Grateful Dead

dead.net the official site

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!!!

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."

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."

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...

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 ; )

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

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?

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.

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

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.