Audio hissy fit protest : 128 birates?
 

128

Download this stuff to any decent ipod,burn it, minidisc it.. What`s it sound like? Hissy poop through a tin can,that`s what.Now,how do you expect me to jog or work-out to that crud? huh ? I`m not having it,I`ve taken enough!!! :eek:
For godsake people, learn to use your media players properly so poor sods like me can appreciate the value of their audio equipment. Go on- move that dial up All THE WAY up till it says 320! I DARE you ! do it................. for me?
What`s the point of sharing rubbish files, especially considering the low cost of cdrs & other removable storage? I say,
If you`re literally "that" tight on disk space, dont bother sharing at all.

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Seriously, does anybody else get angry at the encoding/availability of the majority of audio files on fpt`s?
All mine are at least 192 on a teeny 40gig drive.
128 is supposidly cd quality... except it isnt.:rolleyes:

I thankyou for reading :-P

Plz continue....

Interesting point. I generally encode at 192 & sometimes at 320 kbps. Perhaps you should aim to only dwnd those that are of the higher quality. I always aim at the highest quality, but these are not as common.

I've seen some encoded at 32 & wondered why they bothered.

Good for you lord- you obviously appreciate good music
which hasnt been butchered.

There is light at the end of the tunnel. I always aim for & encode at 192 & accept nothing less,takes a little longer but well worth the wait.I`d rather share quality over quantity.

Another annoying thing I`ve noticed is the amount of people who are re-encoding 128 bit files too 192 or above & sharing them.Why, I dont get it ? You cant improve the quality once a file`s been reduced? * What are they thinking,giving it a paint job makes it better or something? Some very strange ideas out there.

It is very true that there is a lot of sh*t songs out there. However, there is a solution. I use Illustrate's dMC audio input tool (free) to rip mp3's from a CD. I was lucky enough to find that there was another tool included with this software called dBpowerAMP Music converter. With the converter I converted an 80kbps song first to WAVE than back to mp3. Only now the bit rate is 320kbps. Mabey it not the best solution, but it's the best one I've found so far. You can use Google to find the software if you want it, it's all free. Good luck.

deepblue

Thanks Deepblue, I`ve been mucking around with loads of trial version mp3 fixers/surgeons. None of them seem to work or even recognise popular formats.So desperate for one particular rare song,tried dissecting & reassembling a version using creative wave studio- Didn’t work but the mess would have made Frankenstein proud.:D

I`ll gladly try your advice,give it a whirl. Doubt it could help with files that are already full of errors like cracks,pops `n`skips though (unfortunately).

Must be super fussy or something :D

You could try a free audio editor in Audacity: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/windows.php It can both import & export mp3 & wav/aiff. It has it's own set of filters & equalisers & normalisation. It also has VST Plug-in compatibility. You must dwnld both the app, manual & plug-in enabler separately from the same dwnld page.

Nah, peerless, I know what you`re saying, I convert a fair amount of cassette & vinyl myself when the original source is in good condition.
I`m talking about stuff like RECENT japanese bonus edition tracks or remastered ep singles & b`sides.The errors are different than vinyl pops- they’re more like intermittent buzzy tones or loud ticks with static.

I wonder is if these files are corrupted during transfer somehow or if theyre actually on peoples drives in this state? :confused:

Thanks lord, I`ll check that one out too.

I wonder if whoever encoded them, added volume to them or something (w/o using normalisation.) The editor I use allows you to set a % of maximum normalisation. Which I use a lot for video. Most audio apps only have a max norm'n.

Alternatively, the app they used to extract the tracks may have been some cheap nasty softw OR as you suggested, they've recorded them instead of extracting them. Your description has a strong hint of audio clipping.

Of course guys, y`know- it`d be easier if folk just checked their stuff & circulated some decent rips... Then maybe we all wouldn’t have to become audio anorak analysts (meant respectfully but that’s what it feels like). Definitely worth having your recommendations if you're tastes are limited/availabilities low.

I'm not sure I totally understood your post. lol I have several audio apps for different purposes either due to their abilities or preference of use for purpose. You can pay reasonable money for a good audio editor. But Audacity is free & does much of what the pro apps can do. It's somewhat slower, but heh it's free.

If you're searching for audio material that's not in common supply then you get what you can, even if that means a copy made off tape or vinyl, or low quality encoded mp3's. Some people use very old comp's with very small HDD's just for the purpose of P2P. So with limited space they encode accordingly to share whilst not running out of space. As for the the other people who offer poor/low quality encoding ... ???? Attitude possibly. They take gold but give copper or tin in return. But for some it's perhaps the best they can give/offer.

well, fair enough. I`ll address your puzzlement with a question lordoftherings:

Which do you prefer: Dvd or vhs cassette ?
and..

Would you rather give someone rubbish or feel better in the notion you`ve been able to circulate something half decent. You`d have to be talking VERY old machines cause,surely,a standard minimum now is at least 40gigs?
I dunno how many windows 95 users there are out there but I`m willing to bet they have at least 12gb`s.

I made that suggestion b/c I have read of such people who have shown up on the forum running very old machines basically just for p2p; be they old macs or pc's or whatnot. And not only on this forum.

Why should I make any xcuses for them. I suppose people use what they can get their hands on or just an old machine that's lying around doing nothing better so puttting it to good use. The previous are people who don't have much money & can't afford to buy the latest & some have even rebuilt a machine from old parts. These people complain about not having much space. That's if I believe what I read.

But barely an xcuse when you think about it. I have just the same thoughts as suggested in my earliest post. It's probably better they share 20 decent quality rips than 50-100 crappy things that few people seriously want.

Most people really don't know anything about encoding, so "few people" is probably inaccurate.

And I suspect that the distortions in the sound result from mass-encoding files from multiple CD drives simultaneously. About five years ago I had a (unsurprisingly old) computer that created the exact same noises when I played back CDs, which tells me that those sounds result from not having enough system resources to get the sound to run in a steady stream for long enough. It is likely that the people ripping the CDs are more concerned with quantity than quality. You've probably seen the computer towers that are a solid stack of CD drives; get the picture? I say that because physical music pirating in China (roughly 1/4 of all music media in East Asia is pirated) generates the same noise artifacts, and they most definitely are doing things the massive quick way.

^ I think a lot of it might be attributed to original source:digital radio recordings that people are obviously making and then editing with bad quality programs.Some of those D.a.b
broadcasts reallyarent much better than analog. There are tracks with either way to much bass & static :a common mistake,the recording levels been set too high whilst recording(crackly distortion).

I think both pea_pod & Phyltre have made extremely valid points. Older processors & certainly the majority of older pc's used microprocessors that were not designed for graphic processing & their calculations were averaged, not accurate. Floating-Point Processor: 'is' very accurate; (I don't know about today's win pc's b/c it was used by macs & other high end computers) I read about it in an audio engineering book at university & was told about it by Apple when looking at a specialised video card some years ago that these were required. This point of course doesn't help.

Lack of knowledge/skills! Yeah once you had to do a course or learn from live mixing to know how to adjust sound properly. Too many novices with toys in their laps.

There's also 3rd party shareware softw for iTunes called Audio Hijack Pro which can equalise/clean mp3's etc. But if used in demo mode then after 15 days the mp3's will become more & more distorted (as stated by the company themselves.) I wonder! Read about it here! Strange in the manual it said 15 days. Oh well!

Good point about the broadcasts. I hadn't even thought about that.

hmmm... As well as quality reduction…
I noticed a few beginnings/endings on tracks that have been prematurely faded in/out & track times are reduced compared to official track listings (probably where the radio dj talks over the music ect...)

Yeppers, a few people with toys out there…