for any of you with a yen for something country
No such thing. One has a yearning for country, never a yen.
One might have tearstains on their hat, yenning to hear something country.
And Heebie posted a mix! This is a huge improvement on the days when she'd just post tantalizing lists of really good-looking songs and let you weep that you had them not. I'll have to download it tonight.
I didn't know how to post mixes! How I've grown.
I don't need to download this mix, because I'm already honky like that. But is there any consolidated link to past mixes? Could links be posted on the sidebar or something? There were some earlier ones that looked great but that I wasn't able to download.
I didn't know how to post mixes! How I've grown.
(Merle Haggard but no Buck Owens?)
Post mixes? I have trouble even downloading them. I've managed to download a couple, but others I've tried have left me with files in some format I'm unfamiliar with and no idea about how to move them into iTunes.
8: I thought you didn't even listen to music?
Oh, I do occasionally -- it's not as if I have a religious prohibition against it. I just don't, fundamentally, give a damn about it. (U.S. Grant on music: "I know two songs. One is Yankee Doodle, and the other one isn't.") But I've been tempted to find out what all the music getting passed around is, and have found it largely too annoying to figure out how to listen to them.
others I've tried have left me with files in some format
Not mine! That's mostly just nosflow being stubborn.
#8, just ignore the Ogg files. It's a tiny minority of people trying to mess with you.
Is this one downloading okay? Has anyone tried it?
8: That's odd, most people usually just use mp3s. (Some people seem to use .m4a's as well, which is annoying, but that's an Apple file format so surely iTunes should open it? If not, it's probably just a matter of downloading a plug-in, as with Ben and his FLAC and Ogg Vorbis files.)
Whatever I've been having trouble with, it's probably something that I'd figure out in a moment if I paid some attention to it. It hasn't been that songs, as such, have been in bad formats -- at least a couple of times I've gotten what seem to be compressed files (like zip files, but in some format I don't know about). This has happened maybe twice, which was enough to leave me not bothering trying again.
3: I'd refute you irrefutably, but whatever you linked to is blocked here at work.
I courteously request that you provide an alternate link.
Punk.
at least a couple of times I've gotten what seem to be compressed files (like zip files, but in some format I don't know about)
I think it is Ttam that sometimes posts RAR files which is probably what you are thinking of.
Don't hold the sins of Nosflow against the joys of Geebie.
16: No alternate link for you! But it is indeed moderately NSFW so that's probably to the good.
18: Most software that can open a ZIP file can open RAR files, can't they? Just download a copy of PowerArchiver or something.
.rar files are really common on mp3 blogs. There are plenty of freeware .rar decoders (http://www.google.com/search?q=unrar), and if you're on a Mac, then StuffIt Expander should open them.
moderately NSFW
It certainly gave me a special feeling.
Don't hold the sins of Nosflow against the joys of Geebie
"If I said you had a beautiful nosflow, would you hold it against geeb?"
No alternate link for you!
How about a hint, then?
iTunes users have no excuse for being troubled by ogg files.
Buck Owens rules.
26: For ME? Awwwwww.
I'll be right back.
||
I don't want to derail the Harvard thread, so I'll interrupt here to say that those latte-sipping coastal elites over at TPM who couldn't possibly relate to real working people are doing a kick-ass job of responding to Andrew Sorkin's claim that it's near impossible to think of successful unionized companies. Read the comments here and a growing list of profitable union companies here.
|>
iTunes users have no excuse for being troubled by ogg files.
Not true! iTunes can be made to play ogg files, but they won't play on an iPod or iPhone, or at least not without installing a totally separate ogg-playing App that doesn't integrate with the rest of your library. At least when last I checked.
"iTunes users", "iPod users", and "iPhone" users differ extensionally and intensionally.
iTunes users qua iTunes users have no excuse.
The last item in the list in 30 should obviously be "iPhone users".
Yeah, I've posted RAR files in the past. It's a standard compressed format, as per 21. It'd never occur to me that people aren't capable of googling to find out how to open them ....
I do, however, transcode all the files to MP3 before uploading. Unlike nosflow.
It's a matter of low energy -- I'm not actually that interested in listening to music, so even very minor obstacles are sufficient to make me not bother.
I don't think that was the only issue I had, though, although remembering what the other problem was would probably make me sound even more pathetically inept.
Sorry, HG. I'm sure it's a wonderful mix, but I tried to download it twice. The first time it crapped out at 16.2MB, the second time at 41MB.
My inner red state will have to remain unembraced.
I do, however, transcode all the files to MP3 before uploading. Unlike nosflow.
TRANSCODING DEGRADES QUALITY
34: crap.
Has anyone been able to successfully download it? Is it too big?
I'm not actually that interested in listening to music
Commie.
TRANSCODING DEGRADES QUALITY
Listening to music through tiny earphones degrades quality. There comes a point where you're engaging in fetishism for no goo--
Oh right. It's neb. Never mind.
Is it too big?
Does it hang too low?
I don't listen to music through tiny earphones.
36: We voted.
European Parliament? What party are you supporting, Asilon?
||
It's amazing how zealous a defender of intellectual property Wolfram is, given how much he steals from others. I'm trying to get a Mathematica license for my laptop, following instructions from my department's IT people, and not only am I failing to obtain it, but someone from Wolfram is insisting that the licensed copy installed on my office machine by our IT people cannot be legal. WTF?
|>
re: 36 Yeah, I voted too. We had council elections and Euro elections.
re: 35
I'd be willing to place a bet that you couldn't tell the difference in ordinary listening conditions. IIRC, you don't even have a proper stereo, no?
The download worked just fine for me. To be a tad persnickety, though, it would be nice if the tracks were labeled. But great mix. I love George Strait.
I do not have a proper stereo, no. And maybe I couldn't tell the difference. But I still have principles!
What party are you supporting, Asilon?
The Libertine Party. Technically, it is a rave, but close enough.
TRANSCODING DEGRADES QUALITY
so does most coding. dropping the bitrate is usually much worse, ime, but I don't know if any of you are doing that.
Clearly you should all be providing these in FLAC or the like.
Well, right, simply having it encoded in one (lossy) format involves a degradation in quality, which is one reason why, if you have it in that format, you should just keep it that way rather than change it further.
It's amazing how zealous a defender of intellectual property Wolfram is, given how much he steals from others.
You can say that again. It's enough to make me wish I could more practically use Maple here.
Once or twice I've been tempted to toss it in favor of Maxima or something, even, which would be a fair step backwards in many ways.
48: right, but I was obliquely pointing out that if you are transcoding and dropping bitrate for the purposes of posting (say you have these in 192 or 256 (or equivialent vbr) for personal use in oggs or .m4a's but want to post 128mp3's for reasons of being more standard and a bit smaller for downloads) --- well in that case you probably don't care about the transcode really, it's in the noise.
It can mess up the psycho-acoustic modelling a bit, but at those rates probably nothing to worry about.
re: 48
Fwiw, they were all converted from a lossless format to MP3, rather than just left as FLACs. Makes it easier for other people, so there was no lossy format to lossy format transcoding.
It's not amazing at all. Having got his 10,000 talers, Wolfram walks through the world an honest man—who doesn't want done to him what he did to others.
51: oh, in that case, whatever. I thought you were transcoding from one lossy format to another. Obviously I couldn't complain about transcoding form a lossless format to a lossy format, since I distribute lossily-formatted files myself.
re: 54
Yeah, I am fairly anal about it. I have everything as FLACs which are what I listen to at home and, now and again, on my MP3 player (which can play them). But I keep a copy of everything in MP3 which my wife uses on her MP3 player, and which is handy for making mixes too.
55 Especially these days with the price of hard drives, it's hard not to go that way.
I have a whole bunch of very high bitrate MP3's I should probably re-rip, but it's a chore so I don't bother. At the moment I don't have any decent stereo gear anyway, so it's a bit academic.
"hard not to justify going that way"
it is of course very easy not to bother.
When I got my iPod I took a few CDs and ripped them at 128K and 192K, both MP3 and AAC (.m4a), figuring that the uses I'd have for the iPod would involve so much background noise (car, airplane, subway, etc) that it would be a waste of space to go any better than that even if I would hear the difference at home or work. The difference between 128K and 192K was striking; the difference between MP3 and AAC at the same bit rate was subtle but almost entirely consistent for my (admittedly small) sample. There was one track where the 128K MP3 sounded better than the 128K AAC file, but at 192K the AAC files either came out exactly the same size but sounding better, or about 1% smaller and roughly indistinguishable. So I went with AAC and haven't looked back.
With the loudness war I doubt it much matters anymore. Everything is so pre-compressed you could probably fit it into 90K or less without any noticeable degradation.
And for .rar files on a Mac: I use UnRarX.
Encoding to FLAC takes longer than encoding to ogg.
re: 59
The time taken is negligible either way. I buy a CD, it takes 2 minutes to rip to FLAC. Ogg seems a pointless choice to me these days -- almost perverse!
re: 57
Yeah, I had everything in a chaotic mush of formats. When I had a big clearout a couple of years back I reripped all of my CDs from scratch. It took ... a while. But I figured that since it was to a lossless format I'd never have to do it again. I could convert from that if I needed to.
And, for what it's worth, with the right encoder, ripping to lossless seems, as far as I can tell, to be quite a bit quicker than ripping to lossy formats.
CA, who is extraordinarily picky and insane about this stuff, rips solely to FLAC. All our cds now live in the basement and all music is played through the Squeeze Box.
I'm really hoping that #12 is Clint Black covering Pearl Jam.
I can download Heebie's file, but not unzip it.
59/61
yes, this doesn't make a lot of sense. At least in theory, the FLAC encoder is doing easier work, so it may be an implementation issue.
Handling new CD's is easy enough. The idea of going back through 100s or 1000s of old ones and re-ripping is off-putting, though.
58: It's probably worth noting that whilie AAC is understandably quite consistent, MP3 coders are not by any stretch interchangeable.
A good one seems to perform similarly to AAC at the types of rates you're talking about. VBR coding is a bit trickier than non, but it's mostly a wash I think.
Well, I have noticed this using oggenc and flac.
I can download Heebie's file, but not unzip it.
With a tweak or two, that would make a great title for a country song.
67: Oh, I believe, you, nosflow. I'm just saying that there is no theoretical reason why it be so, that I can see. I haven't looked at the details of those particular codecs much though, and have only a passing familiarity algorithmically with audio codecs in general. From general principles though, it's harder to do lossy well at these sorts of rates.
66: Yeah, but part of my goal was to be as bog-standard as possible. Any sort of frippery with compiling encoders, making iTunes work with them, etc, would have had to be done three times before the Big Encode got underway, and subsequently repeated with iTunes upgrades, system rebuilds, etc. I do computer maintenance for a living, so I prefer not to assign myself more tasks, especially ones for which I won't get paid.
70: I hear you. FWIW, if I recall correctly itunes mp3 encoder isn't bad. There were a couple of pretty standard ones in the windows world a few years ago that were actually pretty terrible.
Speaking of country music, my sweet, precious little pre-school aged daughter surprised me this morning by singing a creditable rendition of Tammy Wynette's "Your Good Girl's Gonna Go Bad".
Naturally, she doesn't understand the meaning of lyrics like, "If you like 'em painted up / powdered up / then you oughta be glad / 'cause your go-o-o-od girl's gonna go bad."
At least I think she doesn't...
kids these days, KR. 4 is the new 9 is the new 12.
There were a couple of pretty standard ones in the windows world a few years ago that were actually pretty terrible.
Xing, IIRC, was an example of this, though it was probably superseded more than a few years ago.
(Doesn't everyone just use lame anyway?)
72: My daughters' school had a talent show a couple weeks ago at which a couple of 2nd graders sang weepy pop love songs. I was horrified, of course. OTOH, one of my own sang "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," and she totally killed.
Brad Paisley's Online is a great country song.
(Doesn't everyone just use lame anyway?)
These days you'd think/hope so...
For mac users (and elsewhere?) there is a script/plugin inventively called itunes-lame, iirc, which makes it essentially as easy to use as the built it ones.
I use lame for ripping to MP3, but use whatever FLAC encoder comes with Winamp.
I find 192kbps MP3 perfectly fine with my MP3 player, but I think I can tell the difference between that and lossless on the proper hi-fi. I might well be wrong, though, I suspect if there was a proper double-blind AB test it might not be as clear-cut.
The loudness wars thing, yeah, with a lot of pop and rock but a lot of my music collection is classical, jazz and 'world', and not so heavily compressed/limited.
Other than speed though, it's not going to matter what coder you use for FLAC.
192 VBR mp3s from a decent encoder are pretty good under most settings I suspect. Certainly some people can reliably pick them out from source under some listening conditions, but I don't know how relevant that is to most usage.
re: 80
Yeah, that was the point of using Winamp. I find it rips really quickly, and I like the interface as a ripper. But I tend to use foobar as a player.
Our inner red state has a lot more opinions about audio formats than I would have thought.
years of listening to only AM radio will do that to an inner state.
Yes, my inner nerd comes out when it comes to music and photography, when, otherwise, I'm not remotely nerdy at all.
neb should probably be glad we aren't discussing the merits of various Bayer pattern interpolation algorithms...
This is a terrific mix, Heebie, but seriously, what 44 said -- if you put up another mix without labeling the songs, I will sell your baby to the Gypsies and then when you try to get her back you will be faced with a truckload of dsquared calling you racist.
Or cubic grains of silver halide on an acetate base, and the merits of compensating development.
Geez you two, get a room! You're starting to remind me of Caine and Stamp!
"Partner, there's a tiger in these tight fittin' jeans." I do love you, Heebie.
77 is quite right. The video is a not-quite-comfortable mix of sweet, funny and mean until the very end, which is lovely.
42: It's amazing how zealous a defender of intellectual property Wolfram is, given how much he steals from others.
Neb's correct. The mistake here is to take the concept of 'intellectual property' seriously. Change it to 'government grant of monopoly' (with the understanding that that's the best way to steal) and voila (or maybe viola), it's amazing how zealous a defender of stealing Wolfram is, given how much he steals from others.
max
['You've got to admit he's a genius... at self-promotion.']
93: But Wolfram himself is particularly and notably shameless about this. It's really quite impressive gall.
Oh, crap, I did mean to go back and label the tracks. Very sorry.
But YAY! I'm so glad you guys like it.
|| You're going to hate me, Heebie.
Of course, this particular move, like so many others, has been met with criticism. Mostly because Archie is marrying Veronica. Most comics fans don't like Veronica, believing her to be a stuck-up mean bitch. And this is true. Veronica is a stuck-up mean bitch. But here are some truths about Veronica most people don't want to realize:
1.) She is rich. This counts for a lot.
2.) She is unpredictable and fun.
3.) She doesn't care much what other people think of her.
4.) She is rich, yo.
5.) Most importantly, she is not Betty Cooper.
Some people do not realize that this last is a major plus. Betty, after all, is the "nice" one. She makes Archie cookies and helps him with his homework and does charity-type things and doesn't gripe about being kind of poor. Plus, let's face it: she's smoking hot. Why wouldn't Archie want to marry Betty? The answer is simple.
Betty Cooper is motherfucking psycho bugfuck crazy.
Click the link to see visual evidence of the thesis and the rest of the argument.
max
['Nurse Betty!']
|>
Hm, I suspect I would enjoy it but it's just not downloading for me. This could very well be because my internet sucks.
Hah hah, as I wrote that I remembered that I just need to switch browsers since my Firefox has a major bug in it and often won't download things properly anymore.
Kobe Hedo! Thanks for the mix, H-G--it's going to be the first thing I load into iTunes.
(and onto my external hard drive, and onto burnt disc, and onto freestanding stellae)
Are you very in need, 'smasher? Should I upload stuff to my Dropbox?
Could certainly use it. I've got nothing.
Start your new music collection with this, Armsmasher.
