on the cover and the song names. i was not disappointed. they make some damned fine noises and there's a lot of fun and humour in their songs. i like their style. i definitely recommend them to anyone who likes mildly political folky pop/rock. sadly there doesn't seem to be much info available on them and i would tend to assume that they're no longer recording. you can find little bits and pieces on the web: http://www.vfs.com/~fridge/strangels/ http://www.coolname.com/go/strange_angels that last one links to a home site but it's just a 404. ah well. - -damon - -- dl+ecto@usrbin.ca: protecting my real address since 2002 (too late!) > EWS starts here! < ------------------------------ End of ecto-digest V10 #40 **************************