How sure can we be sure that there isn't something above 10K?  I guess it's 
nearly impossible for high frequencies to get on an acoustic recording, but 
something is stripped away with the noise, at least to my ears.  To a 
computer, the noise masks the music buried in there somewhere.  The computer 
can't see the trees for the forest.  Humans have the ability to ignore the 
noise.  I find many "cleaned up" recordings worse than a battered LP or 78 
played back with an appropriate tip and playback curve.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tom Fine" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, July 13, 2006 5:32 PM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Community Radio


> Actually, mono 78-quality audio works fine at 128K MP3 -- that's 
> considered a very high quality level for old radio, for instance. But, if 
> I were doing the transferring, I'd do a hard low-pass at 10K just to make 
> sure surface noises don't cause needless digi-swishies. With most 78 
> playback systems I've heard (not pro-grade like my friend Shiffy has), I'd 
> also do a high-pass to kill that rumble.
>
> I have a lot of respect for the fact that you 78 guys can hear through the 
> format and focus on the content. Same goes for Edisons. I need a higher 
> degree of fidelity to enjoy music, which is my loss because certain 
> treasures only exist in the older formats. I can tolerate later-era 78's, 
> especially recent reissues where they go back to metal parts and use 
> (finally) good digi-filtering to clean up background noise without taking 
> away all the music.
>
> -- Tom Fine
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "steven c" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Thursday, July 13, 2006 4:53 PM
> Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Community Radio
>
>
>> see end...
>> ----- Original Message ----- 
>> From: "Tom Fine" <[log in to unmask]>
>>> I wasn't talking about internet-only at all. I was talking about using
>> modern technology to make
>>> equipment investment minimal.
>>>
>>> Net-only is very easy, just do a podcast. But, as I've said before, 
>>> beware
>> of ASCAP/BMI rules. And,
>>> even if you load up a podcast file of 192K MP3 (which becomes a rather
>> large file when you get up to
>>> 30-60 minutes), the quality is still sub-par from a good-quality FM
>> broadcast (but better than
>>> over-processed headache inducing garbage found on most FM frequencies in
>> most places today).
>>>
>>> The thing that interested me about community radio is that it would be
>> nice to have a real-deal
>>> FM-quality signal (albeit low power with limited range) with something
>> aside from what Evergreen and
>>> Clearchannel decide is good content. I'd also love to open it up to some
>> of the local high school
>>> kids and older folks who are into music -- see if exposure to different
>> tastes and styles broadens
>>> everyone involved.
>>>
>>> But, given the PITA factor, I'll just revert back to my norm -- staying
>> happy with 1000+ LPs,
>>> hundreds of tapes and several thousand CD's. Music is becoming less and
>> less a shared experience
>>> anyway, with the iPod revolution and decline of music-based radio. Back 
>>> in
>> high school, many years
>>> ago, I tried to gin up interest for a school radio station to go over 
>>> the
>> cable TV system (we
>>> already had a TV studio, so it wouldn't be a big deal to piggyback onto
>> that infrastructure). Could
>>> not get enough commitments to make it feasible, and got outright 
>>> hostility
>> from the union AV and
>>> library staff. Oh well. At that time, my friend, who was in a serious
>> Deadhead phase, told me,
>>> "dude, I feel your pain a little but I gotta tell ya -- the best radio
>> station in the world is your
>>> own turntable, man." Since this guy introduced me to MANY still-loved
>> musicians and music genres, I
>>> listened to his words even if we looked like a 60's refugee and was a 
>>> bit
>> bleary-eyed (he now works
>>> for the UN, so go figure). He was right, of course.
>>>
>>> Somewhat relevant to all of this, and worth reading, is Chris Anderson's
>> "The Long Tail". It started
>>> with this article:
>>> http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/tail.html
>>> and was expanded to a book:
>>> http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1401302378/sr=8-1/qid=1152787909/tomslinx
>>> and Anderson has a related blog:
>>> http://www.thelongtail.com/
>>>
>>> I don't buy it all, hook line and sinker, but there are a lot of
>> interesting facts and predictions.
>>> Bottom line is, there might be hope for our oft lament: languishing out 
>>> of
>> print copyrighted
>>> commercial music. Under the Long Tail theory, the Big Music
>> mega-glomerates will wake up to the fact
>>> that there is demand for this stuff, though small compared to their
>> "mainstream" offerings, and will
>>> make it available in some cheap/efficient manner (ie iTunes). As I've 
>>> said
>> numerous times, my fear
>>> is that the quality level will be leagues worse than the master media 
>>> and
>> even worse than the
>>> original release media.
>>>
>>> Anyway, a little veered from the Community Radio topic, but it started
>> there! ;)
>>>
>> Well, the big difference is that you are thinking in terms of (I'm 
>> guessing
>> here)
>> classical music, mainly from the LP or even the stereo LP era. For this, 
>> you
>> would
>> need/want at least "CD quality" sound...probably two-channel...for
>> "webcasting"
>> and for "community" FM. The former takes a lot of bandwidth...and I have 
>> no
>> idea
>> what the latter would require!
>>
>> In my case, what I own...and what I'd like to webcast...are my 40,000-odd
>> (some QUITE odd) 78's. Of those, about 98-99% are (at least currently)
>> public domain up here in the "frozen northland"...and, better yet,
>> they are all mono and most of them have minimal bandwidth (even the
>> electrics cut off around 6 to 8KHz). So, MP3's of my old acoustic
>> discs won't...in fact CAN'T...sound worse than the originals!
>>
>> What I might consider doing is to convert them to MP3's, and then
>> assemble THOSE into one large MP3 file (how does one do that?)...
>>
>> Steven C. Barr
>
>