Grateful Dead

I see the vineyard has some new vines growing. dstache's contributions are amazing! Quite an undertaking, thats a lot of work.

come on now...get with it!!!!LOSSLESS is the ONLY way to go....why bother with anything else..LOSSLESS will make your (our) collections last forever...why continue to change as technology does?...just go shnflac and convert accordingly...memory is an issue (of course)...save up and go invest in an external hard drive for a coupla hundred bucks (tops) that will preserve/backup/store all of your collection in a unit the size of a hardcover book....plus you won't be replacing your burner as frequently and most importantly your collection's test of time will be won!!! Not dead...just grateful :) thanks for turning me onto LOSSLESS Dstache...it's changed my life. :) "In a bed, in a bed, by the waterside I will lay my head. Listen to the river sing sweet songs, to rock my soul."

I was going to start the summer 1981 vine (actually there are some more May shows that I can include also) but it looks like there are a lot of new vines be started up right now and I don't want to flood marye with too much at once. So maybe I'll wait a couple of days, unless of course it doesn't matter? Then I am almost ready to start a Fall 1981 Vine. So I will have a "More May and Summer 1981 Vine" coming really soon and a "Fall 1981 Vine" right on its heels! All in all it will be a pretty good representation of 1981 - One of the best years ever in my opinion! "I've stayed in every blue-light cheap hotel. Can't win for tryin. Dust off those rusty strings just one more time. Gonna make em shine."

This is the third (fourth) time around for this comment (dead.net crashed several time before i was able to save this verion) hopefully, it will go through this time. so...As I was Saying earlier, there is a huge misconception about the term "lossless" as it relates to music. It's not a "format" but a property of copying - either you keep everything (lossless), or you agree to lose some information (lossy). When I send out a wav cd version of music, it's the same as if i sent you the flac version and you converted it to wav yourelf , so the conversation should not be about flac or wav - in thte post cassette world, it doesn't matter. The other thing i wanted to say was that what folks do with the music after it leaves us is up tto them - my job is to initiate - not control what happens later I'm sure there was more i wanted to say, but after having the browsernator crashing three times & trying to re-think what I was trying to say, someone else may have ideas on what i was trying to say or not say. like maybe we need lots of little sailboats vs. a couple of titanics

True, erickat, BUT, if I copy the WAV disc you send me, and trade it to someone else, and they copy their disc and trade it to a third person, and they do the same, there is going to be some sound quality loss. There won't be as much loss as there would be with cassette copying, but there will be some, and as you get further away from the WAV copy you sent me (the original copy), there is more and more sound quality loss. The way I look at it, the first few generations (my copy, the copy I trade, the copy that person trades) has minimal loss. I would guess that the loss for the first 5 copies is negligible and not noticeable. But as you get further away, it is noticeable. I have WAV shows that I acquired from other people via trades and I have noticed some loss in sound quality with the sound being "quieter" than it should be. In the end, if you are just trying to get all the shows you can for your personal use, a WAV copy of a WAV copy from the lossless source is perfectly fine. But if you may be trading that show in the future, having the lossless source is better. Either way, there is plenty of room here at the vineyard for people to vine both. But please, NO MP3!

The site has not been accomodating my previous efforts at posting.I feel compelled to state the following points 1.lossless is not a music format - it is a compression scheme. (shit converted to flac is still shit) The orignial recorded copy is in some sort of audio format - which then gets copied .... either identically ... or in a compressed format. If it gets converted identically, in the same format - it's identical. (takes more space) If it gets converted in a lossless format, it can be re-created completely. (takes less space) If it gest converted to a lossy format (mp3) - then the lost information is gone for good (whether you could hear the diference or not) (takes lots less space) Raw music takes up lots of space. You can keep it native, or compress it to any one of many formats - but some are "lossy" (mp3) and some are lossless (shn / flac). There are many others. What works for you is your own business - but don't re-introduce lesser copies into the "original" world - this is pretty easy to avoid. In the old days, cassette copying introduced hiss - this goes away with digital copies. shn / flac exist simply to provide for compression - they are typically converted to wav for playing. The wav stuff i put out comes from flac or shn sources, so it's identical to the source - just being shared in a different format. if you convert to mp3 for your own use, that's your decision - just don't re-represent it as lossless. (nuff said). But - the stuff I seeded is itdentical to the source!!!! 2. I typically make the determination as to format, based on volume if it's one show (2 or 3 cd's) i may put it out as 3 audio cd's (for convenience) - but it's from a lossless source. If it's more than that, I will just put it out on DVD - and find stuff to maximize the space (so u get more). if someone was to ask me to provide an mp3 version, i would feel comfortable doing so, with the caveat that it is MP3 and lossless - not to be mis-represented later. 3.I don't care what you do with it, after it leaves my hands - i will usually try to track a vine to see if it's been lost or needs a re-seed, but if you want to convert to wav, or mp3, it makes no difference to me - It's not about me - it's about you - and about the music getting out and about, so i don't mind lots of little efforts vs. one huge endeavor that lumbers about... it reminds me of a great wizard who wanted his legacy to be preserved. In one case, he simply dumped everything on the young apprentice - and said "there you go". vs. the alternate ending, which has the master stringing the apprentice along, with one discovery after another, one by one, keeping interest and building commitment over time until the apprentice has the same zeal that the master does - and is ready to take over. Maybe that doesn't apply here,.but it has been expressed to me that the mega-trawler ocean-going drag-net fish factory approach tends to kill the excitement of uncovering a special find - like a little show that you happened to be at (vs. "here's the19xx dump of all shows") - no, i have not been asleep for the last two months - or for any time - I;ve been here, and have been listening, and responding and will continue, dispite the lack of "superstar" status that has been conferred upon some who have arrived after me & sought the limelight to their own supplication - e.g. putting their name into each vine they seed, even if it's a group effort.

Derik,you said... if I copy the WAV disc you send me, and trade it to someone else, and they copy their disc and trade it to a third person, and they do the same, there is going to be some sound quality loss. this is cassette tape thinking - there is no loss in digital (cd) copying - it is true identical copying - no loss.

you'll have to excuse my lack of computer skills, but how do i use this lossless u speak of? Im always looking to expand my collection.

Lossless vs. lossy is an issue surrounding the compression of raw audio files, which can be quite sizable. in the old days, people copied cassette tapes, which introduced more noise with each copy. Now that we're digital, that issue goes away - unless you down-convert to some format like MP3, which throws away certain information in order to achieve a smaller size.

If I send you a cd full of text files - or of video files, or of wav files - or of shit files. and you copy it, it is an exact copy - no loss - it's all digital - regardless of format your copy version is identical to the original - that;s the beauty of the digital age!!!!

in the old days - the original source was read (IN) and converted from whatever source it existed on (e.g tape) and was passed through the machine mechanism from the IN section, through the MIXER section, to the OUT section, where it was replicated - along with any noise that was included along the way. However, Nowadays, with the Digital revolution, this is not the path of replication - it simply reads what is on A and writes it to B, in an identical fashion, so that if you make 500 copies of a source, they are all identical.

Great discussions here, I am happy to see the interest in this topic.Please take a look at these pages for some impartial ideas. etree.org is a good place to start The Etree Wiki A rather technical discution of lossy vv Lossless Wikipedia's discustion of Lossy Comprestion Wikipedia's discustion of Lossless Comprestion Peace Rick

So there's the media (the CDs & DVDs in this case), the player/recorder of the media (hardware, software, or, most likely, a combination of the two; in this case, a hardware CD/DVD drive and a software player), and the audio system through which one may listen to the audio signal from the player/recorder (computer amplifier/speakers, high-end home stereo systems, headphones, etc.). The quality of all three of these aspects can vary. For instance, as the original discs travel from person to person, they get scratched, nicked, blemished, etc. At some point, lower-quality CD/DVD drives and the associated software will not be able to correct the errors read from the discs. That's one of the big areas of variation among drives/software---the sophistication of their error correction. If someone with a lower-quality drive were to replace the scratched discs with new ones, the error correction issues go away, but now the errors that went uncorrected by his drive are burned onto the media. Even perfect error correction will no longer see the error, because to the software it's not an error anymore. Finally, the audio systems can vary . . . for instance, the volume (ie, soft/loud) and the frequency range of the music will change depending on the speakers/headphones and amplifiers used. Those are issues caused by the electrical design and performance of the gear. If everyone had the same gear and always vined the same files on perfect-quality discs, everyone would be presented with exactly the same music. But even then it would *sound* different to different people due to the last and perhaps most critical point of variation . . . our senses of hearing. But back to basic topic at hand, many people prefer lossless compression (SHN, FLAC, Apple Lossless, etc.) over lossy compression (MP3, AAC, etc.) because no information from the original, uncompressed file is lost during compression. It's a way to save file storage space without degrading file quality. Everyone chooses the trade-off they want to make between storage space and file quality, but in light of the low cost of storage I think many make this decision based on the formats' ease of use. It does take some time to get up to speed with SHN/FLAC in particular because of the lack of support for the formats in mainstream media players, both software (iTunes, Windows Media Player, etc.) and hardware (iPod, Zune, etc.). Arguably, Apple Lossless would be easier for more people to use and would still be lossless. But then some people don't like being tied to a closed-source, proprietary standard like Apple Lossless for fear that Apple will discontinue/change it; FLAC is open-source, so there's no issue there. SHN, interestingly, is not open-source, but the owners of SHN apparently choose not to try to exclude others from incorporating it into their software players (Cog, for example). I probably complicated the discussion rather than simplifying it, but that's my $.02. ~~~~~~~ "They say Cain caught Abel rolling loaded dice"

You are spot on with your thoughts. My lousy player in my truck does not support lossless formats so I have to make a choice. I can convert one show to WAV and fill up three CD's and I have clear and clean, highs and lows. With three discs floating around it is hard to keep every thing organized. Now if I convert the same show to a lossy MP3 I can get the whole show (sometimes 2) on one CD. I had to give up the clear clean sound with pristine highs and deep lows. In the truck at 75 miles per hour it does not make a lot of difference. To much road noise. This is a personal choice. If I were to vine or torrent that MP3 and the person who receives it try's to play it on his high end super system and it sounds like a tin can recording. I did not help enrich his experience I helped to degenerate it. This is not good and I have imposed my choices on him. This is why using MP3's for personal use OK but to trade or vine them is frowned upon. I have not been lucky in finding any factual evidence that lossless recording keep all of their bits and bytes in place when copied from copy's but I do know that is is frowned upon in more sites than this one. Some places will drum you out of the ranks for that infraction. I think we are a bit more enlighten here but as a courtesy to our fellow vines. PLEASE only send the original discs in a lossless format. Peace Rick

Raise your hand if you've circulated a Vine with an mp3 suffix converted to a wav, shn or flac?

On shn/flac.net that have been downloaded from archives.org as mp3 , then converted to lossless re-uploaded to shn/flac as lossless .. That one kinda gets me wondering uumm whats the point in downloading mp3 converting to LL then spend twice the time or more to download it from shn/flac as shn/flac. I can just download the mp3 then convert it to shn/flac myself ,.? thats a whole lot of time converting downloading/uploading , so how much if any data is lost doing things this way ?

Raise your hand if you truly *missed* Erickat while he was "gone"? Perhaps he rubbed me the wrong way from the beginning with his unjust and prejudice actions towards me (with no apology).... but I just get blow-hard vibes from virtually *all* of his comments... (i.e. "I've been here, and have been listening, and responding and will continue, dispite the lack of "superstar" status that has been conferred upon some who have arrived after me & sought the limelight to their own supplication - e.g. putting their name into each vine they seed, even if it's a group effort.") Nobody's trying to steal your "limelight" Bro...and you are/were hardly a "superstar"....Dstache takes that cake...he has streamlined the vining process and at the same time he's caught it up with the times (someone had to do it)...you're vining, and probably living, in the past, Man. Times have changed since that picture was taken... ;) Don't be mistaken though my fellow music lover...your logic is valid....but only in the days of Great Wizards and Masters, neither of which apply to this century or to reality in general. Sorry if you do not feel as important or relevent as you have in the past but that is something only you have control of...it's *your* legacy, and yours alone...live and let live...If you don't want to sign up for specific vines, don't. But insulting and demeaning comments towards individuals who have done absolutely nothing to you to warrant such actions is immature and honestly makes me wanna vomit. I have contributed my 2 cents and hope they are well spent. ...I would like to give a special thank you to Dstache for all he has done for my, and many's, collection of Good Ol' Grateful Dead!!!! I (we) now have a collection that will last the test of time without having to spend hours of our time trying to obtain it....now we can use that time to ENJOY it!!!! And for that, "Great Wizard"...your "apprentices" are....eternally grateful. anywho...back to LIFE. :) and try to smile a lil bit...it feels MUCH better :)

i musta missed sumpin....dont remember anybody insulting any body...i do know erickat has sent me copies of shows as i am too dense to figure out how to copy this stuff. thanx man!

and that's great of him, Brother...I'm not at all saying his contributions aren't appreciated...quite to the contrary....it's his critical actions are what I take issue with....perhaps I'm just interpreting his post(s) wrong....his posts, in conjunction with his past comments towards me, have certainly shaped my opinion of him....perhaps I'm being too harsh but even after re-reading his post I still get the same vibes...I do *hope* I'm wrong. "In a bed, in a bed, by the waterside I will lay my head. Listen to the river sing sweet songs, to rock my soul."

sorry for the negativity...I've said my peace and will now get out. "In a bed, in a bed, by the waterside I will lay my head. Listen to the river sing sweet songs, to rock my soul."

Are there really vines that have been downloaded as mp3 and encoded it flac? I use Cool Edit Pro to find this out when I download. If a file has already been changed to mp3 it doesn't improve when its coverted back. If people do not check for this, music can really get polluted! If its in mp3 format so be it, everyone will know what they are getting. Please do not them back to flac.

let's get back to the nuts and bolts of why we're here...the music...if you want to confirm that a vine has been converted from MP3 to lossless there are several ways to do that. I am guessing 95% of us take on faith that the vines circulated as lossless are lossless - and the rest have the means to check that they are the real deal. On that note...how about a vine a la the '77 lossless project? I propose the Garcia '74 shows all lossless and on DVD only. This would be in 5 installments. Many of them will be audience shows recorded by one of our great preservationist brothers (along with others), the recently deceased Jerry Moore, along with a large number of SBD recordings. Much of this material are the shows recorded with the late Merl Saunders. In my humble opinion, '74 was one of Jerry's best years, if not his best year for solo non-GD work. Below I list the 5 installments of this collection, if any one has any improved/additional shows to add let my know via PM and I will add them. As far as I know, these represent the best of what is out there, but again, what the hell do I know? Installment One (of Five) '74 Garcia Project: jg74-01-17.jgms.aud.tobin.76471.sbeok.flac16 jg74-01-17.jgms.dts-corrected.tobin.90398.flac jg74-01-17.jgms.mtx.tobin.90365.sbeok.flac16 jg74-01-17.jgms.sbd.kaplan.20678.sbeok.shnf jg74-01-17.jgms.sbd.tobin.76474.sbeok.flac16 jg74-01-18.jgms.aud-falanga.jupille.8873.sbeok.shnf jg74-01-19.jgms.sbd.jjoops.8064.sbeok.shnf jg74-02-05.jgms.sbd.jjoops.11254.sbeok.shnf jg74-02-05.jgms.sbd.ladner.32088.sbeok.flac16 jg74-02-09.jgms.partial.sbd.seff.6381.sbeok.shnf jg74-02-09.jgms.sbd.jjoops.17787.sbeok.shnf jg74-02-09.jgms.sbd.kung.30597.sbeok.flac16 jg74-02-16.jgms.aud.falanga.jupille.8063.sbeok.shnf jg74-02-16.jgms.sbd.gems.91471.sbeok.flac16 jg74-02-xx.jgms.aud.falanga.warner.8654.sbeok.shnf jg74-03-08.partial.kpfa-gans.32377.sbeok.flac16 jg74-03-09.jgms.sbd.unknown.33750.sbeok.flac16 Installment Two: jg74-04-20.gamb.sbd.smith.93823.sbeok.flac16 jg74-04-20.gasb.sbd.tamarkin.20699.sbeok.shnf jg74-04-27.oaitw.aud.unknown.21525.sbeok.shnf jg74-06-04.jgms.sbd.gmb.90003.sbeok.flac16 jg74-06-04.jgms.sbd.unknown.6379.sbeok.shnf jg74-06-05.jgms.s2.sbd.jjoops.8062.sbeok.shnf jg74-06-06.jgms.aud.falanga.jjoops.6375.sbeok.shnf jg74-06-12.gasb.aud.falanga.moore.berger.83232.sbeok.flac16 jg74-06-12.gasb.sbd.jupille.83290.sbeok.shnf jg74-06-12.gasb.sbd.shriver-jjoops.7331.sbeok.shnf jg74-06-13.gasb.sbd.jjoops.13768.sbeok.shnf jg74-07-02.jgms.aud.moore.minches.jjoops.14984.sbeok.shnf jg74-07-03.jgms.aud.jazzy.6611.sbeok.shnf jg74-07-03.jgms.aud.moore.minches.jjoops.14985.sbeok.shnf jg74-07-12.jgms.aud.falanga.jupille.8072.sbeok.shnf jg74-07-13.jgms.sbd.misshn.25623.sbeok.shnf jg74-07-22.jgms.sbd.gmb.86198.sbeok.flac16 jg74-07-22.jgms.sbd.sacks.10127.sbeok.shnf jg74-07-22.jgms.sbd.unknown.4488.sbeok.shnf Installment Three: jg74-08-09.jgms.aud.falanga.jjoops.8073.sbeok.shnf jg74-08-11.jgms.aud.falanga.warner.jjoops.6382.sbeok.shnf jg74-08-15.jgms.aud.falanga.8650.sbeok.shnf jg74-08-23.jgms.aud.unknown.9416.sbeok.shnf jg74-08-24.jgms.sbd.jjoops.10612.sbeok.shnf jg74-08-30.jgms.sbd.sacks.6380.sbeok.shnf jg74-08-31.jgms.aud.falanga.8078.sbeok.shnf jg74-09-02.jgms.sbd.gkelley.8652.sbefail.shnf jg74-09-02.jgms.sbd.sterchele.76174.sbeok.shnf jg74-09-02.jgms.sbd.unknown.31903.sbeok.flac16 jg74-10-04.jgms.aud.falanga.jjoops.8649.sbeok.shnf jg74-10-05.jgms.aud.falanga.warner.8665.sbeok.shnf jg74-10-06.jgms.partial.sbd.unknown.9026.sbeok.shnf jg74-10-27.jgms.late.aud.powell.ladner.23676.sbeok.shnf jg74-10-31.jgms.sbd.cousinit.19436.sbeok.shnf Installment Four: jg74-11-05.jgms.early.aud.moore.minches.jjoops.16806.sbeok.shnf jg74-11-05.jgms.early.aud.moore.minches.jjoops.16806.sbeok.shnf jg74-11-05.jgms.early.aud.moore.minches.jjoops.16806.sbeok.shnf jg74-11-07.jgms.early.aud.moore.weiner.jjoops.14306.sbeok.shnf jg74-11-08.jgms.aud.moore.9711.sbeok.shnf jg74-11-08.jgms.aud.moore.jjoops.16839.sbeok.shnf jg74-11-08.jgms.sonyecm.moskal.94547.sbeok.shnf jg74-11-09.jgms.late.slabicky.jjoops.8661.sbeok.shnf jg74-11-10.jgms.sbd.lemarre.18202.sbeok.shnf jg74-11-10.jgms.sbd.unknown.95767.sbeok.flac16 jg74-11-13.jgms.early.aud.uher.siniawski.merin.10128.sbeok.shnf jg74-11-14.jgms.early.aud.warburton.weiner.jjoops.16461.sbeok.shnf jg74-11-14.jgms.late.aud.uher.siniawski.merin.6383.sbeok.shnf Installment Five: jg74-11-15.jgms.late.sbd.lai.4487.sbefail.shnf jg74-11-15.jgms.sbd.late.misshn.8071.sbeok.shnf jg74-11-16.jgms.aud.early.moore.minches.jjoops.16808.sbeok.shnf jg74-11-16.jgms.aud.late.moore.minches.jjoops.16809.sbeok.shnf jg74-11-27.jgms.sbd.gems.91343.sbeok.flac16 jg74-11-27.jgms.sbd.partial.gems.89216.sbeok.flac16 jg74-11-28.jgms.sbd.gmb.85987.sbeok.flac16 jg74-11-28.jgms.sbd.lai.4486.sbefail.shnf jg74-12-15.jgms.sbd.jjoops.8177.sbeok.shnf jg74-12-28.jgms.aud.misshn.24317.sbeok.shnf jg74-12-29.jgms.early.aud.disalvo.taperpat.93978.sbeok.flac16 jg74-12-29.jgms.late.shure.disalvo.jjoops.8643.sbeok.shnf jg74-12-29.jgms.shure.cbass.17019.sbeok.shnf May the music live on...Peace UJ. "when life looks like easy street, there is danger at your door"

Man, I sure hope that I haven't inadvertently vined anything that was once MP3. Most of the lossless I have vined I received from another source, and I don't think it was ever MP3, and I KNOW I didn't convert it to MP3. That would really suck. I wish someone else would post on the WAV v lossless topic, especially regarding my statement that a WAV copy of a copy of a copy of a copy etc of a WAV copy converted from lossless has more loss than the original WAV copy. I might be wrong there. But, I will admit, I was a little irritated by the WAY I was told I was wrong. That may be oversensitivity on my part, or even the fact that posts, like emails, can be easily misinterpreted. I have been busy with other stuff and haven't posted some things I wanted to post. The 68 vine will be posted soon. All I have to do is copy and burn CB's disc. Oh Yeah has not gotten back to me about the burning speed or whatever the problem he and other MAC users are having with how my PC/Vista burns DVDs, so this will go out as my past vines have gone out. I will finish up the 77 after that and then take a little break from posting vines. So, although I said I would reseed the Nov 72 vine, I am going to bow out on that and hope someone else fills that hole. I have some other stuff to vine (I just got ALL of 1979), but am going to hold off for a while, though I will eventually vine it.

for JGB '74...and can't wait for ALL of 1979 (all good things in all good time). "In a bed, in a bed, by the waterside I will lay my head. Listen to the river sing sweet songs, to rock my soul."

Hell yea I`m stoked for that too !! and a 68 vine , oh yea that too I can`t wait for !! Back to mp3/shn/flac for a momemt , all I know is that shn/flac does in fact sound better to me as of my recent discovery of Foobar 2000 . But I guise it also depends on the systme you are using to play said music . I don`t know too much about WAV formats . But I do know that there are people seeding shn/flac on shn/flac.net that have been dowed from arcives.org , wich we know that is all mp3 format .. to my ears shn/flac does sound better to me then mp3 and with the correct equipment it can be played on my car radio . And I`m quite sure that some vines that where seeded here have been in mp3 format at one time or another . now that I think of it I`m sure I seeded shn/flac vies that where mp3 at one time and not even realize it at the time , but i do keep a better eye out for the mp3 to shn/flac when i down anything from shn/flac.net or any other site . Man this can all get way to confusing for me so I think I`ll exit this conversation . Way too many different formats !! I agree with Unclejon lets just enjoy the music as it is ( was ) intended to be .. Hope you all have a Grate weekend !! Peace .. Stu ..

1. IMHO everyone who takes the trouble to assemble some shows and share them on the vines is a superstar (whatever the content, quantity or name of the vines). Establishing hierarchies, competing and bitching are unnecessary and undermine the integrity of this place. Why do it? 2. It all boils down to this. Trade losslessly and do not insert MP3 generations. WAV, FLAC and SHN are lossless formats. FLAC is the most convenient and the most popular because the data files are smaller and easy to copy and convert to anything else. It takes 30 minutes to learn how to deal with FLACs 3. The shows traded losslessly on LL were not downloaded from Archive as MP3s. If there was an MP3 generation in those files it would be shown in the provenance of the show. Before the clamp down on Grateful Dead SBDs all those shows were uploaded (and downloadable) as FLAC or SHN files by a wonderful community of people wishing to share and archive everything in perpetual lossless format. In fact the auds on archive still are downloadable in Lossless formats but only on a file by file basis; just scroll down the page and you will see that you have a choice of formats. It was once like this for the SBDs too. If you want the FLACs you can save yourself a lot of time and trouble by using the ‘Down’ em all’ plug in for Firefox, which will grab all the files for you in one go. Have a nice weekend CB

I echo the sentiment of cosmic badger and offer thanks to all who share this wonderful music so well in this forum (and thanks to marye for her kind assistance). That said, I also state that I am not big into the flac offerings. My computer is not hooked up to my stereo in any fashion and when I want to listen, I pop one the grate shows I got from the vineyard into my stereo and crank it. I am not a big 'headphones' kind of guy (unless it is late night listening, out of consideration for my wife.) I do see the value of the flac and even loading the shows into the computers 'hard drive' for storage. Forgive me, like some of my other cohorts (dwindling numbers as we speak), I appreciate and will continue to sign up for the CDs, as they are most conveient for my uses (in my recent trip to Minn we listened to the vineyards aural treasures for 10 hours). Maybe in the future I will take up some of the offers to send 'hard drives' to have years of GD or JGB 'loaded' onto them. Where I sit right now is being thankful to all who share, grateful that I was able to share, and just got to smile, smile, smile, when I think of what trading and sharing consisted of in the old daze. We got it good people. Let's maintain the positive vibe and continue to spead the joy. The Truth is realized in an instant, the act is practiced step by step.

I agree with Cosmic, any shows that are sourced from Lossless Legs are not MP3's converted back to a lossless format. The folks there would never permit this to happen - the hard core traders run a spectrum analysis on the music and if it were Lossy data they would yank that torrent right down. "when life looks like easy street, there is danger at your door"

1. flac files can of course easily be converted to WAV and burnt to CDs. That is what I do for the car stereo and for favourite shows 2. The Cowon iaudio series of portable players can play FLACs (and WAVs but not SHNs) directly. www dot cowonglobal dot com If you are buying a new player it may be worth considering. Greg MacFarlane has one. 3. It is now possible to convert many MP3 players to play FLACs and SHNs (as well as MP3s) by installing a cool and free programme called Rockbox. www dot rockbox dot org I converted my ipod to Rockbox just by following the instructions and can now load and play flacs and shns directly for mobile lossless listening pleasure without having to convert to MP3. Of course they take up a lot more disc space hth CB

Thanks for the info CB! Man that would be perfect! "I've stayed in every blue-light cheap hotel. Can't win for tryin. Dust off those rusty strings just one more time. Gonna make em shine."

i don't understand a word of the computerspeak goin' on here, but i wanna say thanx to all who have sent my son and i shows on cd. i have hours of audio on video tape cuz it was a convenient way to record stuff off the radio, either fm broadcasts, or gd hour marathons. someday when my brain is not so mushy (ha!, like that's ever gonna happen!) i can solicit help in transferring the info to a more modern listening format but it's like trying to learn a new language with a knot yanked in yer tongue!

WHOA HOLD UP... this is a big no no...mp3 could be traded or vined...but that needs to be listed as such...not only did the Grateful Dead standardize the quality of many things in popular music...so did the taping community...frankly, mp3 is what it is...a super compressed digital format...I mean really digital is bad enough for frequency range, so for somebody to actually seed something that was MP3 and encode it to flac...that's really , really lame...and if done on purpose is tantamountly lame... This really should not happen whatsoever, I did see a "best of summer" DVD as a add on from a vine as MP3 , and that was OK, but I passed...as I don't really need to listen to that format and if I do : I will convert whatever music as I see fit... It really comes down to quality...I KNOW MP3 is convienent but as a standard of quality it really pales in comparison to .wav files or lossless files converted to .wav aka "standard red book CD format quality" - now some 24 bit at 96 kHz stuff might be interesting to seed later....but this would be played through a DVD player to handle such encodement... MP3 SEEDS AS FLAC IS WAY WAY LAME - KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING WHEN SEEDING - PLEASE FOR EVERYBODY'S SAKE.... Ursa Minor http://www.myspace.com/donnieloeffler "the warm wet world of analog audio"

the whole shn /flac /mps things it just a matter of personal taste...some people care some don't..personally i am in to shn/flac just saves of space, time copying, and it sounds better but that is my opion....we are are all here as a community to share the music of the grateful dead......the one thing i think all of us needs to remember is, its not our music we did not createt it we do not own it as a personal possesion, but we do looooove it and cherish it . The grateful dead where nice enough to allowing tapeing and tradeing. Lets just all sit back and enjoy this precious gift we have been given....i remember listening to tapes all warped left in the sun, some one spilling bong water on them, and just dancing my ass off and just digin every fuck up sound coming from my speakers. so i remember we had this one tape that cut out right in the middle of drums blank for about 1 1/2 so we decide that was when the audiance was suppose to play and we would drum on anything around us...fun times .anywhooo...thats my opion let you life proceed by its own design fare the well now

The 68 lossless vine has been posted, as has the final part of the 1973 lossless vine (which I forgot about in my last post). That leaves only the remainder of the 1977 lossless vine outstanding from me. I will probably wait a week or two before working on this as I need a little break and have some other commitments. Oh Yeah and/or other MAC users, get back to me about changing my burning speed or whatever the problem is and I will change it before burning the final parts to the 1977 vine.

I certainly missed Erickat. Maybe I am old-fashioned, but I convert whatever music I get in the vineyard to Wav for cds for my car, and I also convert it for use on my ipod. I do back up everything that comes to me in flac form on my external hard drive, but I almost never listen through my computer. So I guess I appreciate both formats. What I do not appreciate is people telling other people what or how they should vine. If someone prefers wav cds, cool for them. They do not need to be told to enter this century. If I want to convert a flac vine to wav bc I was asked to do so by people, that is my perogative. If that makes me old-fashioned, so be it. I think we all know that a very wise man said once a note leaves his guitar it is no longer his and people are free to do whatever they like with the music. The same should be true with vines. Once it is out there it is not really proprietary to the viner, it belongs to the vineyard. As to the mega-vines, I believe Dstache's efforts were heroic and I was happy to contribute to the 77 vine. However, my personal preference is for smaller, theme-based vines that surprise me with their creativity and the occassional show that I have been pining for. On the other hand, there are others who prefer to get it all at once. Indeed, a wise lady has said that there is room in the vineyard for all types of vines. So, in conclusion Erickat, you are greatly appreciated. Derek, you are greatly appreciated. In fact, everybody that contributes to and participates in the Vineyard is greatly appreciated. Lets not lose sight of how amazing it is that we can hear our favorite music long after it was created. Peace to everybody! "Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence." Albert Einstein

i was wrong to cast aspersions - and be negative - it's all a positive thing here, no matter how big or small or what format - i honestly don't know what got into me - sorry.

are there any other viners here who use a mac? if so, what program(s) have you found to convert .shn or .flac into burnable .wav files for importing into itunes?

What would MITD say????? Let's just be. "And I love the life I live And I'm gonna live the life I love"

There are some resources available: http://flac.sourceforge.net/download.html I have a lot of trouble with my wifes Ipod. I have my home stereo conected to my computer ; )

If anyone knows how time-consuming and overwelming big vines could be, I do. If I had to do it all over again, maybe I would break them down even further or space them further out. Hindsight. The positives of big vines are less cost (4 DVDs at a time v 4 shipments of 1 DVD each), especially for our European-based brethren, and speedier acquisition of a whole hunk of music. But the sheer enormity can be overwelming and take away the gleeful feeling we should get upon receiving a vine. While big vines are more efficient, perhaps they are like Wal Mart, giving us what we want but leaving us with an empty feeling. As for the whole source controversy, I think we all agree that the seeder should provide all the information he or she has (WAV, Lossless) and avoid MP3. Just like with the official releases and life in general, variety is a good thing. We can pick and choose what we want. Just because I generally eschew officially released compilations (I prepurchased the new Pure Jerry though) and am now firmly planted on the lossless side here, doesn't mean that Rhino or my fellow viners should solely cater to my taste. This is the best community on the net as far as I am concerned and I am proud to be a part of it. In the end, the love we make...

sure would like to hear MITD say something! :( I hope he is well... "In a bed, in a bed, by the waterside I will lay my head. Listen to the river sing sweet songs, to rock my soul."

Small vines, large vines, wav, flac I like them all and they all have advantages and disadvantages. I'm trying to obtain as many shows as possible and with how long it takes to get vines I think it is nice to get one large one rather than waiting for 2 or 3 smaller ones - you can knock out the entire year of 1977 in what 4 vines?? That's awesome! In addition, along those same lines I prefer flac its just faster and easier all around (especially for large vines, they have to be in flac to even be manageable, plus it is cheaper, I can go on and on). But hey it is also cool opening up a vine with one special show in wav format. I like all the vines and vine formats, keep them coming! "I've stayed in every blue-light cheap hotel. Can't win for tryin. Dust off those rusty strings just one more time. Gonna make em shine."

First of all, what a great thing this vine is!!!!!!!! Everyone should take a step back, now take another step back the people up front are getting squashed. Any lossless vine should be from an original source (ie. original sbd tape or aud recording.) The original recording is a WAV file that is converted to a lossless compression format for the sole purpose of reducing storage space. A lossless compression format (ie flac/shn) reduces the size of a file by approximately 40 to 50 percent without losing any of the original file's information, that is why the format is called lossless. where as a lossy compression format (ie .mp3,.aac,.wma) reduces the file size by approximatley 60 to 90 percent (depending on the bit rate of the compressed file) but the information removed from the original file is lost forever that is why these formats are refered to as lossy. Lossy formats were created for the puropse of being able to have more music in a smaller package. That is why you can get a cd player for your home or car that will play .mp3's .wma's and the like. That is why you can fit several shows on one cd in .mp3 format. Also these lossy formats are the reason I have 32 days of Good Ol Grateful Dead on my Ipod. Apple uses their own lossy compression for the ipod and to be quite honest they sound great. I commute along way , and in my car is where most of my music listening happens. I have a very high end sound system in my car and my Ipod plugs directly into my head unit so I don't have to fumble with thousands of cd's. IMHO you would be hard pressed to sit in my car and hear a phil bomb at 120db and be able to tell if it was a compressed format or not. Lossless compression was developed by audiophiles and was intended to be used for reducing the storage space necessary for storing digital music on a computer while maintaining the integrity of the original file. If you will notice, there are no players aside from a plugin or two for a computer audio player that will play shn or flac files. This is because the formats were developed for archival purposes. I myself copy the flac or shn files to my external hard drive where they stay forever, decompress the files to WAV without deleting the flac or shn, I then import the WAV files into Itunes and compress them into aac file and put them on my Ipod. I then delete the WAV files because they are the largest files which take up the most space and everything is great in my world. I have the music on my Ipod to take with me everywhere I go and I have the lossless file archived on my hard drive. Some people decompress the lossless files and burn the resulting WAV files to cd's or convert them to mp3's to make mp3 cd's or put on a portable mp3 player, it is your choice how you consume the product once you recieve it. Whatever tickles your spot. If you really want to get down to the nitty gritty of the sound quality issue, we should come up with a way to vine on vinyl because the original analog recording on good vinyl with the right record player would put this digital stuff to shame, but it would be impossible to vine this way. I think we should all need to educate ourselves so that we can take advantae of the technology we have (alot of which is free I might add) right at our fingertips for it is this technology that makes this vine possible. I mean really ,all of us remember trading tapes right?? Try to find the ying for your yang!! This beats tape trading hands down and here we have people almost getting hostile over some technology misunderstandings. As for the copy of a copy of a copy of a cd we are dealing with digital format, and I can rip (copy) the WAV files off of a cd and then burn them to a cd again and agian and again with the same results. There are differences in computer software and hardware as well as differences in storage media (cd's dvd's) If you usae a program called Exact Audio Copy (EAC) which is free on the internet and a good burning software like Nero, and you have a good name brand burning drive with quality blank cd's, cd's can be copied with no loss of qualtiy. You are taking an exact copy of the digital information on the cd, and writing the exact same digital information to a new cd. As for the volume differences, most burning software has volume adjustment settings or something called normalize volume for all tracks or something of that nature that if you don't understand how to use this feature or don't know it's being used can have adverse affects on the sound quality of your copies. Again I'm not trying to be condescending in any manner, just informative, but a thorough understanding of the technology and all of the aspects surrounding it will solve the discussions I'm seing on this thread. It's all about education, which is free on the internat reguarding all of the programs (software) formats (flac,shn,.mp3 etc..) and computer hardware. I'm just an old hippy who misses the Grateful Dead and has been taking advantage of this technology for the better part of ten years now!! When I found out I could download high quality recordings of my favorite music, I couldn't learn fast enough!!!! I by no means know it all, but I do have quite a bit of experience with all of these formats and technology. I hope this is helpful in the grand scheme of life, because I know how it is to be jonesing for Jerry licks and god forbid they be sub par sound quality when you get them!!! If I can be of any help to anyone I'm more than willing to help! All that being said, I will say again that no vine listed as losless should be sourced from a lossy file, period! Don't sweat the small stuff, and by the way It's ALL small stuff!!!

Good morning everybody. I got the urgent message in my inbox to get over here. I have a lot of reading and catching up to do. I will say this, with all the new vines being proposed, I feel like I am drowning. There is SO MUCH stuff to keep track of. Thanks for all your efforts. I wish I had more to contribute.

I too remember the not so distant days of trading tapes. mp3 at a decent bit rate puts me right where I need to be. Even when listening on headphones at high volume, every instrument is clear and crispy. I'll leave the archiving to the archivists, I want to listen. the 120gb of live Dead on my iPod keeps me groovin' down the road His job is to shed light, not to master...

Yeah man, I dig mp3 too...I generally convert all of my lossless to mp3 (and keep the shnflac on an external hard drive) Mp3's are smokin.... I can groove for hours on end with no break of the vibe....put in a fatty mp3 disc and call it a day!!! I love it!!! (plus I cannot tell a difference on my car stereo or home stereo for that matter...with most shows)BUT....I still keep my Lossless archive for future listening/conversions when mp3's are obsolete....shnflac or lossless allows your collection to last the test of time....and we all need something 'built to last' "In a bed, in a bed, by the waterside I will lay my head. Listen to the river sing sweet songs, to rock my soul."

What exactly gets "lost" when converting to MP3?? I'm with some of you guys - I think MP3's on an ipod sound awesome. I haven't been able to figure out what I'm "missing" with an MP3?? "I've stayed in every blue-light cheap hotel. Can't win for tryin. Dust off those rusty strings just one more time. Gonna make em shine."

Well, you have heard of lossless; MP3 is loss. If you convert the same audio file to wav and MP3, the MP3 file is smaller, and the bit rate is smaller too. Does it really matter? No. Does an MP3 sound good? Yes. But purists do not like MP3 because it does have subtle audio differences. Think of an MP3 as a second or third generation tape.