Grateful Dead

I posted this in another section of the forum where people were talking about continuing to trade tapes and thought it would be relevant here. ** I saw a tape converter recently and was wondering if anyone had experimented with these. It plugs into your computer and converts the audio to mp3 files. I'm not sure how it would work with Dead shows though as I'm sure the converter would have difficulty picking out tracks with either an audience bootleg or songs running into each other. Anyone have experience with these?? Here's a link if you are interested: http://www.thinkgeek.com/computing/drives/7a8d/ I have never tried this device nor am I promoting it in any way. Just wondering.

...Actually the plunge took me... Kinda like the Dead...lol... As mentioned in another thread, I went on vacation and my basement flooded and took out all my 88-90 tapes and some of my 95s Over 100 tapes went swimming. I have 4 computers and high speed access and have been doing other things. I never got around to upgrading my material and then it hit me like a flood...yuk yuk...Time to get it going... I will play around more as time permits.. Eric

...shall we go, you and I while we can... It's the quality of the sites you go to now. I'd start with bt. etree.org. to get files in shorten (.shn) or FLAC format. After you download them, you can play them through a winamp download on your computer, or download free file uncompressors, and burn them to CD as.wav files. Get mkw.act for shorten files or FLAC for flac, both free. Also, start practicing good manners by leaving files open on the download client until the ratio hits 1.00. All that means is you shared with someone else as much as you took. You took the plunge, Eric, good for you!

I DLd BitTorrent last night onto the mac (OSx) and DLd 2 shows. I was certainly impressed by the ease. The thing that quickly turned me off to this was the quality. It sucked! I figued the MP3 format might be a little lossy but the songs I was listening to sounded like someone was holding a cell phone to my ear. Is this the case with this type of data transmissions, or was it a fluke? - Still thinking about transferring my own tapes untill something else easier comes along..... Eric

I started poking around last night looking into putting linux on a older system I blew the dust off of (yet another project started) in the process of starting this, I found out that the linux open CD iso requires a checksum to make sure the download is not corrupt. In reading about this, I came across the infamous Bit Torrent program which Ive seen many folks in GD land use to trade online. Maybe as Paisley says, "There is incentive"...I'm still researching it all but you might be correct in that doing the online downloading my be quicker and better sounding than transferring tapes. - to be continued... Eric

This is in response to XJ7XJ. I had an issue once upon a time where I could only pick up one channel when trying to recording from tape deck to pc using rca plug to 1/8, the solution was a simple mono plug adaptor into the pc from the 1/8 plug. It would be cheap to try anyway, good luck.

...shall we go, you and I while we can.. Unless you've got the "goods" i.e, the asolutely premium quality master for your shows on tape, you might (as I was) be better off exploring the torrent download sites on the internet. I am the best example of how simply you can access what seems like a complex task.I had NEVER used a computer for any task except typing. I bought a computer, got an internet connection, and within a month of poking around casually, got all the basics down. IF you can remember YOU CAN DO THIS, within a relatively short period of time you can have access to very high quality recordings of almost any show. NOW THERE'S AN INCENTIVE,huh?

...shall we go, you and I while we can... Save the file to desktop by rightclicking on the name of the song(s) you wish to download,and directing them to Desktop.Put them on the "burn list" in whatever media player you have by dropping them there, simple "drop and drag" stuff, Burn the list to CD and you're done. You can then delete the file from desktop, and you've got your music. You can also save these files in iTunes, but only for playing on the computer,I don't believe they will burn for there, but I could be wrong.

because I have a feeling a lot of us face similar issues.

Hi all -I have over 1000 tapes that I am in the process of uploading to my iMac. I have 2 kids 3 and under...So you can understand why this is onoing.... Heres my set up - Sony cassette deck with RCA outputs split out - one to tuner/amp and the other to the computer.The splitter is a RCA to 8th in stereo plug. Computer is iMac G3 500Mhz DV model. Stand alone burner (cant remember the brand) The program Im using is Audicity (which all the folks on the apple.com site suggested) Issues - I am having issues with the Audicity program. It seems that I can only get it to record onto one channel. I can change the program to read in Mono but then its not a true stero recording.. Who on here knows this program?? I down loaded another recording platform which I cant remeber the name, but it recorded perfectly to AIFF and when I saved it to the HD the program saved it into WAV form and now the saved file clips. so out goes that program and Im going back to the origional. Who out here in techie-land knows Audicity and can help me out OR who can suggest a different (easier) platform to get my analog tapes to a digital format based on my setup. Thanks...Drop me a note or post it here... Eric