Lineage Question

[wesi72]

Here is the lineage for a Beach Boys show I want to post:

Paramount Theater: DAT Master > Liberated Bootleg > Wav > Shn > wav > EAC (remove gaps between tracks) > FLAC
Rehearsal: DAT Master > CD-R > Wav > Shn > wav > EAC (remove gaps between tracks) > FLAC

I downloaded it off Easytree, then used EAC to remove the gaps between the tracks (not for audio extraction cos I didn't burn it), then FLACed the files. I have burnt and listened to the show and it sounds OK to me, no noise, gaps or anything suspect. I subsequently seeded my version on STG twice.

It has been ISO'ed here, and I want to upload it, the problem is that the lineage doesn't specify the original extraction software. Can I upload it, as I have listened to it and it sounds fine, or should I not?

Cheers,
Andrew

[U2Lynne]

Andrew, have you ever done a Frequency Analysis of it? I'm just suspicious about why you had to remove those gaps that were originally there. Either the person didn't extract it correctly (didn't have his offset set correctly in EAC perhaps?) or perhaps the original source was mp3.

I'm a Mac person, so I'm not familiar with all that EAC does (I didn't know it removed gaps between tracks), but I did want to get in here and let you get some feedback.

Also, going shn to flac is fine. Five wrote a tutorial on how to do this without actually going to wav using foobar2000 here, but you needed to go to wav because of the gaps.

[Horace]

I've used EAC to detect and remove gaps. It has worked very well for me in the past without any problems.

Horace

Originally Posted by wesi72

Here is the lineage for a Beach Boys show I want to post:

Paramount Theater: DAT Master > Liberated Bootleg > Wav > Shn > wav > EAC (remove gaps between tracks) > FLAC
Rehearsal: DAT Master > CD-R > Wav > Shn > wav > EAC (remove gaps between tracks) > FLAC

I downloaded it off Easytree, then used EAC to remove the gaps between the tracks (not for audio extraction cos I didn't burn it), then FLACed the files. I have burnt and listened to the show and it sounds OK to me, no noise, gaps or anything suspect. I subsequently seeded my version on STG twice.

It has been ISO'ed here, and I want to upload it, the problem is that the lineage doesn't specify the original extraction software. Can I upload it, as I have listened to it and it sounds fine, or should I not?

Cheers,
Andrew

I this the same paramount show that was already seeded on STG?? It is from 1993. I could reseed the main part of the show but it was only 2 discs...furtheremore it was missing the 4 encore songs which I uploaded (but took them from a cassette). If you have the 4 rehearsal songs maybe we could combine them to make the whole show. Let me dig out the info and I will have it out later.

[RainDawg]

I have a great deal of skepticism about using EAC to remove gaps....knowing what some gaps/clicks/pops look like, I know that it's simply impossible to remove these without painstakingly going on a deleting each one by hand. I am sure that for some things, it works...but there's just not way that it's a foolproof method, and I'm quite hesitant to grant that this is an accepted method of gap removal.

I, as Lynne already stated, and curious as to WHY those gaps were there to begin with. Were they full 2-second TAO gaps, or were they short clicks? Do you still have the original files, because if so, we can do a bit of detective work to find out what caused them, and also confirm that EAC removed them correctly.

I'm willing to help work on this to track down this info if you're willing to, but as it is right now, there are a few questions that are making me uneasy about seeding this.

First step, is to take a spectal analysis with EAC. The second step is to zoom way in on the last few samples of a track and on the first few samples of the next one, so that we can try to determine what caused the gaps.

Post back or PM me if you need help!

[wesi72]

Hi Guys,
Thanks for the advice so far. I don't have the original files, so can't go back to them. I have attached a frequency analysis of one of the tracks, hope that helps (hope I've got the right things!). As I recall they were exactly 2 second gaps, so I thought they were from a TAO disc extraction.
Squalldog - I have the encore songs you uploaded (thanks!) but think they are from a different source (sounds like AUD to me), therefore wasn't sure about adding them in.
Let me know what to do next!
Cheers,
Andrew

[kuba]

it doesn't look like lossy source

[wesi72]

I've just looked at an MP3 sourced wav with the same software, and can see it's not MP3 sourced. As far as the ends of the tracks go, I'm not sure what to look for, and what to look with! (I can zoom in using EAC, but not knowing what to look for is a problem) I have been out and about in the car today, and put on the discs I burned from this set, there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with it to my hearing, the tracks blend together, no clicks, pops or gaps.
So...what would the next step be?

Cheers,
Andrew

Originally Posted by wesi72

I've just looked at an MP3 sourced wav with the same software, and can see it's not MP3 sourced. As far as the ends of the tracks go, I'm not sure what to look for, and what to look with! (I can zoom in using EAC, but not knowing what to look for is a problem) I have been out and about in the car today, and put on the discs I burned from this set, there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with it to my hearing, the tracks blend together, no clicks, pops or gaps.
So...what would the next step be?

Cheers,
Andrew

Hey, I dug out the info on the show posted at STG...here is the lineage:
Paramount Theater: DAT Master > Liberated Bootleg > Wav > Shn > wav > EAC (remove gaps between tracks) > FLAC
Rehearsal: DAT Master > CD-R > Wav > Shn > wav > EAC (remove gaps between tracks) > FLAC

This means that the gaps are on the bootleg, which probably means your copy is fine in respect to the gaps. Let me know what you want me to do if anything, I am willing to post this show sometime in the next 2 days. I'm obviously going to be gone most of tomorrow, but I could possibly have it out tomorrow night. So let me know, and here is my entire setlist, let me know if it matches yours:

**NOTE** The tracks will fit on 2 discs if split at There Hearts Were Full Of Spring / All This Is That

The Beach Boys - Live At The Paramount Theater, NYC, Nov. 26th '93 (SBD)
Disc.1

01. California Girls
02. I Can Hear Music
03. Come Go With Me
04. Rock And Roll Music
05. Do You Wanna Dance?
06. In My Room
07. Do It Again
08. Catch A Wave
09. Hawaii
10. Darlin'
11. Be True To Your School
12. Under The Boardwalk
13. Little Deuce Coupe
14. 409
15. Shut Down
16. I Get Around
17. California Dreamin'
18. Summer In Paradise
19. Heroes And Villains

Disc.2

01. Vega Tables ( .. yes! .. the Smile version!)
02. Take A Load Off Your Feet
03. Little Saint Nick
04. Surfer Girl
05. Hushabye
06. Add Some Music To Your Day
07. Their Hearts Were Full Of Spring
08. All This Is That
09. Wonderful
10. Disney Girls
11. Caroline, No
12. You Still Believe In Me
13. God Only Knows
14. Sloop John B
15. Wouldn't It Be Nice
16. Good Vibrations
17. Kokomo
18. Help Me, Rhonda
19. Barbara Ann
20. Fun, Fun, Fun
21. Surfin' Safari

Rehearsal For '93 'Unplugged' Tour (DAT Master)
Disc.3

Add Some Music To Your Day
Vega Tables (Track)
Chatter
Vega Tables
Surfer Girl (Track)
Surfer Girl
Hushabye
Disney Girls
Their Hearts Were Full Of Spring
Wonderful
All This Is That
Caroline, No
You Still Believe In Me

[wesi72]

That's the one, I was the one who removed the gaps and posted to STG. My question was about the original extraction software which isn't specified. Obviously the mods have doubts about the lineage so I am trying to sort it out so I can post it.
Cheers,
Andrew

Wav > Shn > wav > EAC (remove gaps between tracks) > FLAC

^looks to me like it's been through at least one CDr generation and that's the source of your gaps. Instead of removing them why not try sourcing the original disc if this is the thing you want to share?

[oldbrokentapes]

I'm in the process of manually removing some mp3-gaps (for personal listening only don't worry!) so figured it was a good opportunity to check out EAC's ability. The only gap-removal function I found was Process File...Remove>...Leading/Ending Silence - this is what has been used in this case yes?

I would strongly discourage using this as a reliable source for gap detection/removal for the following reasons:

• On the sample I used, the gap wasn't precisely at the beginning of the file (presumably due to offset mis-matching) so EAC didn't even find it at first.
• Not all "gaps" go directly to digital silence. This mp3 (and presumable all such examples) had some tailing-off crap which EAC obviously didn't remove. It's quite possible that TAO would have the same problem.
• Anything that creates gaps (mp3, TAO...) may also remove a small amount of the audio. As such, simply removing the gap could leave a jump in the waveform at the join (which could cause a click). In the rare cased whereby the only available copy of something has gaps that need to be fixed, it will often sound better to remove a few extra sample of audio so that the wave runs smoothly, rather than having every available sample there but a sudden jump between them.

So basically my advice would be, if you are going to remove gaps, do so manually and very carefully with a good waveform editor, preferably one with which you can zoom in on the vertical axis as well as the horizontal so that you can check there are no nasty jumps in the waveform following gap deletion.

[RainDawg]

rob (is that your name?),
Thank you for writing out your experiences, which really does mirror mine. EAC (or any other 'simple' wave processing technique) is ismply not effective at removing gaps. Sometimes the gap is not at the end of the track, sometimes it spans over from the end of one into the beginning of the other. Sometimes, there is a large click of diginoise that surfaces somewhere in the middle of the gap. EAC, of course, will see this as the end of the gap, when in truth the gap AND the click should be deleted.

The only way to remove gaps or clicks between tracks smoothly and without leaving a trace behind is by combining all of the tracks into one long wav file, and processing it from there. I personally use Cool Edit for this, and the "Open Append" and autosmoothing functions work nicely. You open all of the wavs into one long file, zoom in on the silence, manually select it, and delete. The autosmoothing feature will blend the two portions that have been joined together nicely, and the audio will flow perfectly.

You CAN do this with freeware, but it's quite a bit more difficult. Join the tracks (shntool is the best for this, but make sure you save the cue data first so that you know where the track splits are), then manually delete and use the pencil tool to smooth the joined sections.

Just don't expect a simple "remove gaps" feature on any software, even one as great as EAC, to be able to work perfectly. If you're going to edit audio and share it with others, do it right and spend the time to make it perfect.

[kuba]

Yep, I use soundforge for removing silence. Zoom in as much as possible and then you clearly see what is silence and what is not. However, I can't see the point of combining all the files into a large one..

[hirsute]

Originally Posted by kuba

Yep, I use soundforge for removing silence. Zoom in as much as possible and then you clearly see what is silence and what is not. However, I can't see the point of combining all the files into a large one..

If the gap spans the track change you need to look at both sides of the gap to get a smooth transition. Even if the gap ends precisely at the track change you still need to be able to examine both sides to be sure the join is correct. There's no point in removing the silence just to leave a nasty pop in it's place.