Trading Concert MP3 CD's

[Gumbo]

I got to thinking the other day about trading some Buffett stuff. Seemed to me the most efficient way to trade would be to put as many shows as will fit on a CD (quite a few) in MP3 format (burn a data disc), instead of trading shows the way its usually done. I assume that most of us have CD burners nowadays and could take the MP3's off the data disc and burn them for yourself. That way instead of receiving one show on 2 discs, you could recieve several shows on 1 disc. Would anyone else be interested in trading like this? I've got a little over a dozen shows that I would be happy to burn for people and could fit them on less discs. Maybe these people had several shows I didn't have and could burn them for me. This would also help new people out to trading as a B&P could go from 1 show on 2 discs to 10 shows on 2 discs.

Anyways, just a thought. Anyone interested in doing this post your shows here. I'll post mine this evening when I get home.

I figure the way I'll do it is to convert the shows I have back to .mp3 format and then burn them as data discs (keeping the shows in seperate folders). If someone requested several shows, I could copy the shows they need back to my hard drive and then to a blank cd. There are plenty of programs out there to rip Cd's for anyone interested. Audiograbber is one I use, but there are several free one's available...maybe someone could post some links here.

Anyways, just a thought...

[DazedNiteman]

I think this would be a good idea, but being that I only have like 3 shows that I bough from eBay a while back (Bad me) I won't be one to trade but I do think that this would be efficient and an easier way to transport files.
However if you convert from wav to mp3 back to wav the sound quality will diminish a little, not like the quality was that great to begin with from RM.

[Godsowndrunk]

when converting wav to mp3 and back to wav files, the sound won't diminish....because all you are doing is either burning the files as data or audio....when you burn as data they are compressed (mp3) when you burn as audio they are not compressed....you don't have to physically convert them...its all done when you decide to burn the disk....and most of the stuff you get off radio m'ville is not of quality enough to tell the difference in sound quality...

[Gumbo]

I took a couple of hours today to rip my Buffett concerts to the hard drive in .mp3 format. All shows ripped at 192 kbps to perserve quality as closely as possible. I can't tell the difference between the mp3 and the wav file, so I don't think too many others will. The number of shows can add up to 700 MB on one blank disc. Here is what I have and the grade I assigned the recording:

1974 Exit Inn - 100 MB - B+/A-
1975 Boarding House - 109 MB - A+
1981 Atlanta, GA (Cut Setlist) - 60 MB - B-
1982 Lake Lanier, GA - 116 MB - C+/B-
1995 Barometer Soup Radio Special (Including Live Atlanta footage) - 100 MB - B
1999/2000 Millenium Show, Los Angeles, CA - 143 MB - A/A+
1999 Orlando, FL Margaritaville Opening - 101 MB - B
2000 Dallas, TX - 184 MB - D/D+ (Choppy Sound at some points)
2001 Peet's 80th Birthday - 91 MB - A
2002 Greensboro, NC - 213 MB - B+/A-
2003 Raleigh, NC - 184 MB - A
2003 Bristow, VA - 205 MB - A
2004 Tampa, FL - 309 MB - B-/B

I have pretty discriminating sound tastes, so if it says A, it sounds REALLY good. Anybody interested in trading for shows, let me know by Private Message. I'll be happy to help out beginners to trading to with B&P's.

[Godsowndrunk]

Ok I just have to ask....

What Are B&P's??????????????????????????

[beerrunner]

have you burned a cd with mp3s yet?

I tried something similar, to take some mp3s form home to work and the program automaticle comverted them to a music cd - I think in wav

also, you shoul make sure that you infom traders that these shows were ripped to mp3. there are some anal traders, and some research and programs, that indicated you do loose sound quality - and it shows up on the high end home systems.

if you need some test shows, to try to burn as date, I would be interested in these...
2001 Peet's 80th Birthday - 91 MB - A
2003 Raleigh, NC - 184 MB - A
2003 Bristow, VA - 205 MB - A

e-mail me at beerrunner@netzero.com for my list.

also, there is a much better ripper out there, it's EAC
http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/

and another that converts to SHN [a lossless compression], and it is easy to use - mkwACT (0.97 beta 1) program...
http://www.etree.org/mkw.html
http://home.att.net/~mkw/mkwact.html

info page on these programs are here...
http://wiki.etree.org/

and as to what is a b&p, it's blanks & postage - go to...
http://www.mcnichol.com/bnp/

[Gumbo]

beerrunner -

Good info, thanks for the links.

I burned some mp3 cd's for someone that sent me some blanks and it worked without a hitch. I used RecordNow DX to do it (program that came with my DVD burner). I also tried to burn mp3's as a data disc on a DVD (which would allow me to put every show on 1 dvd, but that didn't work).

As far as my shows go, I've done frequency analysis on the shows I've received in the mail, and it came up that they had already been in .mp3 format at one time or another. I know what you're saying about the whole mp3 loss though from downloading from sites like etree and Sharing the Groove. I'd try and get some .SHN going here, but I've found that simplicity works best here and most people are more familiar with mp3 format. That way they can immediately burn to disc instead of converting the .shn to .wav.

I'll shoot you an email about the shows...

[dchspoptart]

I would be interested in some of the concerts, but I don't have many to trade. Live in Indianapolis 2002, Live in Wisconsin 1997, and San Jose 2004 (Tiki Tour), and the Millenium Concert (1999/2000) that you have. I'm about to get Nashville 2003 from somebody though.

I'm pretty new to concert trading, so as many concerts as I can get would help out alot!

[Godsowndrunk]

Maybe I am not getting what you guys or gals are saying about converting files.....you are not converting anything...all you are doing is deciding wheather to burn it as Data or audio....there is no physical conversion of the files....unless you have an extremely high end audio system (I am talking Krell, Martin Logan, Adcom, Proceed, Sunfire, and the like) you are not going to be able to tell the difference on any show that is recorded off RM'ville...all you need to do is choose which files your system will play....if it plays Mp3's then fine put it all one one disk and just make sure you number the files so they do not get scrambled..01, 02, 03, and so forth...99 percent of the files you download off the net are going to be mp3. but as soon as you tell your burner you want to record them as Audio, the go right to audio and are recorded in minutes and not Megabytes...

" I don't know and I don't care"

G.O.D

[dchspoptart]

Actually, you're wrong, because once you rip it, if you rip at 64kbps you will notice an IMMENSE drop in quality vs 192 kbps, because you're trying to squeeze more data into a smaller space and you have to take chunks out (basically), which is why the better quality mp3s sound better.

[Godsowndrunk]

well then I would have to ask....WHY in the hell would anyone rip a cd at 64kbps.....mine are all ripped at 320..... and even some of the stuff I have downloaded at 128 sounds just as good as the 320....maybe a little less dynamics but nothing that wouldn't play on the Quests

[webster3w]

Maybe I am not getting what you guys or gals are saying about converting files.....you are not converting anything...all you are doing is deciding wheather to burn it as Data or audio....there is no physical conversion of the files....unless you have an extremely high end audio system (I am talking Krell, Martin Logan, Adcom, Proceed, Sunfire, and the like) you are not going to be able to tell the difference on any show that is recorded off RM'ville...all you need to do is choose which files your system will play....if it plays Mp3's then fine put it all one one disk and just make sure you number the files so they do not get scrambled..01, 02, 03, and so forth...99 percent of the files you download off the net are going to be mp3. but as soon as you tell your burner you want to record them as Audio, the go right to audio and are recorded in minutes and not Megabytes...

" I don't know and I don't care"

G.O.D

I think there is a breakdown in the communications here. Gumbo's original thought was to convert his shows to mp3, share a cd of all mp3 shows. Then once the person received the mp3 cd, they can either listen to the shows in mp3 format, OR convert them to wav to burn an audio cd. Burning the audio cd would allow them to listen on older CD players that don't have mp3 capability. When you tell your burner to burn the mp3's as audio, it is actually converting them on the fly. (Which is bad to begin with, but thats a whole different discussion)

As for the whole kpbs thing. When people first started ripping CD's and making mp3's, most people still had dialup. As such, dl'ing a mp3 ripped at 64mb seemed fine. Anything higher than that took way to long to dl. Also, hard drive space was more expensive than it is now. So currently most people rip songs at at least 128, with most "groups" releasing at 192 or higher.

Since you have less kbps, you can have less data. Since the mp3 format is a lossy format to begin with, you lose more. When you compress a song into mp3 format, the compresser decides what parts are redunant and that you don't "need" to hear. So the lower the kbps, the more data that gets dropped. Listening on your computer you may not notice, but if you put on a good set of headphones, or listen to it on a home stereo, you will almost definately notice the different between varying mp3's, mp3 and wav, and even between varying "lossless" formats like shn, ape, mkw, flac, etc.

You may not notice the difference the first round of conversions, but if you have a bunch of spare cd-r's floating around, rip a legal cd that you own to your hard drive in mp3 format. Then burn a new audio cd with those mp3's. Rip that cd, and repeat. Continue on until you are burning the fifth or sixth generation of cd's. Then listen to the original pressed cd, and then the last cd-r that you burnt. Unless you have a ton of ear wax, you should notice a big difference. This is exactly why most trading circles, etree, sharingthegroove, furthur, archive.org, etc only allow, or greatly prefer to share lossless audio. Because the first person to burn and pass it on, may not have any problems, but by the time the last guy gets his hands on a copy it pretty much sucks. Reasons why now so many people are "upgrading" their shows at places like that. When a higher generation source shows up, they grab it again. Simply to avoid polluting the trading circles.

As for Radio Margaritaville sourced shows, they may all appear to be mp3 sourced to begin with since rm, wma, and even the mp3 streams are compressed to begin with. So recording the concert to your hard drive, no matter how you do it, you can't have more quality than you started off with. So recording to wav may seem kinda redundant. EXCEPT, that it allows you to maintain what little sound you have to begin with. If you record the concert stream to any format that is lossy is any way, the compresser again has to drop audio on the fly.

I got into arguments with people on alt.binaries.music.shn back when I posted a few shn'ed shows I had recorded. They felt there was no reason to keep it in the higher quality format, while others agreed with me that the shn was needed. If you do decide to take mp3 shows and burn em into audio, by all means do so for your own personal use. And as beerrunner says, if you do trade that show, make sure to state upfront it was mp3 sourced. Because that means there is a higher quality source somewhere. And most good traders will then offer to do a b&p for a non mp3 sourced show so you have some good stuff to work with. (Speaking with experience from other bands, not so much Buffett)

*climbs down off his soapbox*
Thanks for reading my rant, please try to keep flames to a minimum. Thanks

[Gumbo]

Webster stated it perfectly.

Buffett shows are unique in that most all of them came from Radio Margaritaville (except for some radio appearances). I have 1 audience recording of a Buffett show and its terrible. Most of the Radio Margaritaville shows I have are not nearly as good as the audience recordings I get of other bands off sites like "Sharing the Groove" and "Etree" in .shn and .flac formats. With Buffett shows streamed from the internet, I keep them in the .wav format and burn the show. Its difficult using the equipment I have to notice a difference between the original .wav and the 192 kpbs I burn the mp3 at. For this reason, I decided to keep them in .mp3 format instead of .wav (to save massive space). This also allows you to put multiple shows on discs. I've done some B&P's and trades with people and I can give them 10+ shows on 3 discs instead of 1.5 shows. Then that person can decide which shows they want to burn and which they do not. I don't think too much confusion exists on this board as far as mp3 sourcing, I don't think most people know about other forms of trading. This coupled with the extremely rare chance of someone having a recording from a different (better) source of a particular show.

[webster3w]

Sharingthegroove actually had an awesome Buffett recording recently. I don't know if it still on there, but there was a SOUNDBOARD sourced copy of the September 04, 1999 Mansfield show. I'm looking right now to see if it is still there, but it's being a pain.

[Gumbo]

Torrent is no longer there, I just checked. Thanks for the heads up though! I posted a request for it under the ISO Bit Torrents. Shot in the dark, but maybe someone will reseed it.

[Gumbo]

And just a heads up to something posted today on SharingtheGroove.com , another soundboard Buffett show is available for download via Bit Torrent:

Jimmy Buffett 1981-03-14 w/Don Henley/Jerry Jeff Walker/Loggins & Messina

http://www.sharingthegroove.org/msgboar ... adid=65629

I'm leaching now, can't wait!

[frognot]

BTT so everybody sees a big MUCHAS GRACIAS to Gumbo for the CDs & MP3s he sent me. Also thanks for the sites listed & advice in this this thread that even us old non-techies can understand.