probably good to go....

[niiru]

but I'd like a second opinion.

Okay, here's the backstory. In september of 2003, my then girlfriend now soon to be wife got me a show in a trade. it was about six months after the show happened, so i'm fairly certain it's a relatively low gen copy. the show hasn't made it's way around loslessly yet. it has made the rounds lossy (which is my fault. I didn't want to piss in the pool with an unknown gen source lossless show when the taper should be around here somewhere..., but a lot of people wanted to hear this show, and I finally caved and mp3d). after about three years of on and off searching I've given up on finding the taper and figure I might as well just seed what i have. I'm the only one with this show listed on db.etree.org, I haven't seen it show up on dime or here, and haven't seen anything about it on any message boards... but before I do that, I'd just like to make sure that this doesn't look too bad... it doesn't look like mp3 to me, but I'm not a pro at spotting this stuff.

So, without further adeu..

20 or so second sample of track 10
eac spectral analysis of track 3
eac frequency analysis of track 3
cool edit pro spectral analysis of track 10
cool edit pro frequency analysis of track 10

yes, I know the audio quality of the sample is atrotious. the entire show is like that. levels are blown out, almost every song begins and ends with mic shuffling. but it is the only source of the show and is most certainly better than nothing.

[Five]

it is most certainly lossy, on the bright side, it looks exactly like atrac3 132kbps (lp3) [minidisc] which is allowed to be traded on bt. a somewhat bad analog transfer explains the noise present in the highs.

http://www.thetradersden.org/forums/...splay.php?f=47

this recording could benefit from a big bass reduction, but you should probably do the initial distribution with the files unaltered.

[niiru]

thanks for the quick reply, it's good to have a second opinion on this.. i too had assumed md based on the sound and some image comparison, but you obviously know your stuff better than I.

[xequence]

Since it was 132Kbps atrac3 and was encoded to lossless, would people really want a lossless file with lossy information in it? And if they encoded the lossless (with lossy in it) to lossy, it would be a transcode.

So basically, the quality is only as good as a low bitrate (132) lossy file, but it takes up the space of a lossless file.

Just wondering, I hope I dont sound rude or anything.

And a little offtopic, but Five, that looks like Adobe Audition, but the spectral frequency display looks more blury then mine. Odd.

[niiru]

would people want it? it's the only source of the show and as good as it's going to get, so possibly. when i seed it, it will be labeled as such. hopefully one day another recording will turn up (it's been three years, so it's not very likely, but you never know)..

[Five]

Originally Posted by xequence

Since it was 132Kbps atrac3 and was encoded to lossless, would people really want a lossless file with lossy information in it? And if they encoded the lossless (with lossy in it) to lossy, it would be a transcode.

So basically, the quality is only as good as a low bitrate (132) lossy file, but it takes up the space of a lossless file.

Just wondering, I hope I dont sound rude or anything.

And a little offtopic, but Five, that looks like Adobe Audition, but the spectral frequency display looks more blury then mine. Odd.

since mds are used a lot for stealth recordings that otherwise wouldn't exist, they are allowed at etree/dime/ttd/jtt/bc/zomb/etc/etc and were also allowed at STG back in the day. it is also very difficult to get a direct digital transfer, so many are done thru some sort of analog input. there is no way to extract the atrac tracks in their original lossy format with the small filesize (correct me if I'm wrong about this), so FLAC is the best we can do with it. I really despise the sound of these klind of recordings personally, and recently upgraded my old md recorder to hi-md because it is like a "good" mp3 at the best of times, and at low quality settings is worse than an average 128kbps mp3.

Originally Posted by niiru

would people want it? it's the only source of the show and as good as it's going to get, so possibly. when i seed it, it will be labeled as such. hopefully one day another recording will turn up (it's been three years, so it's not very likely, but you never know)..

really depends on how popular the band is, if its been three years and the seeder hasn't shared it from the master then you have somewhat of a rare recording that the serious fans (very serious fans) might want to get a hold of. Since there is nothing better, I would feel free to share it but would also make it clear in the announce that the quality is really awful and is recommended only for the most serious of fans.

I actually have worse recordings than this in my collection, when its the only source you've gotta just thank your lucky stars that a tape exists at all!

[Gizby]

Originally Posted by Five

there is no way to extract the atrac tracks in their original lossy format with the small filesize (correct me if I'm wrong about this)

The closest I've seen was a machine available from the UK which could read and transfer the information on MDs as data files. Though the product looked some years old, was kind of expensive, and I only saw it on a website once (I think through a link on this site).

So yeah, I've had to do a number of [most likely poor] analog transfers for my MD shows, as it is hard to find someone to transfer shows for you digitally.