Month: September 2006

How to Convert LPs to MP3s

NOTE: The original post had a bunch of helpful photos.  But the hosting service died, and the photos with it.

I’ve been writing some about my recent project- converting some old, hard to find LPs into MP3 format, so I can put them on my music server and CD-Rs to listen to in the car.

Here’s how I do it.

First the equipment. Other than a computer, you need a turntable. I use the Ion USB turntable, but any turntable that you can hook up to your computer will work. I haven’t tried them, but here’s a device that allows you to connect a traditional turntable to your computer’s line-in jack and here’s one that works via USB.

You’ll also need some recording software. I use Audacity, which is free, for both my LP to MP3 conversions and for doing my podcasts.

First, hook up your turntable to your computer. This is an easy process with the Ion turntable. You just plug in the USB cable and, at least in Windows XP, the computer does the rest. The turntable comes with drivers on a CD if you need them.

Then take out the LP, place it on the turntable, blow it clean with canned air, and wipe it gently with a soft, lint-free towel. The quality of the LP is the biggest factor in how the converted MP3 will sound. If you have an old LP, expect some static and maybe a skip or two- just tell your friends that it adds to the vinyl experience.

Then open Audacity. Under Edit/Preferences, be sure you do 3 things (see Figure 1 below): select the USB turntable as the recording source (on my computer it shows up as ” USB Audio Codec,” set the channels as “2 Stereo,” and select software playthrough so you can hear the record while it’s being recorded. This will allow you to start over if the sound is especially bad.

Then press the Record button in the main Audacity window (no need to hurry- you can trim the beginning of each song after you record the LP), and then place the needle on the LP and record that side. After you’re done with Side A, trim the excess part at the beginning of the first song by selecting it with your curser (see Figure 2 below) and either selecting Edit/Cut or by simply hitting the Delete key on your keyboard.

Then do the same thing for Side B of the LP.

When you finish recording Side B, trim the excess part at the beginning of Side B, like you did above for Side A. Then align the beginning of Side B with the end of Side A by placing your cursor at the correct location and selecting Project/Align Tracks/Align with Cursor (see Figure 3 below). In Figure 3, Side A in on the top and Side B is on the bottom. Side B is longer than Side A. In this example, I have placed the cursor at the location in the Side B track that corresponds to the end of Side A. Selecting Project/Align Tracks/Align with Cursor will cause Side A and Side B to line up.

Place the cursor where you want Side B to begin and select Project/Align Tracks/Align with Cursor

Then make the entire LP viewable on your screen by clicking on the “Fit project in window” icon.

Then delete the extra silence between each track and place a label at the beginning of each track. The label is the name of the song. Sometimes it takes a little time to properly identify the beginning of each track- I keep the album cover handy so I can refer to the song lengths that are almost always printed thereon. After selecting the extra silence between each track and deleting it using the Delete key, you can immediately add a label by clicking the label icon.

Once you have everything labeled, you need to do two things. First, normalize the tracks by selecting Effect/Normalize (see Figure 6 below). Check both “Remove any DC offset” and “Normalize maximum amplitude to -3dB.” and click “OK.” Second, put your computer volume on a typical music listening level and play parts of a few songs see if the recording is loud enough. Almost all the time, they aren’t. If not, slide the slider at the beginning of each file (remember there are 2- one for Side A and one for Side B) to increase the loudness. Generally +3 dB or +6dB will do the trick.

WARNING: I don’t know if this is a problem specific to my system or not, but NEVER try to use the Backspace key when typing the song name labels. Audacity crashes every time I do that on any label other than the first one. If you need to fix a typo, place the cursor before the letters you want to delete and use the Delete key. It is a very good idea to save your project after every step.

Then select File/Export Multiple to split the recording into individual song files. You need to select the export format, and the location for the files. I use a particular folder on my music server (called “LP to MP3”), so I can easily import the finished MP3s into my music library. I simply tell my media player to search that folder, and it finds the new song files automatically. Then I edit the tag info and add album cover art (which you can almost always find either via a Google image search, at AllMusic.Com, at Amazon, or via an eBay search).

That’s it. The first couple of times, it takes a little time. But once you’ve done it a few times, it goes really fast.

It’s a great way to hear some good music that isn’t available on CD or iTunes.

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Morning Reading: 9/19/06

Here’s a great resource for anyone trying to learn CSS.

Today is Talk Like a Pirate Day. (via Christopher Carfi)

Ed Bott gives a great tutorial on using ISO files.  Very timely for those wanting to install Windows Vista

Lifehacker has 15 ways to get more out of Pandora.

Jeremy Zawodny asks: Are Dolphins Smarter than Costco Employees?

David Berlind on TIVO and DRM.

Here’s an amazing 4 year old drummer.

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Investing Strategy in the Wacky World of Web 2.0

Dead 2.0 takes a sad and hilarious look at the announcement by Mr. Web 2.0 that he is an investor in Dogster.  It’s a great read for anyone who thinks Web 2.0 business is the same as non-Web 2.0 business.  Among my favorite quotes from the story is this one (quoting the wonderfully named Bambi Francisco):

A smaller number pay roughly $20 a year, to get storage for videos, and photos, and the ability to IM other members on the site, using their pets as avatars.

I honestly don’t know if that’s true or not.  I actually hope it isn’t true, but you can never tell.

I had a flying squirrel as a pet when I was a kid.  I’m looking forward to Flyingsquirrelster.  Other of my childhood pets would hang out at Duckster, Owlster, Rabbitster, Greensnakester, Tadpolester (later that one would graduate to Bullfrogster) and, of course, my pet Ben would spend his time at Crawfishster.

I will say that at least Dogster has a targeted demographic that should make ad buys appealing to pet food makers, pet supply stores, the Hallmark Channel, etc.  And Peter Lynch made a fortune for himself and others by investing in things he liked.

The problem I have with Dogster is the problem I have with a lot of the Web 2.0 companies de jour- the play dough doctrine.  The apparent approach of so many of these companies is summed up nicely by The Stalwart:

It only reinforces my conviction that few people have any idea of what will work and what won’t.  There’s a lot of spaghetti throwing in business, just to see what noodles stick.

The exposure from Mr. Web 2.0 will likely quadruple the prospects of Dogster, so maybe in a year or so it will be an internet juggernaut (or bought by Petco).

In the wacky world of Web 2.0, anything is possible.

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Why I'm Bailing on DirecTV

I’ve been a DirecTV customer since January 1995, and I’m about to return to cable. I’m not all that excited about it, but in a marketing and customer service failure of epic proportions, DirecTV has made that the easy choice.

Over the past 12 years, I’ve shown that I’ll spend money with DirecTV, having a premium package that includes a bunch of movie and regional sports channels I never watch. Plus, I buy the college football and basketball packages and the NFL package. I’ve bought every conceivable sort of DirecTV satellite receiver, from the early RCA models, through the Sony and Hughes models, to my current slate of four HR10-250 HD DirecTivos- for which I paid a grand a piece.

Now, as we know, those boxes are unable to receive the new MPEG-4 signal used to transmit local stations in HD. Not only that, but my dish won’t work either. It needs to be replaced with a bigger one.

That’s a lot of work just to remain a customer. A lot of work.

So I called DirecTV this past weekend and, after bouncing around for a while in search of a live person, asked what my upgrade options are. I’ll need four of the new DirecTV branded HD PVRs and a new dish- all installed since the company that installed my current system won’t touch the new dish installations. After bouncing around a little bit more, a DirecTV representative offered the following deal: 1 of the new HD boxes for free, 3 others for $100 a piece and the new dish installed for free. Not a bad starting point, but at this point DirecTV has to understand that, because of the significant cost and hassle of replacing all of my equipment, DirecTV has no incumbency advantage over any other provider.

I reminded the DirecTV representative of how many boxes I have already bought and all the money I have spent both on equipment and programming. I said that if DirecTV would give me 2 boxes, I’d buy 2 others at the quoted price of $100 a piece. She put me on hold for a few minutes and came back and said no. Whoever is upstream from her said no (or more likely her script said to put me on hold for a while and then tell me no).

I asked, nicely, if I could speak to the person who said no. She put me on hold for a few seconds, and then someone picked up the line and as soon as I started talking, hung up on me. Since I had been asked for my telephone number and told that the nay-sayer had my account on his screen, I thought maybe they’d call me back.

It didn’t happen. I could call back, spend even more time on the phone, start over and probably get someone to again allow me to pay $300 for the equipment to replace my recently purchased and now obsolete equipment, all for the privilege of paying DirecTV $100+ per month for programming I can get via cable for the same price. And without having to wait on the phone forever just to haggle with someone over $100.

I got discouraged. It felt like there was a heavy weight on my shoulders. I felt tired. I needed a nap.

It’s not the money. It’s not even the principal. It’s just that DirecTV is making it too hard for me to remain a customer.

I’m not willing to work that hard just to pay DirecTV more money.

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Morning Reading: 9/18/06

It’s good to hear from Dave Wallace.

From the eBay as Exit Strategy Department: Madhens.

Warner Music and YouTube make a licensing deal.  TechCrunch asks the only question that matters to anyone other than YouTube: “It’s also unclear who will pay the royalty fees; that payment may come out of the advertising revenue or it may be demanded of the individual users who have put Warner music in their videos. That could get interesting.”

Seth Finkelstein on the fruits, or lack thereof, of investigative blogolism.

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Online Backup: It's the Speed and Security that Kills

TechCrunch has a post about Carbonite, an online storage seller and backup application, that also touches on other online backup solutions such as Mozy, GDrive and the upcoming Microsoft Live Drive.

In theory, online storage is a great idea.  I have used Box.Net and recently X-Drive.  All of these applications have neat features.  But when you start talking about online backup, there are two problems that none of them can solve.  Two problems that, as far as I can see, will always be an inherent limitation to online backup.

The first is speed.  Even over broadband, it takes a long, long time to upload gigabyte upon gigabyte of data.  Carbonite tries to address this problem by doing the uploading over a number of days.  I like the idea, but that only mitigates the problem.  The problem is still a problem.

Personally, I do my backup two ways.  Weekly to a networked server, using FilebackPC.  Periodically to either a removable hard drive, for big files like music, or via a DVD-R, for documents, etc.  That way I have redundant backup, both local and off-site (in a safe at my office). It’s not a perfect solution, but if you configure FilebackPC correctly and remember to backup to removable hard drives and DVDs semi-regularly, it’s pretty comprehensive.

The other problem is security.  There is some data that I am happy to backup online.  Half-written songs, letters, and other stuff that would probably bore any interloper to tears.  But I’m nowhere close to comfortable backing up bank and financial records online.  I’m sure there’s all sorts of security in place in most online storage applications, but if I’m here and it’s there, logic tells me I have added another layer of risk.

This is not to say that there isn’t a place for online storage.  But I think most of us are a long way from relying on online storage for backing up our most personal and important data.

I’m willing to be convinced otherwise, if anyone wants to give it a shot.

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Wikipedia, Arrington and the Search for Accuracy

Mike Arrington has a post over at Techcrunch in which he talks about the launch of Wikipedia competitor, Citizendium.  In this post, he is critical of Wikipedia for all sorts of things: political edits, attacking people who correct mistakes and errors in the Techcrunch listing.  I don’t know if Mike’s criticisms are accurate or not, because he doesn’t cite one specific example.  Merely his conclusions, which may be spot on or which may be akin to his conclusion that Nick Carr is an asshole.

It’s a little unsatisfying for someone to complain about political editing policies and factual inaccuracies without footnoting a single point.  It’s like saying “trust me, they are wrong when they say to trust them.”  If there are problems, and if Wikipedia needs to be fixed (as opposed to the unavoidable hiccups that occur with all truly collaborative products), then isn’t it more productive to detail them so they can be addressed, as opposed to just cheering on the competition?

About the competition.  I’d love to hear Jimmy Wales‘ perspective on the reasons leading up to the pending launch of Citizendum.  Maybe it’s all about spreading knowledge.  Or maybe it’s about the exciting and innovative funding model referenced in the FAQ.  What I really want is the one thing I’ll probably never get: transparency in motives and collaboration without exploitation or opportunism.

Don’t misunderstand me.  I’m not crapping on Citizendium.  At least not yet.  I don’t know enough about its origins, purposes and plans.

I am bothered by the idea that certain people will have greater control over topics, because that approach carries with it the prime question: who decides who decides.  Unless you can answer that question up-front and honestly, creating a hierarchy is merely replacing one problem with another one.  Only without the checks and balances that can mitigate the first problem.

Additionally, I know that when a collaborative process splits into parts, the sum of the parts is often less than a properly managed whole.  And I know that sometimes the split is about things other than a desire for harmony and accuracy.

Wikipedia is not perfect.  But it is probably the most useful of all of the Web 2.0 applications.  Rather than split into competing tribes, I wish all the chiefs could figure out a way to work for the greater good.

I can’t put my finger on it yet, but I have a hunch that’s not what’s happening here.

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Morning Reading: 9/17/06

Back in Bubble 1.0, there were a lot of hugely popular message boards (the Bubble 1.0 version of interactive blogs, etc.).  There were hugely popular boards on investing, politics, sports, etc.  For a while, we thought the sky was the limit.  Until users, moderators and third parties decided to replicate the boards and there was a gradual user-base dilution.  It was probably inevitable, but it spelled the end of the mega-boards.  Now the same thing is happening to Wikipedia.  I don’t know if this will have the same effect or not, but it’s something to keep an eye on.

Frank Gruber’s Tech Cocktail is scheduled for October 12 in Chicago.

The Mu Life on the role of tags in social bookmarking.

I have never signed the back of my credit cards.  The Straight Dope says I was right.

Google has formed a political action committee to reach out and touch some politicians.  I hope they focus on network neutrality, and not their plan to gather all our data and use it to push ads in our faces.

The Washington Post on the much ado about nothing that is movie downloads.

My 8 year old has discovered the computer.  It’s something parents need to prepare for in advance.

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The Demise of Radio

In the New York times article about the plight of traditional radio, Richard Siklos sums up the problem in one sentence, while talking about a particular commuter who has tuned out over the air stations:

Mr. Glassman, who is 51, said he turned a deaf ear to radio primarily because of the advertising and because he finds the playlists of his favorite stations too mainstream and limited.

It’s a two-headed monster that is killing traditional radio.  The first is the limited playlist that appeals to a very limited demographic.  Back in the day, narrowly crafted stations weren’t an option and so people found the station that was closest to their taste and stuck with it.  Now, thanks to satellite radio and online services, there are an infinite number of programming choices.  What used to be good enough simply isn’t any longer.

The other, of course, is advertising.  I’ve talked about it plenty- people’s lives are hectic and stressful enough these days.  They will no longer tolerate someone screaming in their ear about how some car dealer will not be undersold, etc.  People want radio, which is primarily a car-based experience, to be a relaxing influence- not just another run at their wallet.

It’s funny though.  I talked the other night about listening to WOWO at night on my little transistor radio when I was a kid.  I bet I logged hundreds of hours listening as I fell asleep.  I don’t remember the ads.  I’m sure they were there.  Maybe they have gotten more intrusive.  Maybe now that I am part of the targeted demographic, I have lost the ability to tune them out.  Maybe technology like XM and TIVO have spoiled me. I just know that I can’t remember hearing the ads I can no longer tolerate on WOWO when I was a kid.

And I know that for a few bucks a month, I don’t have to tolerate them.  That, together with portable music players and CD-Rs full of MP3s, is what will eventually spell the end of traditional radio.

Right now, the majority of radio listeners (230 million to 11 million) still suffer through traditional radio.  That tells us two things.

One, that there are other negative forces at work against traditional radio, such as the loss of greater numbers of younger listeners.  My hunch is that many of the people who listen to traditional radio are casual listeners- who have the radio on because it is the only option in the car, but who are not committed listeners.  I also expect more and more people are gravitating towards talk and sports radio, which is generally local by defintion and probably less subject to listener erosion than music radio.

Two, what is a bad situation now for traditional radio is only going to get worse and more and more people gravitate to other music sources.

HD Radio will stem the bleeding, but it won’t stop the migration to ad-free pastures.  Radio stations can go online, but that doesn’t help the narrow playlist problem.

If there’s a way for traditional radio to regain momentum, I certainly can’t see it.

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Many Gates and Many Keepers Make for a Shallow River

Shelley Powers has a post today about the Gatekeeper thing.  Sometimes I think Shelley sees herself on one side of the gate and sometimes I think she sees herself on the other.  As she points out today, the truth is probably both- there are multiple gates and, at least to some extent, everyone is a gatekeeper of sorts.

She gives a brief history of the word gatekeeper, and then says one thing I agree with and one I don’t.  Followed by a conclusory truth that I believe is undeniable

I agree with her that “the high ranked sites tend to give and withhold flow more as a matter of obtaining more for themselves than to enforce a specific viewpoint or behavior.”  It’s like anything else, those who have want to keep and those who don’t want to get.  Like democrats who were born wealthy, it’s easy to argue for the little guy- as long as the little guy stays little and the big guys stay big.

I think, however, that the desire to keep what you have- be it traffic or attention- is but one of several gatekeeping forces at play in the blogosphere.  Another is the smell of money and the desire to marginalize those who might lay stones along the road to riches.  And perhaps the most powerful force at play is the human need to belong, which carries with it its dark twin- the need to exclude others.  The same forces at work on the playground still apply in the boardroom and the blogosphere- the exclusionary tactics are just disguised a little better and cloaked in new jargon.

riverI don’t agree with Shelley’s river metaphor- at least the idea that too much water is bad for the river.  In the case of the blogosphere, the internet serves as a deep and boundless ocean just a few miles downstream.  As such, the danger is not that the river will overflow and become chaotic.  The danger is that the river will dry to a trickle- fed only by the pontification of the river kings and the chorus of sychophants.  A shallow river is bad for the river animals and, ultimately, for the ocean itself.

As evidenced by my conversational manifesto, I have largely turned a bored ear and a blind eye toward those whose primary motives are self-aggrandizement and/or making money.  No blowhards and no tupperware parties please- just good conversation.  It’s not about traffic- no one is a better conversationalist than Doc. It’s about sharing, at least in part, a basic assumption about why we blog.  I blog to talk, to have fun and to learn.  So do many others.

Shelley’s conclusory truth plays right into this point: “I have found over the years that elevation really comes from attention downstream rather than up…. We grow our audience from each other.”

Exactly.  That is the key to getting permanent, sustainable traction in the blogosphere.  I would add one additional point to this conclusion: we grow our audience from others who share our basic philosophy about blogging.  People who blog for the same purpose can form a more natural bond than a mix of bloggers, some of whom want to talk and learn and some who want only to make a buck off of the first group.

In the real world, it is a great offense to try to make money off of your friends.  So why is this tolerated, encouraged and even worshipped in parts of the blogosphere?  What do you want your blogsphere to be?  A flea circus full of gamblers and confidence men who promise, but will rarely deliver, the opportunity to join them in their greatest caper, or the functional equivalent of a comfortable living room where you can talk with friends about topics of mutual interest?

I know which one I prefer.  And it’s not the one I see so often when I pull up my feeds.

But the one I want is out there.  Waiting.  Full of people who want the same thing I do from blogging.  And who aren’t waiting to toss an ad in front of me or sell me a bill of goods.

I am putting together a plan to create a little pocket of conversation with other bloggers who share my beliefs.  Nothing formal.  Just a group of people who choose, at least for the time being, to float down the river together.

Stay tuned.

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