I'm just waiting for an automated program that'll do this
It's called Total Recorder and if you can play it on your computer, you can record it with no loss. It installs itself as a fake soundcard driver and captures all the sound data. And it has a mode that can trick most programs into playing back much faster than real time since programs sync audio to the sound driver.
I use it to capture some NPR programs RealPlayer streams and convert them to mp3 since the audio quality on Audible.com is so bad and the copy protection won't let me play them on my portable mp3 player. I just donate the money I would have given to Audible directly to the NPR programs.
Okay, I finally was able to download the whole thing. I have to admit that the some of the results are more interesting than I expected based on what little I was able to download earlier and the results I heard from Eigenradio. The long drones work the best IMHO.
-paul
I just don't find this kind of work very compelling. It's essentially just loosely structured data mapping, and when the results are unlistenable like this, what's the point?
Maybe this guy is just having some fun, but these projects need more depth to be successful. It's not very interesting as a conceptual piece or an aesthetic piece. The art is sorta drowning in math and code here.
Yeah, the iPod does have the best interface. And why is this? There are probably hundreds of people here that could write firmware for an mp3 player that's as good or better than the iPod interface.
Most of the interfaces on the alternate mp3 players I've seen just have terrible interface design. It's like the people who wrote the software have never used an mp3 player! (maybe that's true...) Who the hell are these companies hiring to write this junk when it's so important to the success of the product?
But I disagree that the iPod is "feature rich" considering my iRiver has an FM Radio (which I use all the time to listen to NPR), high quality recording, optical in/out, OGG Vorbis support, etc.
Kevin Horton's done a couple of kickass players like this. He's got a NES player and several SID players. And while yr at it, there are a bunch of other awesome projects worth checking out on his homepage.
haha, well it's your lucky day. Guess what one of the new things in our set is?... A song where we use two video cameras (one of them overhead) and I built this Atari 2600 controlled box that switches cameras in sync with the music.;o)
Thanks for the plug:o) but when I get time to take on a new system I'm hitting the Genesis next. I'm a huge fan of those old Yamaha FM chips and I recently was informed about this flash cart which will make it easy to get code up and running on the real thing.
I only record music with my friends away from my home studio once in a while, and I got my HP140 since our last session so I haven't had a chance to record with it much at all yet, but from my research, other users are generally happy. The main problem is that it doesn't a level meter (lame!) so you gotta practice setting the input level a bit, but the Rockbox firmware will fix that when it's released.
But hey, why not give it a quick test -- I got it sitting right here. Here's a 192k mp3 I was listening to on my work desktop with the line out going into my HP140's line in and recording at 256k. Not very scientific, but sounds pretty decent (a little Sufjan Stevens): sufjan_iriver.mp3 (1.5MB)
I'm really surprised iRiver wasn't mentioned. I've got the 40GB HP-140 and it's a nice player with FM and the ability to record high quality compressed or uncompressed audio. The interface isn't as nice as the iPod, but with the open source Rockbox firmware being ported to several iRiver models, seems like a pretty serious competitor (especially for the Slashdot crowd).
yeah, just measured my 27" TV and it's only 19" deep, not a huge difference. And a lot of TVs have a smaller bit that juts out a little farther in the back to house the back of the tube -- they're basically just chopping that bit off. So I doubt the weight is going to be significantly less.
It's nice to have a bit smaller TV, but comparing these to flat panels appears to be marketing BS. This ain't something you're going to hang on your wall!:o)
Although Nanoloop 2 doesn't do what most people consider to be "hard disk recording", it's a cool sequencer, and the original Nanoloop for the old Gameboy was cool too. Here are some other related links:
One key universal fixit that I didn't see mentioned is to reseat the socketed chips. I've fixed so many old systems by applying a little force to socketed chips until they "crunch".
A few other tips:
Always unplug power supplies when they're not in use. It says this in the old manuals, and my experience is that it dramatically increases the life of the supply.
Also, since I deal the most with the Atari 2600, a common problem is that the switches start getting sketchy. This is usually that the solder joints have cracked (which can be fixed by just re-heating them with a soldering iron) or just that the switches need a little contact cleaner sprayed in them. And the paddle controllers almost always need their pots sprayed with contact/tuner cleaner.
It's amazing how well those old systems hold up if you take good care of them.
-paul
Re:Reminds me of 'thrashing' the Atari 2600
on
Glitch Art
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I don't think it's possible to hit the Game Select button that fast.;o) That video was produced by hacking Combat and adding a music driver that runs in the background, and then programming the music driver to transform and drop music data into the game's RAM space and the Atari's graphic registers in a somewhat controlled manner.
I recently had my band's CD mastered. I mixed to 24bit/44Khz. I asked the mastering guy about 48Khz, and he said it's not worth it. For proper sample rate conversion to actually make it worthwhile, it would take a lot of extra computer time and therefore extra money from me, and the quality gain is marginal. He said 24/96Khz was worth it, though.
-paul
What do you mean by "consistently"? My experience is that some kinds of music sound really bad at 128k and other music sounds decent. If people can consistently tell the difference with some pieces of music (but maybe not with others), I'd say that's still reason enough to go higher on everything.
Generally I've found that noisier stuff benefits more from higher bitrates. My friend did this REALLY noisy song (crunchy guitar etc.) recorded on a crappy jambox, and I had to bump it up to 256K before the compression noise wasn't completely obvious.
IMO Star Wars is no longer Slashdot-worthy. The last two sucked really bad, and reading the comments, a lot of other people seem to be fed up with the poor quality too. I don't have any plans to see this one.
"Around $35 without a box or around $45 if we decide to do a box." I'm estimating on the high side to account for unexpected costs, so it could certainly cost less. We're trying to make it as cheap as possible, but the materials can add up and it's a lot of work to manufacture new carts.
I built one of those cables and managed to get it to work. The trick was that I had to try a LOT of different versions of the Star Commander software before I found one that worked. I use it on a Pentium I.
The main reason I did it was to transfer my very first BASIC and assembly programs to my PC for backup.
The RIAA is not threatening our survival! They're offering an entertainment product that is overpriced. Not like you HAVE to have it and therefore stealing is justified, just don't buy it. Buy from one of the many reasonably priced indie labels with great music that give artists fair contracts. I've managed to survive pretty well the last few years on music almost exclusively from indies.
Maybe in some cases two wrongs kinda make a right, but not this one.
I saw Cory Arcangel speak in Austin a couple of weeks ago, and he said that they originally thought it might be the first time software had been distributed on vinyl, but later found out it had been done before in several instances. But that record is great. He said that it was most popular with hiphop djs and they liked to use the data track for scratching.
-Paul
Slashdot Mirror
I'm just waiting for an automated program that'll do this
It's called Total Recorder and if you can play it on your computer, you can record it with no loss. It installs itself as a fake soundcard driver and captures all the sound data. And it has a mode that can trick most programs into playing back much faster than real time since programs sync audio to the sound driver.
I use it to capture some NPR programs RealPlayer streams and convert them to mp3 since the audio quality on Audible.com is so bad and the copy protection won't let me play them on my portable mp3 player. I just donate the money I would have given to Audible directly to the NPR programs.
-paul
Okay, I finally was able to download the whole thing. I have to admit that the some of the results are more interesting than I expected based on what little I was able to download earlier and the results I heard from Eigenradio. The long drones work the best IMHO. -paul
I just don't find this kind of work very compelling. It's essentially just loosely structured data mapping, and when the results are unlistenable like this, what's the point?
Maybe this guy is just having some fun, but these projects need more depth to be successful. It's not very interesting as a conceptual piece or an aesthetic piece. The art is sorta drowning in math and code here.
-paul
Yeah, I've had bad luck with Sony stuff for a while now. Nothing lasts, and I won't buy it anymore. I'm getting the Carnivalè instead.
Yeah, the iPod does have the best interface. And why is this? There are probably hundreds of people here that could write firmware for an mp3 player that's as good or better than the iPod interface.
Most of the interfaces on the alternate mp3 players I've seen just have terrible interface design. It's like the people who wrote the software have never used an mp3 player! (maybe that's true...) Who the hell are these companies hiring to write this junk when it's so important to the success of the product?
But I disagree that the iPod is "feature rich" considering my iRiver has an FM Radio (which I use all the time to listen to NPR), high quality recording, optical in/out, OGG Vorbis support, etc.
was standardizing distribution of all the content in high quality digital format. ;o)
Kevin Horton's done a couple of kickass players like this. He's got a NES player and several SID players. And while yr at it, there are a bunch of other awesome projects worth checking out on his homepage.
haha, well it's your lucky day. Guess what one of the new things in our set is?... A song where we use two video cameras (one of them overhead) and I built this Atari 2600 controlled box that switches cameras in sync with the music. ;o)
Thanks for the plug :o) but when I get time to take on a new system I'm hitting the Genesis next. I'm a huge fan of those old Yamaha FM chips and I recently was informed about this flash cart which will make it easy to get code up and running on the real thing.
I only record music with my friends away from my home studio once in a while, and I got my HP140 since our last session so I haven't had a chance to record with it much at all yet, but from my research, other users are generally happy. The main problem is that it doesn't a level meter (lame!) so you gotta practice setting the input level a bit, but the Rockbox firmware will fix that when it's released.
But hey, why not give it a quick test -- I got it sitting right here. Here's a 192k mp3 I was listening to on my work desktop with the line out going into my HP140's line in and recording at 256k. Not very scientific, but sounds pretty decent (a little Sufjan Stevens): sufjan_iriver.mp3 (1.5MB)
I'm really surprised iRiver wasn't mentioned. I've got the 40GB HP-140 and it's a nice player with FM and the ability to record high quality compressed or uncompressed audio. The interface isn't as nice as the iPod, but with the open source Rockbox firmware being ported to several iRiver models, seems like a pretty serious competitor (especially for the Slashdot crowd).
yeah, just measured my 27" TV and it's only 19" deep, not a huge difference. And a lot of TVs have a smaller bit that juts out a little farther in the back to house the back of the tube -- they're basically just chopping that bit off. So I doubt the weight is going to be significantly less.
:o)
It's nice to have a bit smaller TV, but comparing these to flat panels appears to be marketing BS. This ain't something you're going to hang on your wall!
Although Nanoloop 2 doesn't do what most people consider to be "hard disk recording", it's a cool sequencer, and the original Nanoloop for the old Gameboy was cool too. Here are some other related links:
LSDJ, a powerful Gameboy tracker:
http://www.littlesounddj.com/
A NES Midi cartridge:
http://www.wayfar.net/0xf00000_overview.php
My own Atari 2600 Sequencer Kit:
http://qotile.net/sequencer.html
Prophet 64, a C64 sequencer/drum machine prog:
http://www.prophet64.com/
8BitPeoples, musicians into this kinda stuff:
http://www.8bitpeoples.com/
Micromusic, more musicians into this stuff:
http://micromusic.net/office.php3
One key universal fixit that I didn't see mentioned is to reseat the socketed chips. I've fixed so many old systems by applying a little force to socketed chips until they "crunch".
A few other tips:
Always unplug power supplies when they're not in use. It says this in the old manuals, and my experience is that it dramatically increases the life of the supply.
Also, since I deal the most with the Atari 2600, a common problem is that the switches start getting sketchy. This is usually that the solder joints have cracked (which can be fixed by just re-heating them with a soldering iron) or just that the switches need a little contact cleaner sprayed in them. And the paddle controllers almost always need their pots sprayed with contact/tuner cleaner.
It's amazing how well those old systems hold up if you take good care of them.
-paul
I don't think it's possible to hit the Game Select button that fast. ;o) That video was produced by hacking Combat and adding a music driver that runs in the background, and then programming the music driver to transform and drop music data into the game's RAM space and the Atari's graphic registers in a somewhat controlled manner.
I recently had my band's CD mastered. I mixed to 24bit/44Khz. I asked the mastering guy about 48Khz, and he said it's not worth it. For proper sample rate conversion to actually make it worthwhile, it would take a lot of extra computer time and therefore extra money from me, and the quality gain is marginal. He said 24/96Khz was worth it, though. -paul
What do you mean by "consistently"? My experience is that some kinds of music sound really bad at 128k and other music sounds decent. If people can consistently tell the difference with some pieces of music (but maybe not with others), I'd say that's still reason enough to go higher on everything.
Generally I've found that noisier stuff benefits more from higher bitrates. My friend did this REALLY noisy song (crunchy guitar etc.) recorded on a crappy jambox, and I had to bump it up to 256K before the compression noise wasn't completely obvious.
-paul
Seems like this problem may soon be eliminated by obsolescence.
Still working on it. Should be out sometime this Summer.
IMO Star Wars is no longer Slashdot-worthy. The last two sucked really bad, and reading the comments, a lot of other people seem to be fed up with the poor quality too. I don't have any plans to see this one.
-paul
"Around $35 without a box or around $45 if we decide to do a box." I'm estimating on the high side to account for unexpected costs, so it could certainly cost less. We're trying to make it as cheap as possible, but the materials can add up and it's a lot of work to manufacture new carts.
-paul
I built one of those cables and managed to get it to work. The trick was that I had to try a LOT of different versions of the Star Commander software before I found one that worked. I use it on a Pentium I.
The main reason I did it was to transfer my very first BASIC and assembly programs to my PC for backup.
-paul
The RIAA is not threatening our survival! They're offering an entertainment product that is overpriced. Not like you HAVE to have it and therefore stealing is justified, just don't buy it. Buy from one of the many reasonably priced indie labels with great music that give artists fair contracts. I've managed to survive pretty well the last few years on music almost exclusively from indies.
Maybe in some cases two wrongs kinda make a right, but not this one.
-paul
I saw Cory Arcangel speak in Austin a couple of weeks ago, and he said that they originally thought it might be the first time software had been distributed on vinyl, but later found out it had been done before in several instances. But that record is great. He said that it was most popular with hiphop djs and they liked to use the data track for scratching. -Paul
Wish that report was public. Here's a summary of the report. This one is interesting too. If you have to login, u:billmonroe p:banjo.
-Paul