Home   Forum   Wiki   Notes   Register   FAQ   Sitemap   About Us   Contact Us  

Technical issues on digitizing, cataloging, streaming/serving

Topic started by venkat (@ 66.185.85.78) on Sat Jun 28 23:42:16 EDT 2003.
All times in EST +10:30 for IST.

Hi all,

I wish to discuss some simple ideas for home music server here. Some of the good software for doing digitization/ripping. Setting up a LAN music server, etc.

Share your thoughts here.
Venkat (Toronto)

---

Responses:

• From: venkat (@ 66.185.85.78) on: Sun Jun 29 00:13:29 EDT 2003
  
  Here we go!
  
  1. Getting it there
  
  Easy way to enter the MP3 world is to rip on of the audio CD you already may have. IMHO the absolute essential tool fro a new comer is (http://www.dbpoweramp.com). This is sleek, feature-packed, no nag shareware. You may be able to add a lot of plug-ins and codecs and it is very fast in ripping CDs.
  
  Next step is to try converting your old tape into MP3. I used to use Audacity under Linux (there is a Windows port available). It is free and GPLed. (http://audacity.sourceforge.net/). I do not know any other tool that is free that can do this (there always is the old fashioned way of doing this - hook up your tape/spool/vinyl player to the Line-in of your soundcard, record .wav use a converter like dB Power Amp to compress to MP3). But it is slow.
  
  I recently bought a Creative Audigy 2 Platinum soundcard. It came with a line-in recorder that converts to MP3 and saves. But, I am not very happy. I got CoolEdit 2000 which is good. Will compare Audigy-CoolEdit-GoldWave sometime later.
  
  2. Cataloging
  
  Most of the people do not properly catalog their collections, for me it is a must. I try to properly add ID3 tags to my mp3 files. There is an excellent tool, once again under GPL, available. Try http://mp3bookhelper.sourceforge.net. You can batch edit tags and easily convert tags from old formats. It is real fast with this free tool (I knew tonnes of other free tag editors, but this one has erased all their names from my memory).
  
  3. Setting up your front-end for the collection
  
  Now, that you have them and know how to find them (as you have properly tagged them), the next step is to have a neat tool from where you can pull out song at your will (say all songs that came in 1981, or all songs of SPB and Vasantha,...). You need a search tool for this. In the past I was using MusicMatch My Library feature. As my collection grow bigger, this is very difficult to use. I then moved to set up a web based personal juke box. The first tool that I tried was Andromeda (http://www.turnstyle.com/andromeda/meta.asp?p=%2Faudio). Though it is simple to use, this has a serious security flaw in design (will explain to it at a later date).
  
  
• From: venkat (@ 66.185.85.78) on: Sun Jun 29 00:19:57 EDT 2003
  
  Continued ...
  
  4. Accessing your collection everywhere
  
  I am currently using Netjuke (http://netjuke.sourceforge.net), this is neat, but requires LAMP (Linux-PHP-Apache-MySQL) in place. There is another tool called Venus Music Server that works exactly like Andromeda, but is secure (and free, Andromeda isn't). Check http://venusmusic.sourceforge.net).
  
  Now, I have access to my personal collection in three rooms (through various PCs) in my house. even in my work place.
  
  5. And more music
  
  Then the last piece of the puzzle is to access my personal MP3 library from my home music hi-fi system. Luckily for me, I got a wireless router as a package with my laptop from my employer. So, I have a wireless network at home. Now, I pulled out a old Dell (MMX 233) laptop discarded (it is 2.5 times heavier than my Vaio), I picked it up, loaded Win ME and installed a wireless card. I placed it on the top of my home audio system (where people usually have turntable). Connect the speaker output from the laptop to the amplifier line-in. Voila, I now have access to all my peronal collection, from my personal home file server, I also have access to all Internet Music (stream, radios, ...).
  
  Sure this can be improved. Let me know if there are better tools for all/any of these. Also let us discuss these things in little more details.
  
  
• From: venkat (@ 66.185.85.78) on: Sun Jun 29 00:20:06 EDT 2003
  
  Continued ...
  
  4. Accessing your collection everywhere
  
  I am currently using Netjuke (http://netjuke.sourceforge.net), this is neat, but requires LAMP (Linux-PHP-Apache-MySQL) in place. There is another tool called Venus Music Server that works exactly like Andromeda, but is secure (and free, Andromeda isn't). Check http://venusmusic.sourceforge.net).
  
  Now, I have access to my personal collection in three rooms (through various PCs) in my house. even in my work place.
  
  5. And more music
  
  Then the last piece of the puzzle is to access my personal MP3 library from my home music hi-fi system. Luckily for me, I got a wireless router as a package with my laptop from my employer. So, I have a wireless network at home. Now, I pulled out a old Dell (MMX 233) laptop discarded (it is 2.5 times heavier than my Vaio), I picked it up, loaded Win ME and installed a wireless card. I placed it on the top of my home audio system (where people usually have turntable). Connect the speaker output from the laptop to the amplifier line-in. Voila, I now have access to all my peronal collection, from my personal home file server, I also have access to all Internet Music (stream, radios, ...).
  
  Sure this can be improved. Let me know if there are better tools for all/any of these. Also let us discuss these things in little more details.
  
  
• From: venkat (@ 66.185.85.78) on: Sun Jun 29 00:36:26 EDT 2003
  
  {\begin Disclaimer}
  
  It is not my intention to teach how to pirate music or distribute through the Internet. The idea is to discuss digitizing old music (preserve it from extinction) and setting up a personal music server that can be access inside your home and elsewhere personally through Internet.
  {\end disclaimer}
  
  The tools I use are all low cost (or free), but no compromise is made on the quality. All hardware discussed are old discarded PCs and software are mostly GPLed. I welcome people to discuss their commerical tools here.
  
  I sincerely believe that digitizing some old music (esp. Indian music - Carnatic, TFM,...), properly cataloging and distributing to avid music enthusiasts is a great service (No, it is not piracy! AFAIK, HMV/EMI/Columbia/Inreco/Polydor/Echo... have no intention to do this job. This is also true of All India Radio that holds enormous copyrighted music). We should set some local rules in India that will move all music to public domain after 20 years.
  
  
• From: sriram (@ 63.246.166.131) on: Sun Jun 29 02:55:09 EDT 2003
  
  good thread. I've a creative audigy platinum ex soundcard. the EX version came with a lot of music software for editing, recording and what not, including a freeware version of Fruity Loops, which I believe is used by our amateur composers here.
  
  I haven't really gotten down to using the card or the software. I'm just setting up my audio system. Venkat or anyone else, please include information on good turntables & shops that sell old LPs.
  reg. pulling out a song at will, Windoze Media Player 9 series have a pretty good cataloging feature and tag editor. I'm looking for a tool for editing filenames based on ID3 tags. I don't want to write scripts to do that. besides, I don't know how :)
  
  
• From: sriram (@ 63.246.166.131) on: Sun Jun 29 02:56:44 EDT 2003
  
  Saravanan mentioned in the SOTD thread that sk improved the quality of his tape-to-mp3 song. sk, can you please tell us how?
  
  
• From: venkat (@ 66.185.85.78) on: Sun Jun 29 07:59:17 EDT 2003
  
  sriram - for ID3 tag editing try MP3BookHelper, it is very easy to use (Windows based) with simple GUI. I use this to batch edit the common info. for the whole album and then individually add missing info. No script writing is needed. Besides, for those interested, meta info. like lyrics, can be added (by cutting from TFM archieves and pasting it here).
  
  Will write about cleaning tapes soon.
  
  
• From: isainanban (@ 68.77.7.80) on: Sun Jun 29 14:50:52 EDT 2003
  
  Venkat, is it not a better idea to use a analog to digital converter outside the soundcard, and connect the ad converter to the line-in? this way the RF insider the computer don't mess up the sound card conversion of the tape audio to digital. any ideas on this?
  
  
• From: venkat (@ 24.156.106.249) on: Sun Jun 29 20:22:16 EDT 2003
  
  isainanban - No, that is not a big problem. What you need to do is to record about 4 seconds of silence before or after the song with the same tape (it is usually comes easily as gap between recordings if you have the original tape). Then pick up the noise profile from this and subtract this from the song. It is also possible to save the noise profile for the tape and use it for the whole tape.
  
  Some of the new soundcards, like my audigy have surprisingly low hum when doing line recording.
  
  BTW, how do you do an AD conversion outside the PC? Do you mean using something like a battery operated MP3 player (like Nomad Jukebox)? I have never tried this one. Any users of Jukebox?
  
  My biggest frustration is that I have all my colletion in Minidiscs (ATRAC compression). Sony does not permit bidirectional transfer (I have a digital line-in, but only analog line out.
  
  
• From: isai nanban (@ 68.77.7.80) on: Sun Jun 29 21:28:14 EDT 2003
  
  venkat: this is just from a book. "rack mounted box and card that combine the ADC and digital input in one step. the box is SeaSound Solo.... has a pair of mic inputs, line inputs, balanced connections, headphone amps and 24 bit 96khz capability...." it seems if you install a card to grab the AES/EBU or S/PDIF digital audio signal, for grabbing a das you need a ADC as mentioned above.....
  
  the book is Digital AUdio by Russ Haines
  
  
• From: bb (@ 206.154.118.2) on: Mon Jun 30 19:21:30 EDT 2003
  
  The biggest problem is with cataloging and backup. I am past the stage where CD backups are useful. Addign id3 v2 tags is painful, especially with the amount of time taken to collect the metadata. What we need is a simple mysql db, something like CDDB, where information can be entered once and can be accessed by anyone. I am open to putting out the dhool db for that purpose, as long as there are enough volunteers to update information on each song. Then, we can execute complex queries like 'song based on xx raga starring yyy that came in zzz year'.
  i think doing id3 v2 tags is a waste of time. if you are doing id3 v1 tags, don't even bother.
  
  
• From: venkat (@ 66.185.85.78) on: Mon Jun 30 22:12:27 EDT 2003
  
  bb - vaayaa vaa! I was expecting this from someone. Yes. ID3 tags are not suitable for cataloging Film music (almost 95% of popular, non classical Indian music is here). We need a tagging scheme unique to our music. This will also enable modifying opensource jukeboxes like netjuke personalized to our queries. So, what is needed, ideally, is a unique TFMDB, like CCDB, with open structure and later a modified jukebox program for everyone's use.
  
  But, I am not a programmer (everytime I create a db for my netjuke, gallery or postnuke site, I keep my cue sheet "grant all privileges..." on my left thigh and copy that:)
  
  So, in the absence of anything else suitable I have adopted id3v2 and MP3bookhelper for tagging and mining.
  
  And hey, who is going to bell the cat? newtfmpage is the only trendsetter in these things, so I am looking forward. (we may even restrict editing access to few knowledgeable guys out there, while everyone can execute it). But, I believe a front end should go with this for playing music.
  
  

---

List all pages of this thread

Post comments