created aug-2005 -updated 6/06, 2/07 , 8/07
(Incorporating “MP3: return of the LP side Format!”)
Welcome to this new site dedicated to thinking about organising your music collection in virtual reality. By the time you’ve read through what we have to say we hope you will be:
Lets see if my memory is up to this
Well what’s the problem ?
I want to play something where is it –
After 10 minutes of looking –give up and go and play the latest purchase . Sound familure? My real world crimes are no different to yours i'm sure?
Well I’ve been looking for solutions to overcome the problem and the best method seemed to be MP3 because all formats can be converted to MP3 . MP3 seemed compact and to my ears (used to playing scratchy discs ) seemed fine.
To my mind copying your existing collection onto another format for your own personal use is not illegal –and that’s all I’m suggesting here.
But my organisation problems did not go away . Because I then started gaining CDr and DVD discs with 1000’s of MP3 trax .
IPOD BLUES
My next solution was an IPOD but it wasn’t too long before I again found the ipod although very useful was not big enough for my whole collection.
To me virtual digital reality is leaving old formats behind and setting up your collection on a Hard Drive .
My virtual record collection now has 4 main elements:
But the main advantage is not that virtual reality will give you space in your house , but that by playing your entire collection at 1 go, without the interference of packaging, it can send you to new virtual worlds taking your listening experience to a new level.
Virtual reality is a term open to question. It was first applied to books and games and the imaginary thought processes generated by interacting with the book/game. So is virtual reality the hardware or is it the thought processes going on in your head? The same also applies to the virtual record collection –the combination of music and music images coming from your PC will send you off to your own virtual world.
In the world of MP3 what is the ideal playback size for listening? Most people have opted to base MP3 files on the delivery mode in the real world – the single track or the CD or box set. I have come to the conclusion that the ideal listening format is the old LP side. Before you condemn the LP side as being out of date please read on. Lets have a brief look at the alternatives
The advantage comes with the LP side format when you load your collection onto your Hard Drive or IPOD . When you random play you get 3 music changes in the hour and you can get wild changes say reggae to classical to 90s hits to 30s blues and it works because after 20 mins your mind wants a dramatic change.
The other advantage with the virtual LP side is that as you start to convert all you records ( LP's , CD's , downloads etc) and then random play you can start to play the whole of your record collection, rather than forgetting where something is filed and just playing the latest purchase again. The LP side random played also makes the perfect listening experience when driving .
So my conclusion is back to the future- base your collection on the virtual LP side and start to play your whole record collection and improve your listening experience 1000%.
Don’t forget you can edit the LP -side to suit your own preferred listening tastes
We believe the solution to the problem of the individual track is overcome when individual tracks are joined together in virtual LP sides. Then you get roughly 20 minutes of related music followed by a complete change to a different style . What doesn’t work after 5 minutes works fine with 3 changes of direction in 1 hour.
I found that with a group of MP3 virtual LP sides I could play them in random play and I had the even sequence I was looking for . Every 20 minutes on random play I would be given a surprise as it moved from 1 LP side to another.
This solution worked beautifully on the IPOD when I used it as background for driving.
However for those embarrassed about calling it the LP side feel free to rename it “The 20 minute time slice” Or the “part album” . The name is not important its how it improves your listening experience that counts! .
The delivery mechanism of the 80’s and 90’s was the CD . This was usually a continuous slab of music .
So in a very short space of time the the delivery mechanism went from the 20 minutes of the LP side, to often 60 or 80 minutes .
As a value for money collector I want a full 79 minutes on the 80 minute CD I’ve paid for, but when it comes to playback I often loose my concentration after the 1st 20 minutes . Be honest are you any different?
However in virtual reality – You have a choice about the playing length of any music sequence . The MP3 format puts the listener back in control of the total length of any file . Many people who’ve ripped CD's to ALBW ( Album whole ) MP3 files have just aped the real world, when there is a better choice. Some have gone worse and put whole box sets or even career spanning discographies on single MP3 files, so the listener is locked into hours of continuous playing by the same artist.
The virtual LP side puts the listener back in control of the listening process for the 1st time in 20 years .
Don’t forget you can edit the LP -side to suit your own preferred listening tastes
However now in virtual reality as you’ve converted large parts of your collection to virtual LP -sides (approx 20 minutes) when you select the whole collection and opt for the random play button you discover:
What you’ve actually achieved by transferring all your records to virtual LP -sides and then placing them on your Hard Drive , is placing your entire collection on your record player! However you no longer need to change the record every 20 minutes because the jukebox set up for random play will do that. Also with no packaging to distract you, you can just hear the pure music.
But I want to hear the whole CD ? –That’s no problem because you can just play all sides in order. But I doubt if you will want to go back to old play formats after you’ve tried this method
The problem with a lifetime collection is you never have the time to play it from beginning to end. Size is valuable because it gives you a wide choice, but size brings major problems of organisation in the real world.
So random play is wonderful for dipping in and out of the whole collection but it can also spoil the listening experience.
single tracks – For a tight area random play can work well, say hits of a decade. However when Album tracks of all artists and all music types are random played, the experience is uneven. If say every 5 minutes tracks are selected by a 70s singer song-writer, then 1930’s jazz , then 90’s pop and so on . The end result is an uneven mess .
LP -sides – However when LP sides of 20 minutes are played the same uneven jumps between styles of music is a breath of fresh air. After 20 minutes the mind is ready to jump from blues to classical to rap . The bigger the collection the more choice every time the random play moves on . The end result is you are playing your entire collection for the 1st time in your life . And lets be clear your own collection is the best in the world so why not play it all!
However on my return he played me 1 of his new CD's by a female blues singer and about 1 hour later said “ she’s not bad, but it did go on a bit!”.
Yes I believe he’d instinctively picked up the deep seated psychological factor that after approx. 20 mins his mind wanted a change.
To my mind this is the 1st unintentional confirmation that the virtual LP side is important to any1 who wants to build an MP3 Album collection.
Since then I’ve been happy to hear him telling other collectors about the value of the virtual LP side.
If in doubt try my challenge :
Take 10 of your CD's – make it a broad range of artists and musical styles – split them up into MP3 virtual LP sides (approx every 20 mins where the silence falls) then add them to your IPOD or other MP3 player . Now set the play to random and test out the effect.
I think you will find you have an enhanced listening experience .
How long does it take? Difficult to answer that question. If you’ve already ripped off your CD's for your MP3 player, the job is half done and all you need to do is join them together. Once the process had started I was listening to completed LP sides as I ripped and combined others . The exciting background music made the hours fly by . If you love your collection the process will fly by.
Why – well Hard Drives are more reliable than in the past but you can still get disasters and no-one wants to see their collection wiped out.
Back up – Always back up your Hard Drive . My method of doing it on the cheap is every time I get about 250 LP sides I burn them to a DVD . If my Hard Drive fails I can then reload.
Hard Drive organisation. It is dangerous to keep a large number of files in a single directory . My solution was to have an Albums directory . The albums directory then had sub divisions of :
If a sub directory has more than 200 files in I create a further sub directory
This method of organisation makes it very easy to pinpoint a particular file By this method of organisation I can point my MP3 player (in my case winamp) at the Albums directory and it will pick up my entire collection in all its sub-directories
I’m very grateful to those editorials because they did help me realise I was that “software collector”, more concerned with the music in the grooves than the cut of the packaging . After all, I rationalised, I bought my 1st single and my 1st Album primarily for the musical content –not the packaging.
Now in the age of the IPOD (or other MP3 players) many more people are ripping the music off of records and becoming software collectors in its finest form- the digital music file.
The next question any mere software collector needs to ask is, “how do I put the old delivery mechanism behind me and get the best listening experience”. This sites unique selling point is something that should excite that old RC editor – back to the LP-side format – but I suspect he will foam in the mouth at the suggestion?
So the simple answer is the LP-side format works for all audio files – Yes 1 file to rule all others !
Once again I will emphasis the purpose of this site is to get the best out of your existing long term record collection by converting it to another format – the LP-Side MP3 format. It is in no way intended to encourage you into illegal downloading or ripping of others CD's
Take 10 of your CD's – make it a broad range of artists and musical styles – split them up into MP3 virtual LP sides (approx every 20 mins where the silence falls) then add them to your IPOD or other MP3 player . Now set the play to random and test out the effect.
I think you will be pleasantly surprised at the result and will find you have an enhanced listening experience. If it went well add a further 10.
. Feel free to email me and let me know how it gets along. Please tell other record collectors about this site
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In fact the IPOD is the purest form of “software collecting” so far. Everybody is happy playing the music of the Album without the packaging . Although my initial thoughts about getting my entire collection on a 30 gig, now seem a little naïve.
1 single tracks –Anyway the purpose of the IPOD is to include a large chunk of your collection to give you a wide choice. The problem is that you do not always want to select artists beginning with A and play to artists ending with Z. Random play initially seemed the answer but this randomises individual Album tracks making for an uneven playback.
2 whole Albums - Later IPOD’s I believe have a facility to play the whole Album then move randomly to the next. This however means that the IPOD will often play a slab of music for 60 or 80 minutes before moving on. Given that most people attention span is about 10 –15 minutes a lot of any Album is just missed.
Also check out The I-Tunes and ID3 Tag solutions
3 LP-side- By now you will have guessed that the solution is the LP-side of approximately 20 minutes. If the collection on your PC is already cut down to LP-sides then there will be no problem transferring them from the PC to the IPOD. In fact my experience is that transferring LP-side MP3's is quicker than Albums made up of individual tracks. The makers say album sized MP3's will use up the battery faster but I’ve no noticeable loss in battery power from the smaller LP-sides.
The main thing is the benefit. Most people play their IPOD on the move and an IPOD full of LP-sides where a new side is selected every 20 minutes, is perfect for driving. Three changes of direction in 1 hour gives the perfect balance of consistency and change.
I’ve now accepted my IPOD will never include my whole collection but then the challenge becomes to select part of my overall MP3 lp-side collection which are suitable for on the move.
My I_POD has now proved to be the key to my strategy. As my total LP-side collection expanded I was getting exciting selections every time the shuffle moved on, but I again felt I was missing something. In the end I realized my favorites were getting lost in the wider collection. My solution was to place my favorite artists and albums on my I_POD so they now come up more regularly than if I play my entire collection. The balance had been restored giving me more of my favorites when I’m on the move.
So ask yourself “why did I buy all those records in so many formats – why did I buy my whole collection if I can’t play it “ So for the 1st time with the LP-side MP3 format and random play , you can start to dip in and dip out of your collection , which obviously from your point of view is the best in the world .
So why not spend some time moving it to virtual reality and start to transform your listening experience.
While you’re in the process of transforming your tracks into virtual LP’s why not think also about making them better for YOUR virtual reality. Think about when you last played the disk and what aspects grated on you .
Here’s my personal hate list:
In all these instance I either delete the track from the virtual Album or edit the track in a wav editor . My editing might not always be perfect but it does remind me of the long boring bit I’ve been saved from hearing again !
Packaging is very colourful and can on occasions be informative.. But in the age of virtual reality it creates more problems than it solves.
The signs I detect are as follows:
However this time you do not need to buy your entire collection again-just transfer it to virtual reality.
The sound quality was good but static on the surface did lead to low level clicks and bangs on playback. Record companies made the package attractive by putting large picture on the front cover but this lead some record collector obsessive to forget that the primary purpose was the music in the tracks.
The LP went into sharp decline in the late 80’s when the CD could offer better sound quality, portability and rare tracks not previously issued. For a small band of collectors it is still out there as a niche market. Along with the 12" single (S12) modern DJ’s still use it on their record decks.
What we did not realise in the golden age of the LP was that it contained 1 of the strongest playing formats – The LP Side which by chance matched out attention span (about 20 minutes).
For those not clear – This site is not interested in the colour of the vinyl , the 12 picture on the front or the alleged better sound .
The only part of the LP we love on this site is that they came split into approximately 20 minute sides (in reality anything between 15 and 29 minutes).
However the question that has not been asked up until now is what is the ideal length of an MP3 file for listening to music in your collection.
The How
These are the methods I’ve used:
Once you start you begin to realise the potential of the images collection:
The best package I’ve found to display my collection was just sitting on my PC which is:
MS Windows /My Computer/ control panel/display/screen saver /My picture slide show option,
My picture slide show option is pointed at the directory where I store all my music images. The screensaver then kicks in with either all images random played or a specific music directory if I want to tie in the music and the images.
The potential of the system is enormous:
Thousands of images for virtually no space cost
CD and LP images are size levelled out.
You can collect different images by your favourite artist long after you’ve collected all their music. The best music shots are often found on records.
Music posters in the real world cost a lot of money, occupy wall space and fade over time. Virtual music posters just come round again when you select them.
You’ve collected all the cd mp3 tracks you need by an artist . Why not collect all the S7 and 78 record labels images ?
My virtual music images collection starts to play the moment my windows screen saver kicks in. The virtual collection is a lot richer than a real world record collection, which remains locked up in ugly storage cabinets.
Real world rules don’t apply!
In the real world you are restricted to 1 or 2 images per record. In virtual reality there are no such restrictions so lets make some suggestions:
One of the things I thought I did wrong with the last record, is I think it was too long and what I was trying to do was give people as much for their money as possible . I think its difficult, because as an artist you want to give people their moneys worth. In a lot of ways peoples attention span does not last that long and what was so great about vinyl records was that you had that forced gap. And so you’d listen for 20 minutes, then you’d go off and make a cup of tea or something –then turn it over or put another record on . You had that enforced break between the 2 sides which I think was a more comfortable length of music to listen to.
Kate Bush BBC Radio 2 7/11/05
Has she read our page or did she come to the same conclusions independantly?
Stuart Murdock of Bell& Sebastian
“Vinyl is a good length, 2 sides, 5 or 6 songs (record collector 4/06)”
Sonic Youth
“You never get to the end of a CD, so we made the decision to make Albums closer to the experience of listening to vinyl (record collector 5/06)”
The answer is simple. Stephen Islip argues, and he's set up a whole web page to describe in detail what he means, . Stephen states the case for going back to 'sides', IE creating 30 minute-ish, multi-track MP3s that play back whole sides - as opposed to individual tracks - of your old vinyl Albums when you switch on your iPod and set it to 'Shuffle'.
As a result of following Stephen's guidelines you can relax and get into, for example, all of side one of Peter Gabriel's 1978 epic Scratch (aka Peter Gabriel II). Instead of going straight into something completely different after one song, you can enjoy the whole set as it was meant to be and then -at a point that the musician would have decided (i.e. where they decided to put the 'end of side one finale'] you can then move on to something completely different. Perhaps side two of Sgt. Pepper which I - and I don't think this will cause much contention - have always found by far the best.' "The best format for the MP3 age is the old LP-side." Mr Islip, and he really is committed to his cause, "As far as I'm aware my approach is unique -I can't find any other collector using the LP side on their iPod for instance." Will it catch on? We shall see!"
Record Collector UK -Oct -05
In other words they are perfect as part of a set sequence but when they are ripped out of context and random played their weaknesses are exposed . The solution of course is to restore them to their set sequence as LP-sides then random play the lp-sides
“ It is possible to group CD tracks by LP-side without using a program like MediaJoin to make one file. Instead, I selected the block of songs already imported into iTunes, and in the 'Get Info' option for the block selection, renamed the Album title as ' Album Name - Side 1'. Then the next block would be ' Album Name - Side 2', and so on.
Now when you shuffle your iPod at the Album level, you will get the same effect as having a single file. But you also have the added benefit of retaining the track titles. For me, the titles are something I like to refer to even after a few plays. This approach works best for CDs imported automatically into iTunes. “
ID3 Tag Solution
I’m sure this solution would work and suggest for anybody not using I-Tunes, album titles could be altered in the same way by use of an ID3 mp3 file tagger. There are numerous ID3 tagger programmes available in freeware and shareware on the web.
Either solution will give you individual tracks grouped into LP-sides. So next time you Album shuffle your I-POD (or other MP3 player) you will get 20 minutes of play with individual tracks.
Now all these recordings are converted into lp-side files of approximately 20 minutes and sitting on your Hard Drive (or IPOD ). You know it’s the best collection in the world –you spent years collecting it. So instead of just playing the latest purchase once again – why not give the whole collection a spin. YES THE WHOLE COLLECTION.
Set the Random play going and suddenly you get:
Each 1 when it starts is a surprise and after 1 hour, you realise what a wonderful collection it is and you’re now ready to keep playing for another hour. Your huge collection gives you the greatest variety of surprises, but because you are the gatekeeper – no bad surprises.
You’ve suddenly found the listening experience to surpass the LP and CD ages – its 1 you will never tire of.
Welcome to the ultimate listening experience of the digital age and it’s all yours.
I’m grateful to the Record Collector (UK) Magazine who in their The Collector column regularly feature addicts who’ve collected between 10 and 20,000 records. They always talk about picture discs, but never recall the downside. Let’s have a look at some of their main claims:
The trouble here is collectors have forgotten that the primary purpose of a record collection is to play it. What has happened in the above examples is the old formats and packaging have become physical barriers, to playing the whole record collection
Virtual collectors answer
As we’ve recommended in other sections the virtual record collection is:
Until you’ve experienced the power of playing your whole collection, you do not realise the unique and exciting experience you’ve been missing.
Ask yourself why invest so much money in your record collection, if not to play it.
Record collectors in the past have always resisted change when they fear their past collections are being written off. Not with MP3 .The old style record collection is a super base for forming a virtual collection, but old formats need to be ripped and left behind, if the collector wants to form a virtual record collection fit for new millennium.
In this form the album was much loved, but was that really not for its sound quality, but the fact that the listener got a choice of programme after 20 minutes, which tied in with his/her attention span .
When the album moved to the CD initially listeners were excited that they didn’t have to leave their chair after 20 minutes and turn over a side. Then to persuade collectors to re-buy old stock again they were offered extra tracks, then whole albums.
On top of this the expectation then became that artists with new records, would offer 60 minutes. While some world class artists could deliver, most just offered extra filler.
The outcome was every time an album went on the CD player, the expectation was a commitment to that record for 60 minutes plus. However the average listeners attention span was exhausted after 20 minutes.
Learned professors carried out in-depth surveys and discovered that listeners were unhappy with digital music. However the thing they failed to notice was it might well have been the bloated album that was being rejected, because it went way outside the average listeners attention span .
It won’t surprise any reader here if we say we have found the solution –cut up bloated albums into MP3 LP-sides.
Place all of these on 1 huge USB Hard Drive and hit the random play (shuffle button) and you will start to play the video collection of your life.
As with the musical side the length of time that any 1 section lasts for is a key point. This is especially the case with long concerts. I now restrict concert sections to no more than 20 minutes, so this guarantees at least 3 changes per hour.
The bigger your collection , the more variety you have
This means that within any hour of play, I get a random selection of my favourite videos –again a musical experience only available when your whole collection resides on a Hard Drive .
I use the winamp to play my collection because it can play everything on my Hard Drive and can play both mpg and avi files. I use various mpg and avi editors to cut the files down to the correct size for my collection.
These dinos always go on to claim the sound of earlier formats was superior to today’s sounds but can never demonstrate the results of blind tests to prove their case
I have no difficulty in recognising the vinyl dinos traits, having been a collector for more than 40 years and have fallen for all the above at some stage.
Traditional format collecting is not very earth friendly. Plastic and alloy discs require:
Finally the purchases then have to be stored on racks hacked down from fast disappearing rain forests.
The alternative is a virtual record collection of music and picture files held on a Hard Drive (the modern equivalent of a record deck). A much lower carbon footprint I’m sure. Of course it would help if the download companies priced their tracks according to the quality of product they are offering (say no more than 10p per track) then all collectors could jump on board, to the greener virtual economy.
(this 1st appeared in Record Collector letters Column in September 2007)
Lets be clear no sound is perfect unless you have the original artist performing before you in your front room.
All records were made by the record industry as cheap clones to play on cheap clone players (like the classic Dansett so beloved on vinyl dinos). Producers introduced compression and echo and other tricks overcome the inadequacies.
What our Dino friends with such a hatred of “digital sounds” forget is that any record (LP, Cd, whatever) mastered or re-mastered in the last 15 years has been digitally re-mastered.
They claim MP3 plays poorly when pumped through huge systems. My answer is that in a domestic situation where most collectors play (the home, the car, walking) mp3 sounds fine. Rather than looking for always the best, I adopt the approach “is it good enough for me” . If it sounds OK to me (and to millions of other MP3 users) then a few sound obsessives are of no interest to me.
Although as we’ve already stated claims about perfect sound are subjective, I think we need to explore vinyl dinos claims to “perfect analogue sound from LP’s, if we ignore clicks and bangs”
Now these people seems to sit in sound proof rooms in their homes saying “that’s a perfect sound, that’s an inadequate sound”.
Me and millions of collectors live in the real world where the following are the norm:
I take all the above and many more imperfect opportunities to play my record collection in the real world. Despite all the above interventions I still enjoy it. If I waited for perfect album on a perfect sound system my collection would never get played.
So ask yourself is MP3 (with its many different levels of sound quality) good enough for you?
Some of the above methods are illegal and are not to be encouraged.
However using the above methods the digital collector can build up a HUGE collection.
So what does all the advise say about when you have ripped a CD – burn it to another CD –ROM – Why. Burning new CD’s just increases your storage problems and makes it impossible to find the 1 you want to play.
We say keep all your records as virtual records on your Hard Drive then you can start to take your collecting to a new level by starting to play your whole collection as a virtual record collection.
If a collector wants variety and choice, all without packaging storage and filing systems getting in the way of the listening experience, the hard drive is the only solution.
Hard drives are getting bigger while prices seem to halve every 2 years. Hard drives are also more reliable than in the past, but safety first measures still need to be adopted
While collections can be placed on the PC hard drive it actually is easier to buy a separate USB hard drive which makes your collection more portable.
Let’s take the 500 GB USB hard drive which can be purchased on special offer for as little as £75. This will store a massive 9700 60 minute albums (ie about a years worth of unrepeated play) or 25 days of video play.
But if the 500 GB drive is not big enough the 1000 GB drive at £200 is now available.
However storage alone would be boring. The value of the hard drive is that you can point your MP3 player at the directory on the hard drive where all your files are stored, get it to load them all, then play your whole collection.
This takes your musical experience to a new level. Never before, have you been able to play your entire collection without the interference of technology or packaging, an entirely new and liberating experience.
We suggest you adopt random play and the MP3 LP side format to get the most out of your collection, but neither is essential.
see also Dreams do come true!
Now with a much larger collection I can place my entire collection on the record deck( a USB Hard Drive ) and play the whole lot in 1 go, a dream come true. .