Quack 20

[Rigjockey]

Well I don't need to read that page to explain it in layman's terms.

It's an audio file format that compresses a song, on average 1 MB of data per minute, assuming the program that created the file used the standard 128k bitrate. (Lately 192 and 320k rates are common due to larger hard drives.)

So on an audio CD you can typically fit maybe 14 songs on, if you burn it as a data disk instead of an audio CD and put the music on in the form of MP3 files, on a regular 700 MB CD, if the average song length is 4 minutes, you can put 175 songs on there. A CD player capable of playing MP3 discs can potentially start at the beginning of the CD and keep playing for your entire 11 hour driving shift without playing the same song twice.

Because the files are compressed in a lossy format, some audio information is discarded in the compression/encoding process. The technology for creating MP3 files is designed to only eliminate audio frequencies that are considered to be inaudible to the average human ear.

The average person can only hear sounds ranging from 20 hz (subwoofer cone moving in & out 20 times per second) to 15,000 hz (tweeter cone moving in & out 15,000 times per second).

By eliminating frequencies outside of that range, and through other compression methods, they can knock the file size down significantly and very few people can tell the difference. You'd have to play a store-bought CD and then play the MP3 version immediately afterwards on a decent stereo without any ambient noise (like an idling engine) in order to tell the difference.

On songs where you have lots of different instruments playing simultaneously, you're more likely to hear the limitations of the MP3 format than if you were listening to a song with fewer instruments.

Example: Champagne Supernova by Oasis.
(I can only provide the YouTube version & don't know what format it uses for audio)
At the 2 minute mark, the song gets noisy & there are too many audio sources mixed together & if you listen to it with headphones, at any volume at all it sounds distorted. The format simply can't reproduce that many sounds accurately. I wouldn't be surprised if the original studio recording even sounds distorted at that point.

See I knew you could do it. Even on youtube when I pull up a song. Some sound like crap. A lot of distortion. Others are clearer.

 

[Duck]

See I knew you could do it. Even on youtube when I pull up a song. Some sound like crap. A lot of distortion. Others are clearer.

I don't know what audio format is used on You Tube. I have noticed that it's capable of sounding as good as an MP3 though.

There's a site that lets you paste the link to a You Tube video & it'll give you a link to download the audio track from it in MP3 format. It seems more often than not, the MP3 it'll give me sounds like it's being transmitted through a couple of tin cans & a piece of string when the YouTube video sounds fine.

So in that event, I'll use a different program to simply download the video straight off YouTube in high quality MP4 format & then use a different program to extract the audio & save it as an MP3.

Every time Mrs. Duck is watching "Cold Case" there's usually a song they play that she decides she likes. So if I don't know what it is, I'll Google some of the lyrics & find it, then swipe the song off YouTube, test-play it with headphones, then say "gimme your phone" and I'll put her micro SD card into my laptop & put it on her phone, then start the song playing on the phone right as I hand it back to her. It's cute, she gets all excited.

 

[Rigjockey]

I don't know what audio format is used on You Tube. I have noticed that it's capable of sounding as good as an MP3 though.

There's a site that lets you paste the link to a You Tube video & it'll give you a link to download the audio track from it in MP3 format. It seems more often than not, the MP3 it'll give me sounds like it's being transmitted through a couple of tin cans & a piece of string when the YouTube video sounds fine.

So in that event, I'll use a different program to simply download the video straight off YouTube in high quality MP4 format & then use a different program to extract the audio & save it as an MP3.

Every time Mrs. Duck is watching "Cold Case" there's usually a song they play that she decides she likes. So if I don't know what it is, I'll Google some of the lyrics & find it, then swipe the song off YouTube, test-play it with headphones, then say "gimme your phone" and I'll put her micro SD card into my laptop & put it on her phone, then start the song playing on the phone right as I hand it back to her. It's cute, she gets all excited.

Hey, Now!

 

[Duck]

Hey, Now!

... all you sinners,
put your lights on,
put your lights on,

Hey, Now!

... all you lovers,
put your lights on,
put your lights on,

Hey, Now!

... all you killers,
put your lights on,
put your lights on,

Hey, Now!

... all you children,
leave your lights on,
better leave your lights on,



'cause there's a monster,
living under my bed,
whispering in my ear...


There's an angel,
with a hand on my head
She say I've got nothing to fear ...






........





We all shine like stars,

Then we fade away...

 

[Rigjockey]

... all you sinners,
put your lights on,
put your lights on,

... all you lovers,
put your lights on,
put your lights on,

... all you killers,
put your lights on,
put your lights on,

... all you children,
leave your lights on,
better leave your lights on,



'cause there's a monster, View attachment 22238
living under my bed,
whispering in my ear...


There's an angel, View attachment 22239
with a hand on my head
She say I've got nothing to fear ...






........





We all shine like stars,
View attachment 22248
Then we fade away...
View attachment 22249

LMAO! Awesome yo'

 

[Duck]

LMAO! Awesome yo'

It's called "insomnia".

 

[Rigjockey]

It's called "insomnia".

I dont know. I was going to go to bed like 7 hours ago. lol

 

[Rigjockey]

Okay, like now, I am like totally going to bed. I am like totally, like I dunno, like, like, OH, My, God I am like totally having a hard time, Like, putting a thought together.

 

[Duck]

I dont know. I was going to go to bed like 7 hours ago. lol

Okay, like now, I am like totally going to bed. I am like totally, like I dunno, like, like, OH, My, God I am like totally having a hard time, Like, putting a thought together.

Me too.

And I'm supposed to drive back down to Tennessee tomorrow. I just came home to get Mrs. Duck, my Keurig machine, my scanner, and to weld two pieces of angle-iron together to make a part to fix my grandma's garage door.

There was something else I was gonna do but I forgot cuz my brain ceased functioning several hours ago.

Oh well. My car has headlights.

I just found a video I made for my sister's birthday in 2003.

"Winds of Change" playing to some 8mm filmstrips my dad shot in the early 80's of me & my sister playing at the park & in the back yard when we were kids.

It's 77 mB. Maybe I'll upload it to YouTube when I get back down to TN and can use the hospital's bandwidth, so I can send it to my sister.



OH YEAH, ... THAT's what else I was gonna bring. My 500 GB external hard drive that I found that video on .....

 

[krelithous]

What is an MP3 anyways?

its a audio file thats compressed down and degraded into garbage as to my ears 33.3 i think it is but it's garbage to my ears

 

[krelithous]

See I knew you could do it. Even on youtube when I pull up a song. Some sound like crap. A lot of distortion. Others are clearer.

you should go in a recording studio and hear the master when they play it back at 192 kbs omg what a difference

 

[Duck]

you should go in a recording studio and hear the master when they play it back at 192 kbs omg what a difference

At 128k you can't tell the difference between that & a CD if you're in a moving vehicle. You'd have to eliminate any background noise to tell the difference.
192 & I'd have to go back & forth between the CD and the MP3 in a quiet room with headphones on in order to tell a difference. At 320k there's no difference that I can tell.

 

[Duck]

Back in Columbia, TN.

At Waffle House.

Have nowhere else to go at least 'til my aunt wakes up. She locked up my grandma's house & didn't leave the key under the evil creepy gnome like she was supposed to, ... because she's senile.... just like her brother.

 

[Rigjockey]

I was led to believe a CD was an exact copy of the record companies Master copy That was why the record labels where so pissed about file sharing like Napster and the others when the labels realized they had sold the masters at 20 bucks a pop and could be shared.

 

[Duck]

I was led to believe a CD was an exact copy of the record companies Master copy That was why the record labels where so ****ed about file sharing like Napster and the others when the labels realized they had sold the masters at 20 bucks a pop and could be shared.

As recently as the 1990's the last time I was aware (from watching a documentary on TV) recording studios still recorded everything on high-quality magnetic tape. Each instrument had it's own separate recording and they were mixed to create a final "studio" version of the song.

The music is originally recorded in analog format too. Analog is better than digital, as long as the media & the equipment is of decent quality. These are not cassette tapes I'm talking about. In the studios it's a "reel-to-reel" with large diameter spools of magnetic tape the size of dinner plates and probably almost an inch wide.

If you've ever heard "Dust In The Wind" played back on an entirely analog system, the violin solo sounds amazing. It sounds like it's right in front of you. My dad wasn't a Kansas fan but he had that album on vinyl for some reason & never listened to it. Therefore when I was a teenager I found the record in "like new" condition, inside a plastic wrapper, spotless & dust-free. I played it on his old 70's turn-table which was a high-end player as well. It had a heavy stainless steel turntable and adjustable needle pressure. And it was a "magnetic" turn table, not a "ceramic". Played back on an old stereo system there are two sets of inputs for a record player, with a knob on front to choose which one you're using, labeled "MAG - CER". Magnetic had no pre-amp, but "ceramic" did. Stored in analog form, & played on an entirely analog system, it was amazing how much that song sounded like the instruments were being played right in front of me when I'd close my eyes, especially the violin.

Then if I played the same song on a store-bought CD, with the same old 70's stereo system, it still sounded good but that presence wasn't there. It didn't sound like any of the instruments were in the room with me.




Digital media is better than analog for 3 reasons though.

Provided the media isn't physically damaged (a scratched CD) it will last almost forever. Magnetic tapes eventually wear out from sliding across the playback head, and they'll lose their magnetism over time & you'll get a "hiss". They invented Dolby noise reduction in an attempt to fix that but it tends to kill the high frequencies. And vinyl records physically wear out from the diamond needle riding over the microscopic plastic bumps, and they get dusty & are nearly impossible to clean them. Residue from cleaning chemicals, fibers from the cloth used to wipe them, and minerals from water that has evaporated on the surface will cause a crackling sound.

Digital media stores it in ones & zeros & a chip converts it to analog, so even if magnetic media loses some of it's magnetism, the player is still able to correctly read it.

It's also better than analog because the media itself can be very small. For example, nowadays it's possible to put a week's worth of MP3 music on a micro SD card that's literally no bigger than the fingernail on my index finger. And by "a week's worth" I mean start the playback on Monday morning and don't stop it at all for a week and you won't hear the same track twice (unless you want to)

And with digital media, you have RAM (random access memory) meaning you don't have to FFW or REW to get back to the beginning of a song & can instantly skip to the next song. You could do that with a vinyl record if you lift the needle & move it, but that took some skill and good eyes to do it right.

 

[Rigjockey]

As recently as the 1990's the last time I was aware (from watching a documentary on TV) recording studios still recorded everything on high-quality magnetic tape. Each instrument had it's own separate recording and they were mixed to create a final "studio" version of the song.

The music is originally recorded in analog format too. Analog is better than digital, as long as the media & the equipment is of decent quality. These are not cassette tapes I'm talking about. In the studios it's a "reel-to-reel" with large diameter spools of magnetic tape the size of dinner plates and probably almost an inch wide.

If you've ever heard "Dust In The Wind" played back on an entirely analog system, the violin solo sounds amazing. It sounds like it's right in front of you. My dad wasn't a Kansas fan but he had that album on vinyl for some reason & never listened to it. Therefore when I was a teenager I found the record in "like new" condition, inside a plastic wrapper, spotless & dust-free. I played it on his old 70's turn-table which was a high-end player as well. It had a heavy stainless steel turntable and adjustable needle pressure. And it was a "magnetic" turn table, not a "ceramic". Played back on an old stereo system there are two sets of inputs for a record player, with a knob on front to choose which one you're using, labeled "MAG - CER". Magnetic had no pre-amp, but "ceramic" did. Stored in analog form, & played on an entirely analog system, it was amazing how much that song sounded like the instruments were being played right in front of me when I'd close my eyes, especially the violin.

Then if I played the same song on a store-bought CD, with the same old 70's stereo system, it still sounded good but that presence wasn't there. It didn't sound like any of the instruments were in the room with me.




Digital media is better than analog for 3 reasons though.

Provided the media isn't physically damaged (a scratched CD) it will last almost forever. Magnetic tapes eventually wear out from sliding across the playback head, and they'll lose their magnetism over time & you'll get a "hiss". They invented Dolby noise reduction in an attempt to fix that but it tends to kill the high frequencies. And vinyl records physically wear out from the diamond needle riding over the microscopic plastic bumps, and they get dusty & are nearly impossible to clean them. Residue from cleaning chemicals, fibers from the cloth used to wipe them, and minerals from water that has evaporated on the surface will cause a crackling sound.

Digital media stores it in ones & zeros & a chip converts it to analog, so even if magnetic media loses some of it's magnetism, the player is still able to correctly read it.

It's also better than analog because the media itself can be very small. For example, nowadays it's possible to put a week's worth of MP3 music on a micro SD card that's literally no bigger than the fingernail on my index finger. And by "a week's worth" I mean start the playback on Monday morning and don't stop it at all for a week and you won't hear the same track twice (unless you want to)

And with digital media, you have RAM (random access memory) meaning you don't have to FFW or REW to get back to the beginning of a song & can instantly skip to the next song. You could do that with a vinyl record if you lift the needle & move it, but that took some skill and good eyes to do it right.

Funny. I can't hear what most people say but , If the recording of music is off by a bit it drives me insane.

As far as size and Durability, I wonder why we are still getting movies on DVD. I would have thought we would be buying movies on a memory stick type thing.

I am sure movies on some type of digital card are in the works, So we can toss out our DVD/Blu Ray players and go run buy the latest new thing.

 

[Duck]

My scanner/printer thing is broken. The printer keeps saying there's a paper jam but there isn't. It fell out of the truck a few months ago & this is the first time I tested it. Oh well. The scanner part works.

This is my great-great-grandma, according to what my grandma wrote on the back. I'm guessing the picture was taken in the 1890's. It's printed on cardboard, not paper.

 

[Duck]

Wow check this out.





It's a hand written account of some ancient relative's wagon trip in 1855 from Birmingham, Iowa to somewhere in Kansas. I haven't read the whole thing yet. The second half of the journal is nothing but Bible verses. But there was something about an encounter with friendly Indians & a lot of descriptions of the countryside.

Here's a scan of the front page or cover. Maybe there's a cover but it's missing.

 

[ScooterDude]

Duck, that journal and picture are cool as hell.

 

[Duck]

Duck, that journal and picture are cool as hell.

I scanned the whole journal: http://www.truckersforum.net/forum/threads/i-found-a-log-book-from-1855.77736/