Grateful Dead

After just moving my 5000+ cassette tapes from one city to yet another city, I broke down and bought the Xitel Import Deluxe to transcribe them. If anyone has any suggestions or advice before I start, I would appreciate it. Now if only I can find the time to do it...

When I download songs from the taper section I can listen to them but they don't appear to be stored anywhere on my computer. I'd really like to burn them for the car. What do I need to do?

stellablue1957 - the quick answer is to rightclick on a tune to download, and make note of where the system says it's going to store the download. maybe tell it to save to your Desktop?

http://www.longliverock.org/downloads/ OK, there are free Who downloads available here... which I downloaded into a utorrent file, but I can't get it to play... I am a total computer dummy, anybody know what program I can use to play them?? thankx!

Come on folks. I know at least one of you out there can answer CC Joe's question. (and you know who you are so get typin'!) Don't make me call you out by name....

some folks on DNC have been trying to help, but I am a total dummy, next rainy day project is to try this shit again. peace.

I never even heard of torrent before I started trying to do these who downloads for my old lady... so you get the idea about my illiteracy and ignorance of 'puter shit. peace.

please help http://www.longliverock.org/downloads/ OK, there are free Who downloads available here... which I downloaded into a utorrent file, but I can't get it to play... I am a total computer dummy, anybody know what program I can use to play them?? thankx! CC Joe, Depends on what format (.shn, .flac, ) the show was download in, the file extension will tell you. You will need to decompress the files to .wav in order to listen to them ( or get the.shn plugin for winamp) peace, Ron

thankx. apparently they are not flac, since I downloaded some flac program but it didn't work. what is the name of the .shn program? winamp is a decompress program? by the way, this is freaking Swahili for me, I never heard any of these words before. I haven't tried this again, I'm waiting for the next rainy day, but I appreciate your advice. thanks, peace.

I'm not that technically savvy and was wondering if someone could explain or give a link that explains the process and equipment required to transfer cassettes to CDs or MP3s. I have a bunch of bootlegs that pretty much just sit there out of fear that I will ruin them if I play them and would like to make them electronic.

I just realized I am an archivist at heart and am going to start a personal hobby recording project. Got one mic (so far) and a nice new ibook, Anyone know how I get started recording in .wav format? Got some cassettes to transfer also.....

Anyone know where I can find an 8 track player? Got some stuff I need to transfer and I know it is a necessity in the process. Baby steps....

In short, the .shn files downloaded from http://www.longliverock.org/downloads/ is step one. Actually, step one is reading their instructions located @: http://www.longliverock.org/downloads/extras-gettingstarted.php You will need to download a program called "Bit Torrent" in order to open that "shn"/"torrent" file at which time you open the file so that the actual download can begin. It should state or give you options of the format such as high quality "flac" or "wav" vs. lower quality "mp3" files etc. A typical high quality will be rather large (50 Megabytes) where the low quality "mp3" will be rather small (5 Megabytes). Assuming you are running the Windows, I recommend a program called "Winamp" and another called "DBPowerAmp" both of which are available at www.download.com. I'd recommend reading up on "lossy" vs. "lossless" formatting of media as this is a must for the treasure trove that is available all over the web; the most comprehensive of them all being: http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=collection%3Aetree%20AND%20crea… And now, thankfully, we have downloads available here. Hope this helps...

thank you Rob, I appeciate your taking the time to explain it. I was never very good at following instructions... but next rainy day project is I'll try this downloading agin... peace.

I'm having trouble downloading the Taper's Section to burn. When I tried it at first, they would open in RealPlayer and I had no problems. But the last two weeks they have opened in a Quick Time player, with no burn or rip options. I have several saved to my desktop, but they are all in Quick Time. How can I transfer these files to burn some tunes? And how the hell did I get a Quick Time player? As a plug-in or something? I'm fairly computer savvy, so anyone who responds doesn't have to break it down to the elementary level. PLEASE HELP!! I NEED THIS MUSIC!! ramble_on74

Sounds like you recently installed a new version of QuickTime and it took over your preferences for listening to mp3 files. The files are still mp3. You should open Real Player and re-associate mp3s with it. Even if you don't do this you can still play and burn them by opening Real Player and then opening the files in Real Player.

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

...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.

...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?

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.

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

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

...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!

...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

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.

I checked out the "Plus2Deck 2C" from the site Operator posted and it looks cool. I dont have a tower that I would be able to test it with however. My only thing would be for the price you'd pay you could DL freeware and if you had a burner and tape deck do the same thing for a lot less... Your resuts may vary...

How does the deck communicate with the burner?

Like a CD(RW) or ZIP, its an actual device that fits in a slot bay. You would need to have a CDRW in another bay or externally to burn from it. Not sure what software it uses as I didnt get into the specs.

Sorry, what I meant was how does the system work in your scenario using the downloaded freeware?

So how do I, the son of a veteran taper, now carry on the tradition of High quality live recording when I have relatively little information to start with? I have come to this board to seek knowledge about audio equipment and recording know how... We start with this question: What are your favorite microphones? Make us SNAPPY!

Operator - I have a shareware program called Audicity http://download-audacity.org/ I have only used it on OSX not on a WINx OS. I am still learning to use it as time permits etc. Mr. Fantasy -Nakamichi (cant find info in their mics) and Senheiser http://www.sennheiserusa.com/newsite/productdetail.asp?transid=000984 is what I would suggest. Eric

I forgot about Bob Heil.... http://www.heilsound.com Eric

KJ7XJ- Thanks for the reply, I am researching Neumann mics right now, but I will keep your recommendations in mind. Now, I have seen a lot of people talking about transferring your old dead tapes to cds... And everyone has this mythology or mystique about it. My dad has over 600 tapes that I am steadily transferring to Cds with High quality results. Here is how I do it... I use my dad's old Nakamichi cassette deck analog cables out -> Into my Behringer Ultragraph Pro EQ, XLR to analog patch cables out -> Into my brand new TEAC CD Recorder. It is an EXTREMELY simple operation that (thanks to the good people at Behringer) makes a very nice sounding CD. The downsides are as follows. (but more on the definition of "downsides" later) You have to listen to your tape all the way through while making your CD, i.e. I press play on my cassette deck, then start recording on my Cd Recorder then I listen to the first song until then end then I press the Record button to start/split to the next track. After the tape is done you press two buttons to "Finalize" the disc, and after one minute ten seconds your Cd is ready to play! Also my TEAC does not have independent left and right recording volume control. However this is simply solved by using the input controls on the Equalizer (EQ) ((Very simple to use and you can gets great sounds very easily)) And back to the definition of downsides.... Having to listen through the track is actually a benefit for me in many ways. I get to listen to everything that is going on, make sure every second of my recording sounds great. Actually instead of pressing the Record button on my Cd Recorder to split/start the next track I can press Stop or Pause and Listen to the next track through before I record it...I can easily adjust the Input levels, some High and Low cut, and adjust my 31 band EQ to perfection on each track! To me this is a great setup, easy to run, quality results, and I probably spent under $500 to get started. And man is it sweet once you get that first disc finalized...and you listen to the amazing sound that you have just updated, improved, and preserved it is a very satisfying moment!!! ~Make us SNAPPY!~

Correction* I use Analog to XLR patch cables out of my dads Nakamichi cassette deck Into the Behringer... If anyone cares... Make us SNAPPY!

I used Final Vinyl on my Mac(available at an Mac Store). You can run a tape player into computer via USB port. Once the show is loaded you can create individual song files out of the whole show. Transfer these files into Itunes. From there you can create CDs and also have a back up on your hard drive or external hard drive depending on where you store your music. Really easy to use and sounds great. I am up to about 250g on my external drive with ability to play over stereo at home or transfer shows to Ipod for road trips.

I've found the old fashioned way is best, but VERY time consuming. I ran a tapedeck through a graphic EQ then into a cd burner. You do have to listen to the tape and make breaks for track listings, but if there are a bunch of songs running into eachother,I'll just let it go and there is a problem with editing. Most of my tapes are on 90 mins, cd's only go up to 80 mins , so you have to do some editing if you want to fit all onto a disk. however my sound quality did not suffer as bad as i thought it would. My problem is having to lug around 500 or so tapes. If there is an easier way, I would love to learn how to do it.

Yes, that all sounds very nice, but how much real control do you have over your music? And aren't you limited by your computers hardware/interfaces at some point? I put my Cd's onto my computer after I make my Master copy. But I don't like the idea of only having my archives stored on PC only...in case of a crash. That makes me NERVOUS! Make us SNAPPY!

Fred, The majority of what I am transferring is 110's.... ....I don't know about your particular recording habits....but it seems like the Dead never filled up an entire 110 with one set.... ...easy solution.... Two Cd's per show. That is how I do it. Plus having that "Set break" gives me a chance to check out the next set to see if I need to tweak my EQ any (Because my original recordings ((My dads tapes)) almost always have different levels from first to second set). Of course some level differences between separate tapes of the same show could have been the original mixing done by the Dead. I.E. At set break Bobby might have said...I want my vocals raised/lowered or Jerry could have wanted more Phil (God knows why...) Make us SNAPPY!

...shall we go, you and I while we can... I'm always interested in how the band actually played it and how the sbd or aud recording of the show sounded. I still maintain that using the torrent approach not only does this, but gives you a wider range of show choices. And, if you have a high speed connection and a good internal burner, it's not too hard to get it going.Remember that folks have gone a long way to get the best possible recording of these torrented shows for distribution.

Thanks, Mr.Fantasy.....unfortunatly most of mine are all 90's so the struggle to edit continues,plus....and I know it's a sin, a majority of my tapes are 2nd set only. But it is kinda fun to try to put the puzzle together so to speak. But, I'm having fun and really that's what it is all about.keep on truckin!

There are some real sentimental attachments to some of the cassettes. Lots of love went into making them back in the day and there is something to be said for keeping that particular version of a show that you went to the trouble of trading for. Especially in the days before all the internet and computer stuff. I would for example try to fill every possible minute of a tape with fillers and played around with painstaking fade ins and fade outs all done by hand. All that work makes the tapes that much more special and unique. While the internet has allowed for an increased availability of shows, I think people take for granted that in the old days to get shows was really something special and something to cherish. Now it is almost too easy and I believe that certain things that were unique to each show are lost by the shear numbers of what is available. That being said, all this music is truly a gift and a lifelong hobby that I've enjoyed and will keep on enjoying.

Try this unit....either phono records or tapes...right into your USB port....been using one for about a year for both records and tapes and it performs beautifully....see it here: http://www.mcminone.com/product.asp?catalog%5Fname=MCMProducts&category…

...shall we go, you and I while we can... ...except the unasked ones.The bottom line is you have to open a single port in a universe that involves 60,000 to 80,000 of them. You are probably using Make Firewall Exceptions in your XP security center already. All that a file sharing system does is open 1 port, and utorrent can randomize that port daily, so it's always different, it can also encrypt incoming data, so no one knows what your sharing (called privacy). In two years of doing this, I've never run into a hacking problem myself, nor have I ever heard of one. I was the one who described it as "good manners". Deadheads should love this... you share back to a "ratio" of 1, meaning you give back as much as you took to others. BTW, I think "brain freeze" on this happens to a lot of us. DON"T FREAK OUT...remember a time when you learned something a little complex that really added to your enjoyment? Maybe you have to go back a ways, but you did it and you felt great about it! I got a computer with a comcast connection,and causually playing with it, I had the basics down in a month.It was the first time I ever used a computer for anything except word processing, and I'm no genius in this department! One more thing, this IS NOT ILLEGAL...it involves the sharing of uncoprighted material for personal enjoyment and not for sale. In fact, in the torrent commmunity, the ethic is to ALWAYS buy the copyrighted version of anything that torrented that the band releases.It's just a great way to get shows without dealing with lousy copies, the vagueries of the U.S. Mail,ect. Okay, that's more than you asked,Marye...if you want to check it out, I'm happy to help you get started.

I recorded a whole bunch of shows on a converted sony beta max, strictly audio only.( Beta was the truly better format). There were lots of folks doing this back in the day.Problem is my converted Sony machine was stolen. Is there any one out there or FURTHER OUT THERE that still has a Beta Audio machine that they are willing to ;give, lend or rent? The early bird gets the worm but the second mouse gets the cheese.

I have several east coast shows recorder on a converted Sony Beta machine (it was a better format than VHS) Problem is it was stolen. I have tape and no way to play them . Question is does anyone still have one they can lend, rent or sell? The early bird gets the worm but the second mouse gets the cheese.

I have been transferring my old cassettes and reels (yep, I'm THAT old!) for a couple of years now. It's a time-consuming process, to be sure, but the results are worth it. I have found that most of the programs and devices that connect from your tape deck directly to your computer result in CDs of considerably lesser quality that your original tapes. I am using an HHB 830 "Burn It" CD recorder that hooks up to my stereo system just like a tape deck. It works just like a tape deck, too, except you record to CD-Rs instead of tapes. It makes perfect copies. You can easily adjust levels and balance, and it has an adjustable fader feature for smoothing out the beginning and/or end of your recordings. Hook the HHB up to your tape jacks, and the tape deck to an AUX input, and record from the tape deck to the CD recorder just like you recorded cassettes in the old days. You can insert track indexes as you go by pushing one button. When you're done, you push 2 buttons, the disc is finalized in about 2 minutes, and you can play it on just about any CD player. This is a professional recorder, and is used by lots of musicians to make their own demo CDs. I saw a picture of Danny Elfman (composer of music for "The Simpsons" and many other movies and TV shows) in a magazine interview, and he had one of these units in his equipment rack in his own studio. I paid about $500 for mine at Sam Ash Music, and they have stores all over the country, or you can order online. It's the best 500 bucks I've spent on recording gear in a long time.