Topic: Mentor Call For Help

[admkrk]

Come on, tracking takes about 5 or 10 minutes for an hour set, tops. Unless the band never stops and plays a bunch of instrumentals. Naming the tracks, on the other hand...

[grawk]

it's only easy if it doesn't segue into the next song.  I'm mostly recording bands that don't do much exploration these days, but back in the day, there'd be shows where I'd have to flip mid jam because there were NO song breaks.

Anyway, I try not to upload shows without having tracked them to the best of my ability, but I get not wanting to do that, also.  Recording is a completely different skillset than editing and tracking.

[mrfender]

And while we're going down the "track or not" rabbit hole.  If you are going to share your shows, can we please name them something that people can quickly comprehend?

UTOO1987BBSssonsVlum5OldGryWhstlTstBlmralTVStdosBlfstBrtin__3-8-1987_atse
WZKingCat
TALLMNBRTHRSBND1980CpitlThtrPssicNJ, 1-5-1980 atse
bf2000-02-05.sbd.flac16
tab2024-04-30.flac16
2010-04-17 [  A1  ] Newport Music Hall, Columbus, Ohio

Yes, I'm very thankful these were taped AND shared but ...

I may not get around to listening to a show right away and when I do, I have to scratch my head for a minute trying to determine what band it is (and probably rename).  I think we're well past the point of needing to obfuscate the band/venue/date shows, aren't we ? (yes most are older shows but it's still being done)

[Gutbucket]

Maybe an idea for a compromise: I have had cases in the past where a friend had problems with "skips" when playing back tracks compressed with Samplitude's FLAC export feature. Or I have sent recordings to bands who then removed parts of the recording or changed the beginnings of some tracks. In these cases, it has proved useful for me to send a single wav or FLAC file and include a CUE sheet. This gives the recipient the option of splitting the tracks themselves at the same points as me or defining their own track boundaries.

I don't want to get to OT with this or rustle feathers, but it dovetails with CUE sheets. I wish we had sub-index functionality within each track, like was on some early CDs, particularly classical recordings. Those sub-markers within a track would be very useful at times.  And to my way of thinking, conceptually at least, a cue-sheet with track markers and subindex markers seems the best way to split up and tag what is essentially a single continuous recording of a live music performance set.  The choice of LMA downloads could include the complete set as a single file + CUE sheet, or individual tracks from that split out by that CUE sheet info.  The other cool thing about a CUE sheet is that the track split points are easily modified by simply editing the txt info on the sheet.  I tend to get annoyed somewhat by track marker placements that differ from what I'd prefer, yet almost never go to the effort to retrack split files.  But if there were sub-indexes at, say, the start and stop of banter (as well as any notable points of interest within a song), different track split preferences could be easily accommodated by simply reassigning the existing time-stamp markers. Would make it easy to do stuff like switching to keeping the banter about the upcoming song at the start of that song, rather than it being orphaned at the end of the last track on a different file, or the other way around. And for anyone that wanted to fix the track marker that cut off the count in or whatever, easy fix. Tracked and tagged, but with additional freedom.

Ok I'll shut up now and recall the magic feeling of the working the old cassette auto-seek function.

[aaronji]

It's easy enough to combine the files, which will add markers, and then move/add markers as necessary. Certainly easier than de novo tracking a download. Personally, I will track as I see fit and you are free to re-do it if you'd like. I am definitely not splitting and adding potential alternative split points.

[Gutbucket]

Not suggesting you or anyone actually add sub-markers for alternative split points or anything else. Just talking out loud about how things could have evolved to provide additional options in support of live music recordings, rather than studio released recordings that generally feature fully separated songs.  As mentioned, I can't be bothered to re-combine files just to shift markers around, but if I could simply edit existing marker timings on a cue sheet I'd do that more often. 

Meh, it is what it is.  Totally agreed that adding markers to an untracked set via file splits OR a cue sheet is in no way ideal, especially for tapers who make the full effort on their own uploads.  ..and stand by the point that an untracked recording is better than none at all.

Aside- The old cassette auto-seek function I mentioned returned in the form of the "split on interval" function in CD Wave Editor.  I never use it because I want to set markers manually by ear.  Do any of you guys use it to start and then manually adjust/add markers as needed?  I think it has a detector threshold adjustment if I recall, but it always seemed to me it would be tricky to get that to work reliably for any live music set.

[grawk]

I'd love the ability to just upload the 1 big file plus cue sheet, as that'd save me a step in my process

[vanark]

I'd love the ability to just upload the 1 big file plus cue sheet, as that'd save me a step in my process

How long does that step really take? Elapsed time 2-3 minutes? Actual effort time 15 seconds? I use the few minutes to go create a cover image that I can tag the FLACs with, so it really doesn't cost me any additional time to save as individual files. Well, 15-20 seconds.

[grawk]

it's not a huge deal.  Just if I were picking features, that's one I'd pick