Kevin Bresnahan

For the use-cases you've described in this thread I'd go with Audacity. Plus, it's free. Before Audacity, I always used Groove Mechanic, but I doubt the free version is still around. It was hard to find a few years ago. I only used Groove Mechanic to separate tracks, not clean up the ticks & pops. As for ripping mp3s, I've pretty much switched over to Exact Audio Copy but in a pinch, I'll use CDex. Both use an external LAME compressor and support passing variables to the compressor. I pass a pretty long command line: -V 2 --vbr-new --add-id3v2 --ignore-tag-errors --ta "%a" --tt "%t" --tg "%m" --tl "%g" --ty "%y" --tn "%n" %s %d For FLAC, I still use EAC but I have an add-on called AutoFLAC. It works very nicely with EAC.

http://stereocentral.tv/phpbb/index.php Lots of really hateful, juvenile stuff here, but also some funny (and warranted) bitching, mostly about the moderators and some of the more zealous sycophants. And no, I don't post there. Personally, I like Steve and his work, but some of his followers are a bit wacky. I wish I knew someone on this Hoffman parody board. There is no way to contact them at all. Weird to have a forum without any way to contact the moderator, even via e-mail. If anyone knows a member there, drop me a pm here. Kevin

I have never had any CDs that I could not rip to mp3. I even kept two of Sony's "root kit fiasco" CDs for future reference. I was able to copy those as well. Try Exact Audio Copy and see if it works. It seems able to ignore copy protection without any trouble.

In the feedback, there appears to be a buyer who gave him positive feedback and the seller reciprocated. I suppose that could be done to set up a future scam, but that seems like a lot of trouble to go through. I think it was just a uninformed seller - or maybe just a seller who had no clue how much he paid for them and missed the '3' in front of the 600 on the receipt.

Hold down the shift key as you close your CD tray to disable autostart. Once the disc is in there, any ripper will "see" it. I agree with everyone that a failing CD drive can cause read failure. If you are a newbie, be aware that Windows Media Player is not a great ripper and comes with a default setting to normalize the audio. It also defaults to .wma file format, which is copy-protected. Download CDex from www.download.com. Very easy to use and makes for nice rips. Set the LAME encoder for VBR Q2 and you'll make .mp3 files indistinguishable from the source CD.

I have always wished I could afford a pair of the (now deleted) Nautilus 805 Signature speakers in Tiger's Eye finish. I went and demo'ed a pair, and the lowest the guy would go was $3,800 a pair. The cheapest I have ever seen a pair before was $2650/pair. Then I saw this listing at AudiogoN the other day. $600 a pair?!?! Before I could reply to the ad, it was updated to reflect a "Sold" status. I E-mailed the seller to ask if he might have another pair. His one word response was "No." Wow... just wow. I wish I could have been that lucky buyer. $600? Later, Kevin

A Stereo Jack dollar bin deal: Tom Harrell - Total! (Pinnacle)

Just finished: Scott Robinson - Winds Of Change (Multijazz Records) I bought this from Scott at his University of New Hampshire show Monday night. He brought 2 LPs and I bought both of them. Up now: Ricky Ford - Tenor For The Times (Muse)

That makes me jealous. Ronnie Mathews is always a blast to hear, always swings like crazy. Still pumping out that great 'Rumproller' sound. Unfortunately, Ronnie didn't make the gig, and I was told his health isn't too good. His sub, Orrin Evans, seemed to a bit lost with the Jazz Messengers songbook. All in all, a decent show that would have been better if it were more organized. I've never seen a show where the band members were so confused as to which tune was next or who was up for the next solo. Jazzshrink gave it a B-, I'd give it a B+. I also dug Ralph Peterson's guest shot on two tunes. He is one powerful drummer.

PM coming for: STAN LEVY This Time The Drum's On Me Japanese Issue TOCJ 62027 With Conte Condoli, Dexter Gordon, Frank Rosolino, Leroy Vinegar, Lou Levy. Disc has 3 minor surface marks that don't affect play. Obi inlcuded. $9 THE POLL WINNERS Barney Kessel Shelly Manne Ray Brown XRCD JVCXR-0019-2 $9 The Complete GERRY MULLIGAN meets BEN WEBSTER Sessions VME 2 CD 314539052 $8 NO ROOM FOR SQUARES Japanese Blue Note 2 CD Sampler from the 4000 Series TOCJ 5755.56 $14 Kevin

Sitting in the lobby of the Guest Quarters Suite Hotel as I type this, waiting to see the Art Blakey Tribute band with Valery Ponomarev & Bobby Watson in the front line at Scullers Jazz club. I'm hoping that Ronnie Mathews is at the piano as I haven't seen him in ages. He played with this band last week in NJ.

That's OK, there aren't any Music Matters LPs over here.

I read over on the Steve Hoffman forums that Cisco Music has shut down their US office. I expect this means that their stock will start drying up, including Dexter Gordon's "One Flight Up" and Herbie Hancock's "Takin' Off". Someone started a thread over at the Hoffman forum about how great Cisco Music's LP of "Takin' Off" is. Several people are saying it sounds great, with very little panning resulting a wide stereo spread. I have both of these LPs on order from www.elusivedisc.com (using new buyer special code NEWWEB to get free shipping). If you want them, I'd order them. They might start disappearing. Kevin

Great CD. I saw the title over at ejazzlines.com and I took a chance that it would be fun. I was right. 1) Rev. Moses - Lou Donaldson from "Alligator Boogaloo" 2) The Jody Grind - Horace Silver from "The Jody Grind" 3) The Turnaround - Big John Patton from "Let 'Em Roll" 4) Fungii Mama - Jimmy Smith from "Go For Whatcha Know" 5) A Baptist Beat - Hank Mobley from "Roll Call" 6) Sara's Dance - Stanley Turrentine from "Never Let Me Go" 7) Party Time - Freddie Roach from "Mo' Greens Please" 8) Good Gracious - Lou Donaldson from "Good Gracious" Compiled by Gilles Peterson

For some reason, this thread doesn't open properly in my browser (Firefox 2.0.0.12).

Bill, I did not post what I posted to corroborate your article. I posted what I did to refute what Dan said about Norah Jones not being "run off the Blue Note BB". She most definitely did leave because of what some men posted about her. As for this board and its mainly male make-up, I have to reiterate that I don't think this board would allow any kind of stuff like what happened at that old BN board. Generally, we're a pretty fun group. It's unfortunate that your first few posts got misinterpreted. I hope you hang around to discover that we're not a bad bunch. Later, Kevin

I think Norah Jones could come here and post and not have too many problems. This board is a lot more "female friendly" than the old BN board. However, given the treatment Bill McCloskey just got, I'd venture to say this place isn't the most "newbie friendly" place. :D Kevin

A reminder: yes, Norah Jones was "run off" the Blue Note board. I got it verified by Tom Evered afterward. She posted there, said something like "Hi. I'm glad you liked my CD," and shortly afterward, in the "Questions for Tomatbluenote" thread, Aric posted the follwing: "Yeah singers always screw the band. My grandpa told me that his big band (Lee Konitz was on alto)had this chick singer that latter married Boyd Rayburn, and after gigs the band would gangbang her." It went downhill from there. Too many posters not only laughed at Aric's comment, they added speculation as to who was gang-banging who. No woman I know would have been comfortable reading that thread and most definitely not Norah Jones. That one thread had a LOT to do with Blue Note's decision to close that place down. I've related the story many times but it bears repeating. After Norah's Grammy awards show, several EMI mucky-mucks visited the Blue Note bulletin board to see what we were saying, saw this "singers always screw the band" stuff and absolutely flipped out. Their comment was something like, "We're paying FOR THIS?!?"

I travel for many months on end. I may see my LPs/CDs once a year. I cannot download over a Sudanese dial-up line. Much of the time, I don't even have a laptop. I rip all my mp3s at VBR Q2, which is pretty much indistinguishable from CD. I don't need FLAC for portable listening when VBR Q2 works as well as it does. A typical 75 minute CD will rip to about 85 MB at this VBR bitrate. Since many of my Blue Note CDs are more like 42 minutes each, they take about 45 MB. A 16 GB Sandisk player would hold ~355 "typical" Blue Note CDs or if you rip all 75 minute discs, ~188 will fit. That's alotta music!

Why do you need 30 GB minimum? I know so many people who have these huge 40 GB iPods and they have about 5 GB of music on there. And of that 5 GB of music, they listen to about 2 GB of it repeatedly. You should look at the Sandisk Sansa player. Sure, it tops out at 16 GB, but it is a very easy thing to add/remove stuff. Just rip all the music you want to your PC and hook the unit up and swap a few folders every 6 or 7 months. It will take you that long to go through 16 GB of music mp3s.

Coltrane - Ballads One of the new pressings. Sounds fine to my ears.

And got your recommended minimum exercise requirement by having to get up every 10 minutes.

Dexter's solo on "The Maze" is my favorite Dex of all time! Great, great cut. I've read that the Cisco Music vinyl version that's currently available sounds very nice. Anyone here have it? Any disagreement?

Now THAT was cheating! :D

The Rolling Stones - More Hot Rocks and Fazed Cookies