Thanks. It's gratifying to see comments like this. I've forwarded your post to the person who entered all 5,000 ID3 tags.
It was a no brainer for us to make the decision to fully utilize the tags. We're librarians after all. Getting the procedures for entering data right (data was actually entered in the wav file header and then mapped to the ID3 tags) and making sure the data was accurate took a lot of hard work.
All things considered we broke very few, but we did burn a Blue Amberol. They are made of cellulose nitrate (not unlike nitrate motion picture film) and make spectacular fireworks:
This is correct. We have six files for each cylinder. The original archive file is a 24-bit, 44.1KHz wav file and can be downloaded. We captured at 24 bits not because cylinders need the 144 db of possible dynamic range (if only!) but because noise reduction supposedly works better on files of greater bit depths.
The second file is also a 24 bit file that was run through CEDAR in real time to reduce the amount of noise. It's very mild denoising compared to what is often done for CD reissues, but we just wanted to make it a bit more palatable to the ears of the uninitiated and remove the worst of the pops without clamping down the sound too much. That's why these cylinders sound relatively bright compared to a lot of the CD reissues you'll find of early recordings. There are a lot of cylinders in the archive that are still very noisy and are very difficult to listen to, but this site is not just about entertainment, it's a tool for research.
The third file is a CD standard file that was dithered down to 16 bits and there are three compressed files for online access. The sixth file was for dialup connections, but we didn't put them up. I don't know anybody with dialup anymore that could test them.
Our goal in allowing downloads of the raw file is that if somebody wants to do a CD reissue or reuse the material we should provide for that as they are in the public domain. But if they want a cleaned up version they should do their own restoration, so we don't provide access to the cleaned up wav file (unless somebody asks).
And if anybody cares, these are two pop songs I've been listening to a lot:
Slashdot Mirror
UC actually pays about $8M per year to Elsevier.
r .pdf
The full contract is available online http://www.econ.ucsb.edu/~tedb/Journals/ucelsevie
Thanks. It's gratifying to see comments like this. I've forwarded your post to the person who entered all 5,000 ID3 tags.
It was a no brainer for us to make the decision to fully utilize the tags. We're librarians after all. Getting the procedures for entering data right (data was actually entered in the wav file header and then mapped to the ID3 tags) and making sure the data was accurate took a lot of hard work.
We never did settle on a genre though. Oldies?
-David Seubert
All things considered we broke very few, but we did burn a Blue Amberol. They are made of cellulose nitrate (not unlike nitrate motion picture film) and make spectacular fireworks:
http://www.babaluma.net/lj/burningcylinder1.jpg
http://www.babaluma.net/lj/burningcylinder2.jpg
http://www.babaluma.net/lj/burningcylinder3.jpg
Don't worry, it was damaged beyond repair and a duplicate...
This is correct. We have six files for each cylinder. The original archive file is a 24-bit, 44.1KHz wav file and can be downloaded. We captured at 24 bits not because cylinders need the 144 db of possible dynamic range (if only!) but because noise reduction supposedly works better on files of greater bit depths.
The second file is also a 24 bit file that was run through CEDAR in real time to reduce the amount of noise. It's very mild denoising compared to what is often done for CD reissues, but we just wanted to make it a bit more palatable to the ears of the uninitiated and remove the worst of the pops without clamping down the sound too much. That's why these cylinders sound relatively bright compared to a lot of the CD reissues you'll find of early recordings. There are a lot of cylinders in the archive that are still very noisy and are very difficult to listen to, but this site is not just about entertainment, it's a tool for research.
The third file is a CD standard file that was dithered down to 16 bits and there are three compressed files for online access. The sixth file was for dialup connections, but we didn't put them up. I don't know anybody with dialup anymore that could test them.
Our goal in allowing downloads of the raw file is that if somebody wants to do a CD reissue or reuse the material we should provide for that as they are in the public domain. But if they want a cleaned up version they should do their own restoration, so we don't provide access to the cleaned up wav file (unless somebody asks).
And if anybody cares, these are two pop songs I've been listening to a lot:
Theodore http://www.library.ucsb.edu/OBJID/Cylinder3429
Any Rags http://www.library.ucsb.edu/OBJID/Cylinder4374