As a busy family man, I know there are others out there who will appreciate what I mean when I mention that although I love music to bits, there are very rarely times that I get to don a pair of headphones and just listen to something. Even when I'm ripping vinyl and working with those tracks, I'm always being interrupted and I'm usually listening to the sounds through some decent but obviously limited computer speakers.
I mention this in passing because on a whim I decided to compare a 12" Single track which I had just ripped at the highest rate possible (320kbps) to the same track I previously downloaded from somewhere which was at 192kbps. It's fair to say I've been obsessed lately with trying to replace smaller bit rate music files (128kbps is so 2001!) with the best I can either locate or produce myself. I naively expected my rip to sound obviously better, and it didn't. To be perfectly honest, it crackled and spat like sunday morning bacon.
So I listened to some other rips I have done through headphones, and there are pops and clicks all over the place. I still have a lot to learn, obviously. Not all of them were that bad, I hasten to add. Much also depends on the state of the vinyl before I get my hands on it, I guess. Anyways, if you find some pops and clicks on rips you find here, I apologize in advance. I've just got my hands on a few great new singles so I'll be posting those this week.
5 comments:
Being a family man sure limits our time for our love of music. But then, it also gives us much happiness and fulfillment as we go further down the road of life. While the pops and clicks from vinyl records may be imperfections in this digital age of compact discs, it brings back lots of memories and reminds us of our younger years when vinyl format ruled over the hissing of the more portable cassette tapes. Yet again, vinyl fanatics swear it is still the best format to this day. I won't argue with that. So, no need to apologize as it is already great that we get to listen to the rare gems you shared here in MFL. Even your cassette rips are much appreciated. THANKS!!!
Pops and clicks are part of the vinyl experience, no?
On a different subject, today I learnt that two more fine blogs, Music Of The Moment and Frisian’s Other Favorites have been zapped. The former has put up a statement on http://restracks.blogspot.com/
Both blogs specialised in old music; Frisians especially in out-of-print vinyl. Hardly a threat to the music industry...
When I moved from Blogger to Wordporess in December, it was very easy. At a click of a button, Wordpress moved across all content, including comments. There are shortcomings with Wordpress (no Google Analytics!), but blogs don’t get to be deleted at will as at Blogger. And I’ve experienced higher volumes of traffic since moving, which is nice (and perhaps unrelated).
At the risk of sounding like an alarmist salesman for WP, I’m worried that your blog might be next (and I’m copying & pasting this message to other Blogger residents, but I do mean you). C’mon, move before Google and The Man zap you!
God, I know where you're coming from, Alan.
I have a three and a half year old toddler who takes up most of my time, so it's really difficult trying to find time to listen to records/Cds and find time to encode them for my blog.
To be honest I'd never really been able to tell the difference between 128K and anything else until fairly recently when I was listening to some of my old posts from Rare 80s MP3.
As for the vinyl vs CD debate, vinyl wins everytime, the hiss, the crackles, the warmth!
Apology totally uncalled for - just keep the good tunes coming :o)
192kps is as low as I go. If you listen carefully, at 128kps cymbals have a 'swirling' effect to them.
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