Audio Equipment / Software

[BigFatLazyAss]

Hi Guys,
I am interested in what Kind of equipment (do you think) is the best, ect.

I recently got the "Logitech-680" speaker system for the living room. After getting it set up I realized that only two little speakers & the base speaker was all I was getting though my computer. (Still sounded awsome) Now I am installing "SoundBlaster Audigy MP3+ " sound card to make it work all the speakers. (I hope)

Have loaded all 400 CD's onto computer now, and recently bought "Cakewalk - Pyro-2003" to put my 1500 LP albums onto computer. Not sure how well this will work, but I am trying.

I am also thinking of just building another computer for all my music and networking it (so it doesn't mess up my business computer) to my main computer. Ideas???

I am interested in your opinion. :fire

[method77]

first of all, share your mp3s and second,
get an external hard drive for your music if you don't want to mess up your business pc. Even though I can't see how it can mess it up.

[rainbowdemon]

"Cakewalk - Pyro-2003 What is this? I too have a lot of vinyl lp's I would like to convert to mp3's. I understand that MusicMatch Jukebox is capable of this. I have not tried it yet. Have not had the chance yet.

[method77]

Originally posted by rainbowdemon
What is this? I too have a lot of vinyl lp's I would like to convert to mp3's. I understand that MusicMatch Jukebox is capable of this. I have not tried it yet. Have not had the chance yet. try cool edit (http://www.syntrillium.com/)

[begoodbebad]

I can only say what keeps me happy for music. A soundcard puts a load on your system but unless you have a slow CPU and only a little RAM you shouldn't notice anything. I haven't with my Audigy. The Audigy card is very good , but you need good luck if you are going to use Creative's buggy software. It might be best to just load the drivers and leave the rest. Their audio player sounds excellent but it is the only software that has ever caused me to make a recovery re install of XP. If you scan a folder for media tracks to add to your library and it finds a file type it doesn't recognise does it ignore it like every other player does? No, it throws a fit and freezes. And if you're scanning your whole music collection at once and it has lots of albumwraps, oggs, cd cover art etc it hates you in a big way and kills your machine. Use with care! I still use it tho ...it sounds so good...
If you really care about your ears you could run the audio from your Audigy into a good quality stereo hi fi amplifier and a set of quality speakers. This is going to sound much much better than any dedicated PC speaker packages for music but obviously not for games or for DVD with 5.1 soundtracks. It is easy to run a digital cable to your Logitech speaker system for gaming/surround sound and also an analog lead to your hi fi for stereo music, switching between the two is just a couple of mouseclicks. The Audigy has an extremely good DAC so using the analog output is really best for music (unless you have some awesome high end HT amp or seperate DAC).
I can't see that you neccessarily need a different PC for your music files. An extra hard drive just for your music may be a better solution. With the amount of CDs and converted LPs maybe you should start with a 120 Gig drive.
You're going to love having all your sounds on your computer...it is a lot of work to start with and then its sweet.
400 CDs? Don't forget to share them!

[rainbowdemon]

Originally posted by method77
try cool edit (http://www.syntrillium.com/) Looks like a good site. Some useful tools there. I'm going to try one for the lp's. The problem is this is going to be very time-consuming. As you probably know, they can't be ripped at 16x or so like a cd. And I have a bunch of them. But on the bright side, I do share!! Thanks for the link. btw Even found a set of wind chimes on this siteThe wife says "they sound pretty".

[CCSDUDE]

Ahmmm... *get* Cool Edit Pro 2000 from 'somewhere' (think about the site your on...heh)

Then download this program...

http://www.dago.pmp.com.pl/messer/

I LOVE this app...it'll encode to mp3 via LAME on the fly...or wav so you can play with a copy thats not lossy.

After you 'rip' your LP's open Cool Edit Pro and clean it up if theres hiss and pops....normalize the sound if you wish...then save them as WAV's. I can't stress this enough..DO NOT use CEP's mp3 encoder...it's awful.

After that you could use JetAudio (someone give 'em a link please?) to convert from Wav to OGG (OGG at 450kbs is a bit bigger then 320kbs mp3's but the quality is well worth it).

Winamp 2.81 will play OGG's right outta the box....

Now it'll be a bit more work to convert the stuff to CD Audio unless you save the wavs...but you can always convert the ogg's back to wav via JetAudio then burn your discs and delete the wav copies.

Good Luck dude...and SHARE your stuff! Maybe Bit Torrent LP 'packs' or DC hubs...shy away from Kazaa for sharing as OGG's won't even come up as audio and it's not worthy of such a fine collection. :wings

[BigFatLazyAss]

Thanks Guys,
This info I can use .... I guess I am just getting Ideas on how to progress from here. I got my first computer in 98, before then I just didn't realize what it was all about. Since then I have pretty much become a nut about computers, soaking up what knowledge I can .... a friend of mine is a computer expert that helps me understand a lot. One bit of advise was to install a "mirror" drive & ghost to it. This is my third machine since '98 & this one I keep upgrading. 2- 60gig HD / 256 ram / 1-gig CPU AMD ...... This one is a HP and has had the vidio card burned out, CD player bit the dust, Fans bit the dust ...... After this, I am building my next one .... (with a little help from my friends)

So, I am thinking .... "What do I want in a stereo PC System ?,,,,," lots of storage space, quick responce, GREAT SOUNDS, ........... I know there is more to it than this ... Not to lose my songs to a virus .... my entire system down .... This is going to be lots of work (but worth it) just don't want to lose it somehow. Also really not wanting to slow down my multi-tasking of business .... It own CPU, Ram, HD ..... might be worth it .... maybe there are things I don't need, like video card since I may network it to this computer .... so maybe I can cheapen down but keep top notch parts that I use. I guess viruses might be still a threat (use Norton though). Ideas?

My CD's .... its just stuff already out there ....."But" my LP's .... stuff I can't find anymore .... I have been collecting Blues Greats & some of the old early rock & roll .... Thats what got me into p2p .... put in just a name of one song & find 50 people who have recorded it. Finding what I don't have ..... and some new ones. ..... "But" I also have about 100 cassettes of live Greatful Dead recordings, some of there Europe tour, one of a 1971 Filmont, ect. ..... I have been wanting to save these, but did not have the tech-knowledge-gee-whiz to do it. In talking to a recording enginer, he sugested I take the tapes out of their cases & into new ones to improve the quality. Then use a remixer to take out the flaws .... Sounds like a lot of work, but a good hobbie. Ideas?

As far as "Cakewalk Pyro 2003" ..... I think this is their newest version. You can burn CD's, copy from anything, use it like a player. It needs an update before instalation to DirectX9 or it won't install. It was built for 8.1 or something ..... after that it seems to be working fine .... but I did just load it tonight. (That is why it is 2:am here, hAhA) The company is making some great claims & it is better than Media player-9 ....I think ... just realized tonight it was recording my files in wav or some weird MP_9 format. Also have not liked "Sonys B's Gold" CD burning software. My original sofeware quit working after the new Burner went in.

God, I got to get to bed .... Later :fire

[serrebi101]

All I can recondmend is at least a 60gb hard drive, and a proccessor of at least 2ghz. Maybe bigger hard drive, don't know how many songs you wanna rip, and what bit rate, but I'd get a external drive for that stuff, I have a funny feeling that it'll be alot, lol.

[CCSDUDE]

60gb? Sorry...but that's fucking weak...lol

Unless you're not in the states...

If you are I'd suggest getting a membership or using the one you have to places like Costco or Sam's and pick up 2 HD's there.

Like I've said a few times already I picked up two 160gb HD's at a great price. By now if they have any left they should be in the 90-120 dollar range. So you're better off spending whatever cash you have on a pair of big ass WD special edition w/ 8mb cache drives and mirroring them via ghost or just buying one drive...creating a shitload of wavs. Do like 5 LP's in a sitting/weekend then once you're done...shut the player down and get to work on cleaning up the wav's if need be then listening to them all to make sure they sound good then...lol getting LAME or Blade mp3 dll/exe files and picking up the LAME/Blade GUI frontend and batch encoding your files. Once you've done all that sort the stuff out into folders and burn 700mb discs...or if you choose to get a DVDRW drive pack a 4.7gb disc fulla stuff then store them away for safe keeping and jam to the tunes you decide to leave on the HD. ...might actually be wise to buy two 160gigers and store all your listening stuff on D:\ :wings

I'd also say...go for a P4 if your not really tech savvy as AMD XP's tend to get really fucking hot if you don't have a really smooth fan system and a kick ass heatsink that's applied in the correct manner. The shitty white paste that comes with a new fan...or the putty on the stock AMD heatsink WON'T keep it cool enough for comfort and a long lasting CPU.