neveronfriday

@JSngry and AllenLowe Of course. I didn't expect anything else.

I'm so tired, and this was supposed to be a holiday here, so I can't reply much. Thanks for answering! I do not believe people have taken a strong-enough stance around here and have maneuvered Jim into a really tight corner. By complacency, mostly. That's my take. I'm going to sleep right now and I know I won't really be back. I just hope that you will all show some more respect to Jim in regard to what you post here. I was pissed off today, in a major way, and I'm not about to take anything back. There has just been too much of that ego-thing going on here, the one that has certainly soured it for Organissimo. As a parting statement, just think about how you behave around here. It's not your place and not your forum exclusively. Show some restraint and help Organissimo get much more than a foothold. It's really up to you! Hell, one day Jim might even add your name to a list of contributors not because you paid a hundred bucks, but because you actually deserved the merit! How about that? Perchance, to sleep ... ZZzzzz [offline]

31 thousand posts and the same stance as always. I'm on a roll here and don't care, so let's just ... You wanna let this go? How about you, an oldtimer and a respected voice if I ever saw one, one of sublime reason, taking a stance? You want people to ruin Jim's career? Didn't think so. Man, I learned so much from you ever since the inception of this board, tons (!), and you know what, I'm really disappointed. Whenever things come to head, you pull back and give your voice of reason line. Yes, I can sympathize because life is what it is, and I - as well as you - don't want the Internet to take over our real lives, but - from almost a decade of experience - you run for cover every single time things explode. Say your piece (peace) and get on with it. Let Chris and Allen and so many, many others be part of this by letting them know that not everything is cool. Man, see your responsibility here: You are a cornerstone of this board, no doubt about it, and I, personally, damn well expect you to take a stance. If you like it or not, WE (me and everyone else) need this board and we also depend on YOU (yep, you!) to take a stance. You have a responsibility, like it or not. Why? Because I and everyone else respect you! Make it live, help it survive and go that extra inch I haven't seen in a long while. Do it!

Online life is tough, ain't it? How much does Cath charge? I hope a good and stiff Cuba Libre will do? Yes? Please?

Larry, for some reason I was too dumb to reply via personal message. I didn't get a "Send message to ... button" even after I logged in. So I'll do it here. That's the stance Jim needs. Nothing else. Kudos!

Larry, I think what I posted here tells you that I have the utmost respect for you. But you're laying 100% of the burden on Jim's shoulders. Would you, personally, be prepared for that task? Give the guy a break! And kudos to you for bringing so much good music into my life.

Sorry to disagree but Allen's bullshit chased away far better quality posters/members than he ever was and will be. Yes, he chased away me and John (couw) and others, but I'd be the last person to say he didn't have a shitload (!) to contribute. He has a manner I would usually disagree with (hell, always!), but he also had ideas that got me to think twice, three times and four times. The last thing I would say is that Allen didn't know his shit. I would never, ever, formulate that kind of sentiment! I'm actually indebted to him for moving my small German ("Heil!") pea brain an inch further. Even if it wasn't a pea-brain, I learned from Allen's posts (and I would have loved to personally shove a red-hot poker up his ass once, or thirty-three times). Still, the point I'm trying to make is that Jim and the band do NOT deserve the in-fighting, the fallout and the personal crap posted here. Allen, I'll single you out here although you are gone (but might possibly be reading along). Please forgive me. Jim does not need the Hitler jokes, the personal swipes right and left. He also doesn't need the innuendo and, in my opinion, somewhat cynical stance. I actually concur in many areas (believe me, I do), but this is Jim's jazz board whose limits got buried in a lot of shit you and others posted here. Does that make what you posted unimportant? --- No! ---- But it asks you to be more restrained, to keep in mind where you're posting what! At all times. This is not a white canvas to splurt some paint onto. Not at all. I always wonder if "you" (meaning everyone) would allow "you" (meaning everyone) in your own living room. Probably not, even if you say so. An agenda is nothing worthwhile to "push", although it might damn well be called for. There are ways of getting things across. "Restraint" is called for in a house that is not your own. "Restraint", for wont of a better word, is called for in an environment, in which you simply won't be allowed to speak your (full) mind. Run out into the street and everyone will hear you! Just don't always fucking blurt out what's on your mind. Hell, we're all grown-ups. I don't know how many times I had blood running from the tip of my tongue because I bit down hard on it, avoiding what was about to spill out. This has fuck all to do with censorship. It has (and call me old-fashioned) everything to do with courtesy. It has to do with Jim! All of you, and I mean everyone, owe Jim Alfredson that much. The crap that has been going on has to stop. Or you're going to be homeless. Believe me.

Not. At. All.

Dan, I've read everything that was posted here these past years and, to be quite honest, I do NOT want to fault any single individual. I wouldn't dare! That is NOT my point! I even derived a a ton of information from Allen Lowe's comments, although I have felt intense displeasure at times. Not my kind of guy. But I certainly respect his knowledge! Isn't that what it's all about? Shit, I have most of what he put out CD-wise in my shelf-system ... because it's good! The same with Chris A. who, unfortunately, pulled an "Albertson" on this board. I NEED his information to get on with my affliction. All of it. I just feel really bad for Jim who has to put up with the collateral damage, time and again. Really, have you ever known a more restrained person? I haven't. For everyone involved : Give Jim some fucking room to breathe! He can use it! Or do you want to kill this wealth of information? Some people are an inch away from doing so! Edit: I screwed up too many words and some grammar here and there. Fixed. Sorry.

Dan , I'm really sorry. I think the wording of what I wrote might have singled you out, just because I remembered what you wrote on that "unemployment" thread. Quite to the contrary, I wanted to show my sympathy and had hoped, in vain, to avoid the feelings you got from what I wrote. The thread in which you posted (re: work) has been one of the few I read regularly with the hope that everyone posting in there might have good luck in the immediate future. My verbal mistake. Dan. I read everything you posted in that thread and I sympathize more than you can possibly imagine! Good luck and, I hope, ... no hard feelings! Volkher P.S.: "The 'You' in the paragraph following what I wrote about you, was supposed to mean a larger group, not you yourself!

Sorry, one more thing. I'm not going to respond here anymore, but I welcome any PM and will (!) prove every single statement I made here. Besides that, consider me an ex-member ... which I've been for the past few years (and probably was before as well, as I didn't have much of substance to contribute. I'm really just a "fan").

I just "reported" my own post to Jim and whoever is in charge here.

I don't get this board anymore. Half of you (or more) condone a story about Stan Getz shoving repositories up baby's asses and taking them out again shortly thereafter, posted by a man of nearly unshakable repute (and a man I have tons of respect for), and then you whine about the deletion of the thread. Yes, some people tried to mildly refute it, and that seems to have been enough for the more verbal members of this board. Not in my book. No fuckin' way. A ot of it was embarrassing, juvenile ... and read by tons of people across the planet. Have you ever looked at how many people are reading along here when you are online? Try it! [Jim, delete the following, if you please] A while back, Jim contacted me about a faintly possible tour of Europe and I spent a a shitload (!) of time (fucking weeks) getting some gigs lined up for Organissimo in case they ever did want to come here. I don't know how many evenings I went to gigs and arrangements just to meet the people again that I knew could help out. Sorry, but you guys fucked that up royally because you think this is your own private fucking living room. Totally! Two 100% lined-up gigs that Organissimo could have had? Down the fucking chute. Who do you think you fucking are ... allowed to fuck-up Jim's career? Adult and academic posture? Yeah, sure. I have nothing against discussing an artist's shortcomings, not at all, but to condone isolated and totally unsubstantiated and impossible shit that was posted about Stan Getz: You (and you know who you are) did Jim and the band members a superior disservice. In a major fucking way. Yes, you canceled possible gigs for Jim! You! And I can fucking prove it! I have been a visitor these past months again, living off the fabulous (!) pool of information this board offers (and, as many of you forget time and fucking time again, so have many others who never post here ... hundreds, if not thousands) but when I look at the thread about members of this board having lost their jobs, I didn't see anyone posting "Trusted capitalistic bastards?" and "You're own fucking fault" posts there. Thank God. Why not? Didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings? Of course, but with Stan Getz it didn't matter, did it? Dan, I'm speaking to you directly here. I felt really bad for you, reading along as much as I could to see if your situation would improve (it seems that it has, and I'm glad). No matter the differences, this is life and although I have not met a single individual member in real life, I fucking care! Really, I do. But have you ever thought what gives you the right to soak up the positive comments re your situation while dealing out heavy-handedly to Jim and the rest? No? Shit, I just don't believe it. You [edit: this does NOT single out Dan at all!] hurt Organissimo, the band, with that crap in the Getz thread and I have the feeling that some people who post here don't give a rat's ass. All they can come up with are excuses. Yes, leaving a thread up to learn from it (Chuck ...and I'm a fan of your work!!!) is a good idea, but to take an absolute stance on the matter is just wrong, in this instance, if you take into consideration WHERE you are. You're a guest here, and so am I. Excuse my verbiage, guys and gals, but I'm seriously pissed (!!!). I worked for fucking endless hours to help Jim out and you guys just flush it down the toilet. Not a second thought. Nada. Niente. Shame on you for thinking you can act out your agendas, your grievances and your opinions uncontrolled here. I'll do the proverbial drama queen and publically state that this is the last fucking thing I ever want to have to do with Organissimo. I ain't got the time for this shit! Yes, fire away, as I expect you will. Before you do, think for a second about the disservice you do to Jim Alfredson, one of the greatest organists if I've ever heard one, and one of the few individuals I've ever met that I have the utmost (!!!!) respect for. Have you any idea how difficult it is to reign in the many personalities online here? The last thing we can all say is that Jim didn't give anyone a mile-long rope to dance on. Get real, people, many of you are taking advantage of Jim, and you know it! I hate to exclude the other band members here, but I don't have enough time to extoll their virtue(s). The band is great, the music is great, I have all of their CDs and I continuously do everything I fucking can to advertise their artistic expertise, the feeling these guys have and the wonderful music they produce. They are an ensemble (no wankin'), they are that much better for it, and you guys are barging in there and fucking things up. You don't seriously believe that any venue will book Organissimo after some of the shit that has been posted here? Outside of the US (yes, there is an outside!), venues are often publically or privately subsidized. There's no talk about freedom of speech, there's no talk about objectivity: there's talk about crap you guys post about artists that played at joints I tried to get Organissimo into! There is fear of inviting criticism once some shit like in the Getz thread is posted here. Only fucking that! Who cares if you think that is proper or not? That is NOT the issue! It's the way things are around here! Again, I know that some of what you posted is true, but the only thing I hear is that "Organissimo isn't a band I want to book because of the controversy" (that's summing up a ton of mails I have in my, sorry, German, in-box). Yes, just about anyone I know in any jazz club or "gremium" reads along here, more or less.It was my biggest fucking mistake to actually tell them to do so. Get off you high horses and damn well show some respect to Jim! Tone it the fuck down to let him breathe and do not be so fucking self-righteous! I appreciate the joy Jim and his band members have brought into my life, but I certainly don't appreciate single individuals screwing that up. Up, across, and fucking out. I've never been pissed more about wasting weeks of my life, so, please, at least understand my stance. [Jim, end of deletion segment] P.S.: I would like to go on public record, once again, by saying the following: Organissimo has afforded me great joy in my life, Jim has been a superb individual in every single conversation with me (not a single deviation) and I'd like to publicly excuse the many four-letter words here. Jim and the band don't deserve it, but I just couldn't refrain. I'm fucking pissed. Sorry, Jim!

While I truly appreciate that there are folks with a different perspective, different desires and different needs (and I thank you, neveronfriday, for the effort that you obviously put into your posts), I think this may sum it up best for me. I'm sure there may be portable devices developed in the future that will offer significantly improved audio quality options, but (speaking of waiting for years to take action) I've already waited a long time to get my favorite jazz recordings ripped for convenience and portability. No problem, Jim. Consider it to have been food for thought, also for others who are thinking of ripping large parts (or all) of their collection and who might chance upon this thread in the future. Cheers!

Yep, I wanted to do that too, ever since the middle 90s. When I had some money left over last year I just said "screw it" and got started. I waited 10 years ... and that's enough. Although the kids today collect unbelievable amounts of data files and storage solutions are becoming cheaper by the minute, I think the more professional market that could cater to us few freaks (I'm not counting all the mediocre home server solutions available already) is going to keep prices out of reach for the average consumer long enough for me to die before things become available. If you want to go digital with a 10.000+ collection and are talking about investing less than a thousand dollars, I think external drives will also be the only affordable solutions in the near and further future. If you consider what a professional replacement would have to offer, we're talking huge network server here that you would have to store away from the living room (try cooling 10-20TB of drives!). The alternative that I am eying are audiophile products like from NAIM (etc.) that are becoming more commonplace now: something you can integrate into a better hifi system and which allows you to attach up to 4 external drives. The biggest problem all these solutions (in the price range of $2000 - $9000) have is that they cannot cope with mile-long folder structures and literally a 6-or easily 7-digit number of files. Many recent models can read 1TB drives (or others), but they can't hold the CD info in memory ... turn the machine off and the info is gone and has to be re-read. I've been in touch with a few developers and they assure me that in that market segment (which caters to us freaks), that problem is one of the major ones that needs to be solved. That means, you need internal memory that "remembers" perhaps up to 20.000 and more CDs, with tag info and covers. Not enough time to write more. Need to work. Cheers!

proof of concept

Oh, I myself have a lot (!) more drives. I also know it's not exactly the safest backup solution (although I have two complete sets of rips), but a decent NAS server in the (minimum) 8TB range is far too expensive. The way I do things, I probably have to replace a drive here or there from now on and the way prices have been dropping, that won't really be an issue. BTW: I was lucky enough to get a 1/2-price offer on 6 (!) Toshiba Stor-E Alu 1TB drives a few weeks back and paid 260 Euro for them. The shop wanted to clear them out for new models. I didn't complain. Try getting any sort of network storage for that amount of money. I think a power plug for that would probably cost more. I've had some drives fail on me these past years, but if they don't burn-out within the first few weeks, you can usually assume that they will last up to 3-5 years (a conservative estimate). They need to be attached to a PC regularly (so I have been told), so every 4 weeks or so I check the whole set. Bit of a nuisance, but other solutions which can hold as much as I have are simply unaffordable. The goal is to go completely digital once mass storage solutions have become much more affordable. I estimate that for what I have (films, etc.) I need a minimum of 10TB (mirrored) and I guess it will take a few years until we have solutions which are hot-swappable (take out a broken HD without losing any data) and in a consumer price-range. No matter what, considering that many of my burnables (CD-R and DVD, Taiyo Yuden or not) did not last all that long, this USB external-drive-solution is best for what I wanted to do. YMMV Cheers!

Saw an interesting article in Maximum PC, where they performed a blind listening test comparing 128 to 256, using both the Apple earbuds and $400 headphones. The quality of the headphones mattered far more than the encoding rate. At the risk of putting my tech ignorance on public display, I'm bringing this back up to see if I can get some feedback. I just did a little experiment myself, and the result seems to match up with the aforementioned Maximum PC test. After nearly filling up my first iPod with downloads, curiosities, selected videos from Youtube, and music from a variety of genres other than jazz (generally everything BUT the music I love the most- all the classic jazz in my CD collection), I opted to buy another iPod and start ripping my jazz CD's so that I'll be more inclined to actually listen to them again. I know, I know. Everybody's got their own way of surviving in this cruel world. So anyway, with the price having dropped drastically since my original ipod purchase, I just bought another 160 GB model, and began pondering whether I can actually get most (all?) of my roughly 2600 CD's onto this thing. Apple's general guideline suggests 30,000 songs (4 min. per song; encoded at 128 kbps). Okay, so the first thing I realized is that I've never bothered to change the default (128 kbps mono, 256 kbps stereo) setting in iTunes. Oddly enough, one of the first CD's I've just experimented with ("Presenting Cannonball Adderley", on Savoy/Denon) is a mono recording, but iTunes is telling me that it was in fact encoded at 256 (and indicates "stereo") when used the 256 setting. Anyway, that's not what's puzzling me. I ripped "Kind Of Blue" three times, at 128, 256, and also in lossless. After ripping to iTunes, I synched all three versions to my new iPod. I listened carefully to all three in iTunes (using two different pairs of earbuds), and I literally could not detect any difference in sound quality- even playing the same tune in the 128 version followed immediately by the same tune in lossless. I tried the same experiment on the iPod, and the result was the same. The sound quality differs considerably in terms of comparing the earbud sound (and I already knew that), but comparing the three different bit rates on the same earbuds leaves me puzzled. Could there be some technical factor here that I'm overlooking? At any rate, I'm not very picky about sound quality anyway, and I'm leaning toward going with 128 kbps and maximizing my storage space, but if there's something I'm overlooking here and I can figure out how to get improved sound via lossless, I might rip some discs at that higher quality rate. Btw, I understand that a pair of high quality headphones might make me see (hear) things differently, but I'm not sure about that option yet, for a variety of reasons which I'll set aside for now. Interested in hearing about the experiences and points of view of some of our ipod veterans... Thanks. JimR, let me pull a quick brownie (Yo! Guy!) here and appear for a single post. Don't make the same mistake(s) I made if you are considering ripping your entire collection. My suggestion, very briefly (and it comes from years of having done things wrong) outlined below, does demand more work and you will probably have to invest into at least (!) two external HDs (1TB * 2): Rip all your CDs to FLAC, a lossless format (you'll find tons of info around the Net on how to do that). I use EAC for that (difficult to set up perfectly, but also lots of guides available), but there are lots of other programs. I'm sure people here can advise you. Why? Without wanting to start a discussion on the various formats here, FLAC is a universally accepted lossless format which is even supported by many mobile players, streaming servers, etc. (increasingly so). What's the benefit? It's future-proof! Plus (and that's the beauty of it all): Once you have all of your CDs ripped to FLAC and stored somewhere, you can a) burn a CD from a rip at any time you please (I use Burrrn, the simplest of programs), b) transcode your FLAC rip into any format any time you like (and as many times as you like), c) and, because of the huge following of that format, you'll probably be able to transcode to any other future format as well. In addition, if you buy yourself some machine (streaming clients, etc.) in the future, you can just hit your rips again and generate anything you need from those (much, MUCH quicker and basically an automated process if set up properly). Downside: a) FLACS are a lot bigger than most other formats. Example: The Japanese "Chet Baker: Chet (+1)" (51 minutes, 10 tracks) eats 259 MB of HD space! b) You need external storage solutions (I use 1TB USB HDs, one set for rips and another set for backups) ... which have come down considerably in price these past months (mine cost below $100 each and I bought one every two months for a while, spreading out the costs). c) You need extra time for i) ripping to flac and ii) converting to another format (and reading up on everything). With a smart setup (I use a player called foobar to convert FLAC files to just about anything), you can transcode one CD into, say, 320 kbps MP3s in about a minute (or two) and have foobar tag your stuff properly. Summary: More reading, work (and more cash) at first, pure pleasure thereafter. I'm a totally happy camper today with my collection (10.000+) securely ripped (and completely "mirrored" once on an equal number of drives) and am absolutely sure I won't have to do all of that work again (unless my house burns down [i do keep my backups elsewhere and check them once in a while, so even that won't kill me]). Believe me, if you want your entire collection digitalized, this is the only sensible way of doing it, IMHO. Over and ... out again.

Far too dangerous in that world of ours, as you should know.

Hm. I have to support John all the way here, not only because we are friends and have been for quite a while (thanks to this board by the way), but also because he has given voice to my exact thoughts as well. I've been away for a few days and have only now read through all of this and I don't think I have anything to say aside from replicating what John an Flurin have said again ... no real point to that. I'd like to add this though: When I posted that one-liner upon which Jim announced the closing down of this board, I meant what I said. In all this subsequent euphoria re the saving of this board, that one important point got a bit buried. Before the shmooze fest going on at the moment, posting had slowed to a crawl around here. Some people said that it was because everything had been talked to death, others assumed that it was just a slow month, etc. My theory is that it happened because lots of people left or lots of people withdrew. There was a time when I could open one of those "another 100.000 posts" threads ever so often, now it will seemingly take another decade to reach another milestone. Of course, the number of posts (especially those with smileys, double-smileys and triple smileys) do not the quality of a board make, but for months (not weeks) things had slowed down majorly that a visit once a week (for me) was enough to check on the worthwhile stuff. I can only speak for myself, but I only dropped by here to read once in a while and did not really feel like posting anything. There were just too many derailed threats, too many which seemed more like an ego display for some and a dump-on for others. No fun. The latter is what killed it for me and, despite all these "we saved the BigO" posts, I don't really see any change in what I personally perceived to be wrong with this board lately. I'm far past wanting to point fingers or taking single individuals to task (I myself could be taken to task for, for example, not contributing to tip the scales, and I'm well aware of that), but the fact remains that if things continue to develop the way they have been developing these past two or three years, slowly and gradually, you simply won't have many of the posters around that once made this a fun and highly communicative site. I'm also aware of the fact that many of those who seemingly do not understand what some of us "complainers" are getting at are telling us to just drop it or leave, because we're being a nuisance (that is the definite feel I get from this thread) and I guess many of the more vocal opposition and those from the silent rows in the back will just do that, drop it or leave. We all know that both the leaving here and the dropping of issues and going quiet has already been taking place on a major scale these past weeks and months and I get the definite feel that for many others that is a necessary evil to "endure" for keeping things going the way they always have (they haven't really always been going that way now, have they?). My suggestion is simple. We end the discussion right here, because this thread clearly shows that nothing can be gotten from it and those who object leave and join those elsewhere who have already. It's really a simple solution. And it saves Jim the trouble of having to put up with this shite.

I really hope everybody won't proceed as they've always been doing. Some things have been going in the wrong direction for some time - negatativity, mudslinging etc. - and I know I'm not alone in thinking that this place is not quite as healthy as a few years ago. Since self-moderation tends to get weaker when you think you "know" your fellow forum members, the results are not always very civilized, and ultimately not for the best if you want to have a friendly atmosphere which will welcome new members. I totally agree with that and would add that the slowing down of this board (not technically, but post-and content-wise) and the absence of some former regulars or the disappearence of others into the "off" of this board is also directly related to these issues. I think they need to be addressed at some point.

The other side of what? Come to the light, Brownie & MG!!! Count me out! [...] but let's face it, I won't be part of next year's activities. I'll probably be lurking in from time to time ande enjoy the posts from a distance. I have lots of plans (personal, family, plus various passions) for the year 2008 and the following years and aim to concentrate on those. [...] Now, that is a real pity ... but perfectly understandable. I'm already now planning a trip to Paris for next year and if you are around, perhaps we could sample some fine wines somewhere. That would be grand. In my eyes, you've always been the most level-headed and all around positive regular around here and I don't think I'm the only one who would say that. Also, many of your posts pointed me towards and turned me on to more music I like and I will sorely miss your contributions. Volkher P.S.: ... and thanks for completing my JiP collection with that sampler which surprisingly showed up on my doorstep one day. It was a very nice gesture and was and is still appreciated very much. I know I'm still missing an item or two, but what I wanted I now have and both gloat over it and listen to it constantly. Thanks again, also for all the other help and information over these past years!

Proof ... Organissimo in south-western Germany, unfortunately the only copies I'm aware of in the area.

I bought both albums, thrice (twice as presents).