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General discussion

I'm going to put a lot of music

Sep 12, 2013 3:44AM PDT

cd's and lp's on my computer. I'm not looking to do any dubbing or mixing , nothing fancy, I just want to be able to listen to some tunes . Whats the favorite player, Amarok, Banshee or others .....Digger P.S. I'm using SolydK

Discussion is locked

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Never mind
Sep 12, 2013 5:55AM PDT

I figured out how to use this Amarok . Pretty slick player Cool

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Found the perfect music player
Sep 16, 2013 5:20AM PDT

I've been playing around with these players in between loading my music and found Amarok played well but was too big and had too much candy and liked to occasionally crash. Banshee was pretty much the same as Amarok but seemed more stable. Clementine was the best of all three, It was super stable, with less candy but still too big.Than I discovered Audacious! This is the one for me . It's very small and simple, without all of the candy I don't need . It uses very little resources, has a graphics equalizer and focuses on high quality playback. We're Groovin' Now...Digger Cool P.S. Looking for a way to equalize the volume across all music files meaning from one song to the next I don't want to have to keep adjusting the volume. Is this doable?

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Does Audacity have a Linux offering?
Sep 16, 2013 8:39PM PDT

I'll let you do the research but I've used it to record vinyl to make CDs. If not Audacity, you'd need to find a similar program that allows editing. Audacity will allow you to use various tools to change not only volume but fiddle around with bass, treble, etc. For adjusting volume, you get a visual representation of the playback level and tweak as needed. It also offers various RIAA equalization corrections for those who understand what that means. You'd need to isolate the tunes that you want to alter and re-record them one at a time. I know of nothing that will do this "on the fly" though. Using Audacity this way can be a very labor intensive and time consuming process. Be prepared to go without food and fresh laundry for a long time. Good luck.

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I figured as much
Sep 16, 2013 9:25PM PDT

I've done a lot of recording over the years but not digitally. The old vinyl to reel to reel days. I figured maybe by chance someone had progressed. The ol' VU meters still have a place in this world ... Grin

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P.S yes
Sep 16, 2013 9:27PM PDT

I went into the software manager and plucked it . Workin' great

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I meant
Sep 18, 2013 2:18PM PDT

I plucked Audacious from the software manager and Audacity from apt-get

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What I want
Sep 17, 2013 6:01AM PDT

is a quick and easy image editor instead of GIMP, which is too much and therefore a pain. GThumb and Eye of MATE just show images, don't have any capabilities beyond that such as resizing, gamma, contrast, cropping, etc. I've been spoiled by Lviewpro D version in Windows and wish there was a Linux version of that same program. In Kubuntu I have it set up in Wine and it works great there, but don't want to install Wine into Mint unless I must.

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Ever check out DigiKam James
Sep 17, 2013 6:12AM PDT

This came with SolydK -> http://www.digikam.org/ Iv'e used it a little so far . Just transfeered som pics from my phone and than to photobucket.....Digger

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P.S. excuse my typing
Sep 17, 2013 6:16AM PDT

my opposing thumbs aren't on the same page today Laugh

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I'll check it out. This is what I use for
Sep 17, 2013 9:25AM PDT
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Never really played with Digital photography
Sep 17, 2013 10:15AM PDT

I used to have a BW darkroom and developed my own negetives and photos but haven't done a lot with color other than snap shots of family and such. All of that stuff was split up or sold during the divorce in 1999 and just haven't got back into it. Maybe now that I'm retired I'll start going digital. Something to think about.

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Ah...the old traditional way
Sep 17, 2013 10:32AM PDT

I, too, had a darkroom with a Beseler 4x5 motorized enlarger. I printed in B & W but would also process and mount color slides in the basement. No Photoshop...No sir. You used dodging and burning tools made by hand...or just used your hands. I remember the smell of the hypo. My old black Nikon F2 and a sack full of lenses is somewhere around here. As for megapixels, what are those? Until a digital camera has sensors down to the size of silver halide molecules, it won't touch these old horses for fine resolution. In the later years I had my color negatives scanned into hi-rez digital images. No one much bothers to pass out prints anymore. They pass their smart phones around instead. I may need to get a nice digital camera some day but, after using that all manual setting Nikon for over 30 years, I may not get along well with all the electronics in a DSLR.

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Yup, I had the Beseler but it was manual
Sep 17, 2013 11:07AM PDT

also a newer Vivitar with Nicor diffusion lenses . I did keep 2 cameras . The old Bell and Howell 35mm Auto Reflex . Only 4 lenses were made for it though, 24mm. 35mm, 50mm,and 95mm. Found it here->http://www.ebay.com/itm/RARE-Bell-Howell-Auto-35mm-Reflex-QL-Film-Camera-95mm-1-3-5-Lens-charger-/200961620863?pt=Film_Cameras&hash=item2eca3efb7f . Had a Canon AE1 but got rid of it, hated that camera traded it in (and forked over a few bucks too) for a Canon EOS in the 80's and loved it, still have it! I was going to be the new Ansel Adams but that didn't work out lol. Ran cranes instead.

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I did photo lab work in the USAF during my last year
Sep 17, 2013 7:03PM PDT

of enlistment. I cross-trained into that field. I got to work with some very interesting equipment including a very large format camera that was track rails. It had a "Mathew Brady" shutter. I'll bet few even know what those are. Wink

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ya got me there
Sep 17, 2013 7:41PM PDT

I took a couple of photography courses at a local community college but I don't remember that

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CCD's
Sep 23, 2013 6:48AM PDT
"Until a digital camera has sensors down to the size of silver halide molecules, it won't touch these old horses for fine resolution."

Of course size of lens has a big effect too. Small lens with ASA100 film (finer grain) wasn't any better than a digital today, and certainly less forgiving on light and exposure time.

I'd love to see them have CCD's that were as big as the old 120mm film. Just think of the resolution you could get with that.

Have you seen the new pinhole caps they have now for digital cameras? They can make "olde tyme" looking pictures, great depth field too. It makes me wish I had a detachable lens on my camera. I wonder if they make some which will pop on after the lens is extended? The lens glass would probably still interfere with a true pinhole image.

Digital cameras are to film, what CD-R's became to floppies, what DVD-R's became to CD-R. what USB flash drives became to CD/DVD-R's. One day I'll buy a great digital camera with which I can use my 75-200mm zoom lens with.
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one of these days
Sep 23, 2013 7:01AM PDT

I'll look into that and see if my Cannon EOS lenses will fit a new digital body. I have from 27mm up to 500 mm lenses and a fisheye too

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Moving past a compact
Sep 23, 2013 8:28AM PDT

that would be a "must" for me to spend bigger money on a SLR digital camera.

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If they're from film cameras they should fit
Sep 23, 2013 10:57AM PDT

but the focal length for one may not be valid for the other depending on the sensor size.

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Getting closer
Sep 23, 2013 10:53AM PDT

You might try one of these.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=&sku=893196&Q=&is=REG&A=details

BTW, that price is for body only and no lens

One problem is that more megapixels doesn't necessarily make an image that's better. It just makes the images larger. The pixel size is fixed. What would need to happen to capture more detail is make the individual sensors in the ccd arrays smaller. As I said, film does capture detail at the level of individual molecules which is something digital has not yet achieved.

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Yeah Steve
Sep 23, 2013 11:26PM PDT

I'll buy that as soon as the Cubs win the World Series

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if you can put a bigger image
Sep 24, 2013 10:51AM PDT

onto a CCD twice as large even with same pixel size as a smaller CCD, then even though the pixels per inch would be the same, the image being maybe twice as large, makes the resolution quadruple. The distortion factor there to consider would be the lens.

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Not really that simple
Sep 24, 2013 7:05PM PDT

Some reading from what I've found to be a very knowledgeable person and web site.

http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/film-resolution.htm

The guy gives a fair evaluation, IMO, but confirms that film is far superior in being capable of providing detail. In real world terms it may not matter because what we see is that come out on a print or video display. A video display is also composed of pixels so there's no real way to compare the two if viewing on a PC. All I'm saying is that, so far, digital images do not contain the very fine detail of film and are still far away from it. I'm not unhappy with good digital images nor am I a photo snob. I'll buy a digital some day simply because they're good enough and I enjoy the ability to edit photos.

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Many recording programs
Sep 17, 2013 11:54AM PDT

There are hundreds of audio software programs, many free, like Audacity, that will do a lot of the most useful functions. I use a Creative sound card on a machine I use just for audio work. The card came with the usual plethera of programs, the sound studio being the most useful. A quickrecord function that will record any stream, regardless of source. Saving in a format of your choice. I use .WAV files format, same as on a production CD and will play on any player. Compression schemes hold no attraction for me, too much good content gets discarded. I've done 78"s, 45's, Lp's, reel to reel, 8-track, cassette and even four track master tape transposures to CD. Painful, yyes, time consuming, yes but to get to listen to all that wonderful content in its original format, The time flies. Once everything is assembled individual track with names and maybe a genre association you can collect them into the groups, up to 70-80 minutes and burn away.

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Looks like a repository move...whatever that is
Sep 23, 2013 3:35AM PDT

If you find you can no longer update Solydk, go to their home page for instruction. You need to change some setting so the update manager won't fall off a cliff looking for a place that no longer exists. Instructions are included. That always helps.

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Thought sumpin' was kinna
Sep 23, 2013 6:28AM PDT

acting strange. I tried updating and the update manager just hung there and did nothing so I used synaptic package manager and that took care of the update. I'll look at the homepage though, Thanks Steve.....Digger

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Amarok worked well !
Sep 24, 2013 2:05AM PDT

Hi itsdigger!

I have Kubuntu installed on my laptop. Although, I use VLC for playing music and videos on my hard disk, but I think the inbuilt Amarok is good. This is great in terms of managing your music. It gives you the power to download the lyrics when playing the music from internet. You can manage your podcasts. So it worked well for me. You should give it a try.

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Tried Amaroc
Sep 24, 2013 2:08AM PDT

look at the 3rd post in that thread and you'll discover what I decided...Digger

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good work
Oct 9, 2013 7:23PM PDT

i think it is very nice

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Did you try and have any luck with WMA lossless?
Oct 31, 2013 7:13AM PDT

I'd ripped tons of CDs using WMP a long while back and neither VLC, Amarok or a couple others will play them. They'll play standard WMA 192 bit rate files but not the higher quality which run 700-900+ bit rate. From what I can find, it's a dead issue unless I pay for a codec or run WMP in Wine. FWIW, I'm using Kubuntu desktop installed over Ubuntu server. Don't ask why anyone would do that but obviously Linux is only understood by people who have gone mad. If you run out of challenges to overcome, take on this one. Happy