Alright, it's my general assessment that everything is clear by Insight. It's been a week and no termination in service. All that was lost essentially was the email server, which for me didn't mean much because all my spork@thespork.com mail got was spam anyway. For CJ I think this might suck, cause I think he used god@absenceofdesign.com pretty frequently. but losing the email was a better loss than the whole server, so for this we are thankful.
The radiohead show was incredible. I've read everything online from Thom was speaking a storm (i guess the two lines he said to the croud is more than he ever says normally) and that this show was the best of the north american tour so far. I certainly would agree simply by listening to bootlegs I have from last week that dont' compare to the show we saw. They let loose, or something, cause they definitely were experimenting with some of their songs, and improvising. They also did a lot of older stuff from ok computer, kid a, and amnesiac alike. i guess radiohead hadn't been in st. louis for a long time so they wanted to "catch up on lost time." Man that show rocked, and yesterday Devin (one of the ones who went with us) got a bootleg of it (which surprised me, because devin is probably the least computer savvy of the group, but not to say he's illiterate). I'm listening to the last track of the second encore as we speak.
When talk show host came on, I was giddy beause I knew it was Joanna's favorite song. Afterwards, I turned to Devin and told him that, and he asked what my favorite song was. I go "Paranoid Android" and Devin's like "really? interesting" and then BAM! the next song starts and it's paranoid android! I went crazy. Second hardest I danced all night, only second to Idioteque which was CRRRAAAZY good. Man it's hard not to just shake your body to a beat like Idioteque. When I play music really loud, I have a hard time not getting my body into it. So at a concert you can imagine the music is LOUD, so I really want to dance. But I normally refrain for lack of guts, skill, and out of curtousy towards others. But man, by the third song of the show I said "fuck it" and just went crazy on every song. Each song I found a different movement that just felt right to the mood and just let it go. The guy next to me was stiff the whole night, and Devin actually danced too, same with the guy next to him.
but man that show rawked. I still can't believe it
-Sk/Jn-
surprised? ah! no faith, john, no faith! I may not be a natural-born techie like you guys, but I am a fast learner. and yes, literate, as well. It's amazing what you can accomplish by simply reading and following directions...
btw - (appropriate, now, for me to ask for tech support... ) - when you make your clone CD's, john, are you just doing EAC or do you have some nifty program that does the same kind of thing minus all the configuration? basically, what's the most efficient way to burn high quality sound at minimal effort? ;)
~ 'the least savvy of the group' but always lookin' to learn,
oh, and I found you a G.R.E.A.T. shirt,
the indelible dancing Devin
I had faith, I just found it impressive that you were the one to get the bootleg in the end. way to go.
EAC is the program I was telling you about that reads every sector twice and verifies if the two reads match. If not, it will read it up to 16 times before it gets a majority ruling. This means slow ripping speeds, because if you can rip digital audio at 8x (which is what my desktops burner will do). Then every sector is read 16 times (worse case scenario) and so this is like reading the disk 16 times. 8/16=.5. So you're basically getting 1/2x if the CD is very scratched. And even if the CD is in perfect condition, you're still only going to get as good as 4x speeds out of an 8x ripper. So you can see the disadvantage to EAC. I don't think I'll ever get so purist/OCD that I start using EAC. At least not until I get a faster burner/ripper.
On "clone CD's" this, when you see it written on my cd-r's, means I used a program called "CloneCD." This is the next best thing to EAC, in my opinion. And because it doesn't slow things down so much, it's a good alternative. It wont' produce master copies like Exact Audio Copy will, but there's one thing to keep in mind. When you're choosing what type of cd method to use to copy (and you have the choice between audio, multimedia, game, and data) choose multimedia for any CD Extra CD's and Audio for any regular cd's.
But also, here's something I had to find out the hard way: Ever since version 4, they've started giving the option to choose what audio quality you want to extract with. You set this by right clicking multimedia/audio cd and going to settings. In there you have the choice between Bad, Medium, Good, and Great. It defaults to bad. On some burners, this is ok. My desktop burner can copy the most scratched cd you've ever seen at "bad" quality and produce a non-scratched copy. My laptop burner on Good won't even do that with slightly scratched cd's. I pretty much have to copy anything on my burner on the "Great" profile because of the nature of the burner. I was copying cd's to my hard drive and then recording them without testing them first and I was recording the actual scratch data INTO the final copy. I was pissed.
So my suggestion: find a CD that is REALLY scratched. And copy it on all four settings (from bad to great). While you're copying, write down the extraction speed you get from all four. Then, test an area of the cd or a particular song you know to be one of the worst areas of the CD, as far as scratches go. To test the CD without burning it, load a "virtual image" of it to your "virtual clonedrive." this is a program that will install with CloneCD. Actually, it defaults (the installation) to adding one clonedrive to your computer. You can turn this off as well as add more than one if you'd like. But all you have to do to "mount" an image is right click the virtual clonedrive in your "my computer" and go to the clonedrive menu and select "mount" then point it to the image you want to mount.
oh, here's a link.
So yeah, test your CD with this, and listen to the worst scratched areas closely. If bad produces a perfect (or what seems like a perfect) copy then I'd choose the profile setting that gives you the best speed (remember, you were supposed to write down the speeds you got while ripping). So like, on my desktop, if I copy at "Bad" I get 8x. And it produces what seems like a perfect copy. Medium and Good also give me 8x. But Great gives me 4x. So I rip with Good because I'm still getting the same speed and in theory a better rip. My laptop, Bad gives me 16x, medium and good give me 12x and 8x respectively, and Great only gives me 4x. But a super scratched CD ripped on Good will still be scratched. So I have to choose the Great/4x profile on that because otherwise I risk burning scratch data into the final copy (and I think this is funny, that scratches, as something physical in nature, which are the corruption/removal of data or the refraction of the lasor read, can be burned as data into final CD copies and thus transformed from physical into digital eternity ... That's messed up.)
So yeah, see what profile works best for you. If an upgrade in quality means no speed loss then by golly make that change. If you can tell the difference between two profiles then you may want to choose the better one. Just to give you an idea, the Bad profile is basically like Nero CD-copy. So if you've never had a problem using Nero to copy, you probably won't have too many problems with the Bad profile. Basically this is what's called a "burst copy" where it just blindly reads the data without doing any sort of verification. Then there are different levels all the way up to I think synchronized copy? I dont' remember.
hope all that helps, and when I get you your cd's you can give me the great shirt ... is it colored?
Thanks a bunch.
sJpOoHrNk
yeah that helps. In fact, that was more information than I was ever expecting. Still, much appreciated. Thanks.
btw, speaking of scratches - you may not care since the program you described above seems to take care of pretty much any difficulty in reading scratched CD's - but I do own a manual scratch remover. I know they're not the most reliable things in all existence, but it is Disc Doctor/Game Doctor/DVD Doctor. So at least a pretty reliable brand name. The only reason I mention this is because you, my friend, have a whole whole lot of really really scratched-up CD's. So if you'd like me to take the good Dr. to a couple of 'em while I have 'em, just let me know. My scratch remover has always worked well for me in the past. I haven't listened to any of your discs so I don't know if you've had trouble with any of them playing/skipping/not playing/etc.
just lemme know.
and your shirt is grey. its in the wash now.
and that's the ugliest signature I've ever seen in my life. (your past post)
~ Devin
and wtf is "bibacity?" ~ Devin
my cd's are scratched? not to a point where you can't listen to them, though ... at least, I don't think
bibacity, look it up! you'll love it.
S.
not to the point where you can't listen to them, but to the point where it causes some errors when trying to rip or copy...
wow. first word I've ever found at dictionary.com but not been able to find at m-w (my first choice, and personal fav). surprising that webster doesn't have it. and surprising that your drinking habit is "totally audacious?"
~ Devin
I hate m-w. And "totally audacious bibacity" is more of a figurative expressoin than literal. It refers to the insanity with which this website was produced, exists, operates, or manifests itself. You see, that last sentence there that I just wrote is a prime example of totally audacious bibacity.
Let me know which cd's won't copy straight. Also, what program are you using to copy, CloneCD?
s
hey, can i get a bootleg?
- Frank
sure, get it from jo