The Ramones!

Welcome to the late-November installment of The Tapedrop Chronicles. The topic this time around is a band whose influence in the world of punk needs no qualification: The Ramones.

The band put out four live albums over the course of its career. The first of these was an import called It's Alive. According to journalist, Kurt Loder, it is one of the most explosive rock concert documents ever released. It was recorded at the Rainbow Theatre in London on New Year's Eve 1977. Fans of The Ramones would probably agree that the band was at the top of their game.

Just this morning, I caught wind of the album being remastered and re-issued on vinyl. My pal Dan may already have a copy of it, but this one will be remastered by Steve Hoffman and released by Audio Fidelity in the first quarter of 2009 as part of a new series called "Live On Vinyl". Righteous. If you have not heard of Audio Fidelity, you might know the owner's previous company, DCC Compact Classics. They licensed albums from major record companies and would turn out amazing remastered versions from original master recordings. Sure, they cost about $25 per CD, but they were pressed on 24k gold discs, which were more reflective (a more accurate response from your CD player's laser is the result) and would not oxidize over time like a normal CD might. I have owned two DCC discs and let me tell you- they were worth every penny.

In case you just cannot wait for this classic live album's reissue, I have an early Christmas present for you. A week after the Rainbow show, The Ramones played the Palladium in New York City. King Biscuit Flower Hour was on hand to record and if you were lucky, you might have caught this concert on the radio on a Saturday or Sunday night when you were a kid. If not, I have it here for you.

The setlist is very similar to It's Alive, so you will have a good idea of what to expect song-wise. When It's Alive comes out again in 2009 on vinyl, I suggest you pick it up. Soundwise, it will kick this recording's little buttocks. Knowing the kind of job Hoffman has done on past projects, this one will damn near literally place you up against the stage. You'll swear you were just pogo-ing or something! It will be 26 tracks of sheer power and lots of "one, two, three, four" in there. I am sure there will also be at least one "ein, zwei, drei, vier" thrown in for good measure. Ramones fans know what I'm talking about.

This Palladium recording has 27 songs. You won't get "Judy Is A Punk", but you will get "Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue" and "We're A Happy Family"- songs Metallica and Anthrax fans may know from their remakes. I would say, "it's a trade-off", but you can get this recording now and It's Alive later. You will not regret it, you pinhead!

Love,

---

The Ramones, Live At The Palladium, NYC 1/7/79

Band:

Joey Ramone - vocals
Dee Dee Ramone - bass
Tommy Ramome - drums
Johnny Ramone - guitar

Track Listing:

Rockaway Beach
Teenage Lobotomy
Blitzkrieg Bop
I Wanna Be Well
Glad to See You Go
Gimme Gimme Shock Treatment
You're Gonna Kill That Girl
I Don't Care
Sheena Is a Punk Rocker
Havana Affair
Commando
Here Today, Gone Tomorrow
Surfin' Bird
Cretin Hop
Listen to My Heart
California Sun
I Don't Wanna Walk Around With You
Pinhead
Do You Wanna Dance?
Chain Saw
Today Your Love, Tomorrow the World
Now I Wanna Be a Good Boy
Suzy Is a Headbanger
Let's Dance
Oh Oh I Love Her So
Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue
We're A Happy Family

The Tapedrop Chronicles, Episode IV

The Tapedrop Chronicles- The Ear Of The Compressor

Welcome back, fine readers. This episode of The Tapedrop Chronicles will center on finding the right level of compression for your needs.

Assuming you've already made an audio CD from your original wav file, you are probably thinking about keeping a backup. Most people will create a backup of a CD as mp3 files.

Less compression will give you a better quality recording. This means a bigger file size and each song will take up more of your hard drive.

More compression will give you a smaller file size, but will also lower the quality of your recording.

Metallica recently made their latest release available as a 320 kbps download. Theoretically, most people will not hear the difference between this recording and the retail CD. When the band previewed the songs as a streaming file online, it was encoded at 96 kpbs, which many consider to be the equivalent of a standard radio broadcast. You will probably want something in between...

Assuming you saved your original wav file, try this experiment: create three versions of the same recording of varying quality.

• Open a wave file;
  
• File - Save As - 128.mp3 and change the properties to reflect compression at 128 kbps;
• reopen the wav file and save it as an mp3 file encoded at 192 kbps;
• reopen the wav file again save it a third time as an mp3 file at 256 kbps

---

NOTE: Do not re-encode mp3 files using different compression. Data was discarded the first time around and even more audio information would be lost. It is like making a copy of a copy.

Which sounds best to you? If you can hear no (or negligible) difference between 256 and 192, compress your mp3 file at 192; you will fit more songs on your hard drive. Of course, if you have 500 gb of hard drive space to devote to music, freaking go for it and encode everything at 320 kbps.

After making CDs of my cassettes, I have decided to back up my audio files as mp3 files using 192 kbps compression because I have about 100 gb of hard drive space for music and because I was starting out with a cassette source. They sound fine to me. K-Tel's Night Flight (1982) was my next project. I did a flat transfer (meaning I made no changes like adding bass or treble to the recording). As with the first album done, it sounds a tad too bright, but I can always tweak my equalizer if need be. Ideally, you should not have to play with your equalizer to make a recording sound good; that's the job of the people making the record in the first place.

Listen for yourself, compare it to the vinyl or cassette copy you have and enjoy this second foray into the 80's!

Night Flight
1982
K-Tel TU 2854

Track Listing

1. Daryl Hall & John Oates - "I Can't Go For That" (No Can Do)
2. Air Supply - "Here I Am"
   
3. The Four Tops - "When She Was My Girl"
4. Pointer Sisters - "Slow Hand"
   
5. Smokey Robinson - "Being With You"
6. Eddie Rabbit - "Step By Step"
   
7. Santana - "Winning"
8. Joey Scarbury - "Theme From 'The Greatest American Hero' (Believe It Or Not)"
9. Commodores - "Oh No"
10. Al Jarreau - "We're In This Love Together"
11. Kool & The Gang - "Take My Heart (You Can Have It If You Want It)
12. Paul Davis - "Cool Night"
13. Quincy Jones - "Just Once"
14. Juice Newton - "Angel Of The Morning"

Until next time,

The Tapedrop Chronicles, Part 3

The Tapedrop Chronicles- Simple Software Is Where It's At

Welcome to the third installment of this thing we call "The Tapedrop Chronicles": one man's journey into converting old cassettes into CDs and digital files for your mp3 player.

Today's topic is the software used for this project. I use a slightly older program from Syntrillium called Cool Edit 2000. I have used Cool Edit 2000 since the FFR days, for those who remember. The Sonic Spot has a nice description of Cool Edit as I know it; the developer was purchased some time ago by Adobe. Rechristened Adobe Audition in 2003, this sound editor lives on today as Syntrillium's sole survivor; Adobe orphaned Syntrillium's other offerings.

I am not familiar with Adobe Audition, but I am sure there have been changes and/or improvements made to Cool Edit. If you are like me and work on a shoestring budget, you probably don't want to fork over $350 for Audition. That's OK, because there is an open-source program that is similar and may work for you. Audacity is an audio editor similar to both products listed above with one exception: it's free. If you don't have access to a legacy version of Cool Edit, Audacity is your program. I have fiddled around with it and it does the trick, but I happen to find the interface cluttered and confusing. Maybe I am a crusty old man, but I am sticking With Cool Edit.

Above is a typical visual rendering of sound. Notice the peaks and valleys. Those peaks and valleys denote the dynamic range of a recording. This concept is especially important to many folks out there who care about the sound of music. If you are listening to music on an mp3 player or as background music at work to drown out the crappy music everyone else at work enjoys, it may not be important. Below is an example of not-so-dynamic recording. For those keeping record, the above sample was The Eagles' "Desperado".

The example below is Metallica's "The Day That Never Comes" found online. It pretty much looks like a a green brick all the way across, with little difference between the quiet parts and the loud parts.

Personally, my project was started to archive my personal music collection before the tapes are rendered useless via hardware and/or software breakdown. That is, I care more about sound quality than I do the amount of music I can put on an mp3 player. It is a trade-off which will be addressed another time. That concept will resurface again. Get used to it; a fork in the road is placed at pretty much every step in this journey.

Getting back to the point, there are bad recordings and there are good recordings. This stuff is all subjective, so I don't know what you want, need or like. I want recordings that will sound good on everything I play music on: home stereo (CDs, mp3 files), computer (CDs, mp3 files), car stereo (CDs) and my mp3 player (mp3 files). That said, it makes sense for me to create CDs (using wav files which are converted into CD audio). Wave files are uncompressed (aka lossless) digital represetations of sound. After I make my CDs, I will take those uncompressed files and convert them into mp3 files. These files are compressed (lossy). Mp3 files are smaller in size compared to wav files because some audio information is lost. This can translate as a lower-quality recording (the trade-off). I am not going to discuss the science behind it, but know that you can adjust the amount of compression of a file. there are thresholds beyond which you might not find the amount of compression acceptable. Tweak and find the right balance of size and quality for you. This will be handled in depth in a future blog.

If you have the cassette (but don't have the time to convert thes songs into mp3's, please enjoy Cema Special Markets' The Greatest Hits Of The 80's. This first batch of tapedrops are various artists compilations. That means each song in a given compilation was culled from other albums. Each individual album was most likely recorded and mastered at different volumes relative to the other tracks on the compilation. If a compilation is mastered properly, the relative volumes are adjusted to give the new collection of songs a cohesive feel. That's one step I did not have to worry about. This is one of Teresa's tapes, so I did not mess with the sound at all. I found it just a little bright sounding, but she wants to hear it as she remembers it. She's the boss on this one.

The Greatest Hits Of The 80's Track Listing (running times are approximate): Naked Eyes - Always Something There To Remind Me (3:39) Dan Hartman - I Can Dream About You (4:09) The Motels - Suddenly Last Summer (3:38) Christopher Cross - Arthur's Theme (The Best That You Can Do) (3:51) Bonnie Tyler - Total Eclipse Of The Heart (6:57) Toto - Africa (4:58) The Alan Parsons Project - Eye In The Sky (4:36) Cutting Crew - (I Just) Died In Your Arms (4:34) Quarterflash - Harden My Heart (3:50) John Waite - Missing You (4:24)

Until next time,

The Tapedrop Chronicles Continued

The Tapedrop Chronicles- The Tools Of The Trade-off

OK, so you want to know more about transferring cassettes to CD and or digital back-ups. Good; you came to the right place.

First off, you will need the following:

• a cassette player with some sort of audio out capability,
• a way to carry the sound from your cassette player to your recorder,
• a recording device like a computer or stand-alone CD recorder.

Back in the old days, I had a very nice stereo Magnavox clock radio that had a cassette player and a headphone jack. I bought one of those cables at Radio Shack that had a male stereo plug on both ends. One end was connected to the clock radio and the other was plugged into the Aux In jack on my computer. It did very well for it's time, but in my travels, this magnificent clock radio has been lost. Luckily, I had a component stereo stored at my brother's place...

...or so I thought. While I was in Europe, my brothers got rid of my stereo receiver and speakers. Crap. Those speakers were custom made by an old college classmate and sounded better than anything I heard in a similar price range. The receiver was no big deal; I had since replaced it with a home theater system. My brother did have the cassette deck, so I made sure I got that before it mysteriously disappeared.

My current setup includes that Pioneer CT-W503R dual cassette deck. It has a large headphone jack, but I preferred to go with the red and white RCA cables in the back of the tape deck. To finish off the connection, I used a stereo RCA jack-to-male stereo plug. Naturally, the headphone plug is connected to the computer's AUX IN jack.

Now that you kind of have an idea of how the connections are made, we can discuss the software I use to record the sound from the tape deck onto the computer...but that is for another time...

The Tapedrop Chronicles- An Introduction

Welcome to The Tapedrop Chronicles

You may ask yourself what this is all about. Allow me to briefly introduce some concepts.

A "needle drop" was a term popularized by hip hop DJ's that referred to the act of lowering a phonograph needle on to a record to place the music in a set. Rather than cue up a track silently, the DJ would mark, generally with a stucker, point on a record where playback is to begin The term is now more commonly used by audiophiles who prefer recording their vinyl records on CDs or as high-quality digital files, rather than repurchase commercially-available CDs. The rationale is that many of today's remasterings of older recordings are a lot louder and less dynamic than the original versions. This idea will be referenced in subsequent blogs with specific examples.

Also common today, is the "laser drop"; preserving older, more preferable versions of CDs as either a back-up copy of a CD or as a high-quality digital back-up. Of course, sound and how it is experienced is subjective and one may actually like the sound of a reissued CD.

This brings us my tapedrops; saving old cassettes from the 20th century and bringing the music into a new millennium. I have a bunch of tapes leftover from the the olden days, but I decided early on to focus first on my commercial (ie, "store-bought") K-tel compilations. For those who don't know or remember, K-tel International was huge in the 70's and early 80's and known for their licensing of original songs by the original artists and marketing some killer compilations. My parents would buy these tapes and they became the sountrack of pretty much any excursion by car. If it was a family vacation to Oregon or a trip to the supermarket, chances are me and my brothers listened to a K-tel tape from the backseat of Dad's souped-up station wagon with a Corvette engine.

You might think this is a simple operation, but there can be quite a bit involved in preserving an old tape. These tapes were in varying conditions, ranging from absolutely usable to "no way in hell am I gonna get this to play without baking the tapes and I just can't afford to chance that".

In the next installment of The Tapedrop Chronicles, I will describe my setup and set forth my plan of attack. In future blogs, specific titles will be addressed along with a description of the process.