I am grateful that you guys take the time to upload CD's on yousendit.com and post download links to them, but why use MP3? Most traders (myself included) will not accept MP3 sourced material in trade because it sounds crap.

Could FLAC be used instead please?

Whats the difference? Digital is digital, no?

No it's not. Unlike FLAC, MP3 compresses the music by removing the higher frequencies.

If I download MP3s, I listen to the songs from my PC.
I don't burn them to CD-Rs, and ofcourse the qualityloss makes them unworthy for trading.

To each his own. I'm not sure that this board is aimed at traders who require the best possible quality, but at simple-lifers like myself who are satisfied with the whole range of whatever's available. This includes mp3's which are posted here as well as flacs/shns, which to my mind are the domain of torrents & trading.

mp3's are relatively small & easily posted, flacs, altho compressed, are quite large in comparison & would take much longer to u/l as well as d/l.

There are those of us who have little choice in net connection. Here, in Australia, I pay $80/month for unlimited 512/128 dsl because that's all that is available. Posting flacs would take me days.

There is no compunction to d/l anything that is posted here. May I respectfully suggest that if anyone is not satisfied with what we have here they should seek elsewhere for their requirements.

I agree with Vox, who's been amply generous with his MP3 files for all of us.

That's what the bittorrent groups are for--for collectors who dont want the impure strains of the MP3s.

For those who dont deign to deal with MP3s...Fine, trade your higher-generation FLACS and the rest a please allow the rest of us, who are happy to download MP3 files for our own use, to give and receive from that bounty.

Yes, but many people burn MP3s onto CD-R and pass them around. Before you know it, the traders who are trying to avoid MP3-sourced shows have unwittingly ended up with them because the trading pool has been polluted.

If your connection speed is a problem, do things properly and trade via snail mail - you should never degrade the music for your own personal convenience. Get in on the weeds and vines at the RollingStonesboots Yahoo! group, or if there are any particular shows you are after, find out if someone would be willing to do a B&P - you can easily build up a decent collection this way.

I like mp3's. If you don't that's your choice?

I've re-thought my whole collecting ethos in the past couple of years - I was frankly appalled the first time I paid full price for a boot that ended up being a CDR-copy, then when I started buying boots with gaps between the tracks, that obviously taken from MP3's, but I'm no longer so precious about the whole thing - now it's about simply having the tunes.

In just the past few weeks, thanks to the amazing generosity of several kind folks on here, I've got to at least hear obscure boots I probably had no intention of ever buying.

Indeed, so knocked-out by hearing certain boots like, say Vancouver'72, I'd almost certainly now buy a decently-packaged silver CD if I saw it at a record-fair.

So I say, keep up the good work, guys - and if there's people round here who can actually afford to buy all this stuff, first-generation at full-price, then you obviously have too much money !

Out of curiousity could you post a song in MP3, FLAC, and whatever other format you deem to be of superior quality so that we may sample the difference?

I am not as sharp as most of you all in the download world but I would love to be educated to the differences because it seems to be discussed alot and I want to make discs for my car.

To many it´s a question of connection speed.
I f I shall upload a, say, 45 Mb file, it
takes so much time I wouldnt bother to do it.
I have dsl, not slow; but still toooo slow for flac or such.

What are FLAC files? VGP's?

Here's my take on this issue:

Nobody will dispute the difference between an MP3 and the original silver CD. The MP3 by nature is a compressed file that surrenders high end frequencies and dynamic range. It doesn't take a trained ear to tell the difference when played over a high quality stereo system. The higher the bit rate used, the better the quality on playback. Ideally, using 256 kB/s or 320 Kb/s is the best option to reduce the amount of degradation.

Providing MP3 files allows everybody to sample the many bootlegs that are available so that they can decide for themselves as to whether they wish to purchase an orignal if in fact you can find them.

Several U.S. sources for bootlegs have appeared to be drying up, possibly because of the clampdown on bootleggers. Here in Canada, bootlegs are hard to come by and record-collectible shows are not held very often.

Everybody has their own reasons for collecting certain titles. For me it represents a short list of the very best bootleg(s) from each tour and if that means having some that are MP3 format then so be it. Until I can find an original, then I'm grateful for having the opportunity to obtain some of this treasured music anyway I can. As many of you know, I have started several threads and posted concerts and individual songs several times along with other generous folk (thank you Vox) and encourage others to do the same so that we can all benefit.

Look at it this way, if you have listened to many boots, regardless of format, you are in a much better position to make an wise purchase at the next record show.


Cheers and keep on sharing the music !!!!


HYSYMBSITS

If you put both side by side, mp3 and flac, I doubt very much if the average punter would notice any difference. Which is why the industry standard is mp3.

As for people who are downloading stuff from this forum to resell - that's utterly deplorable and totaly against the spirit in which the music is put here in the first place, ie, to benefit and share freely amongst genuine fans.

I don't think a lot of car factory cd players will play anything other than MP3's

I like to have the different shows so that I can hear songs that I have never heard live before. Also I like to hear how they sound at different venues and different time periods.

Can you explain a "silver CD" and how you can tell what the format is please?

I'm more as satisfied with MP3s.

turd Wrote:
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> If you put both side by side, mp3 and flac, I
> doubt very much if the average punter would notice
> any difference. Which is why the industry
> standard is mp3.
>

Just because something is the industry standard doesn't make it the best. 'The average punter' not noticing the difference is not an excuse to degrade the music. Once a song has been compressed, the higher frequencies are lost forever and burning to CD-R or re-converting to FLAC will not recover them.

And why are you all assuming that you have to buy bootlegs in order to hear them? If your net connection isn't fast enough, do what people have been doing since the 60s and trade through snail mail.

The Sicilian Wrote:
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> Can you explain a "silver CD" and how you can tell
> what the format is please?

A silver CD is a factory pressed CD. It will contain music in WAV format, which is raw uncompressed audio data.

> What are FLAC files? VGP's?

FLAC is a lossless file format, as opposed to MP3, which is lossy. FLAC contains the original uncompressed audio data and does not remove any frequencies.

I see that The Cicilian has also asked about VGP
VGP is short for "Vinyl Gang Product", which is a CD label. They released about 380 different titles. VGP 376, for instance, means their release number 376.

So how can you tell what has been compressed and what are the levels that the frequencies should be, and I mean not by ear, I mean technically

The Sicilian Wrote:
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> > So how can you tell what has been compressed and
> what are the levels that the frequencies should
> be, and I mean not by ear, I mean technically

Open an MP3 in an audio editor program and use the spectral analysis function. The upper part of the sound wave will have been cropped. You can't tell what the frequencies should be without having a copy of the original to compare it to.

There is a nice guide at [www.audiohub.org] on the subject.

In your opinions what are the top 5 file formats best to worst and what makes your number 1 your top pick.

If you have file on your hard drive you can easily check the properties of the file by highlighting the file with your cursor.

I believe you would need to have an audio scope to see the sudden roll-off of frequency around 15KHz.

I happened to have an MP3 and CDR version of the very same 1981 boot and you could easily tell the difference. The CDR version had a much brighter sound (frequency response) and a higher playback level.

I will agree that some MP3 material sounds better than others. For example, the MP3s from 2006 (Rio & Buenos Aires) posted on IORR, sound a lot better (more dynamic) than say an older concert. In fact, I would say that the MP3 (256 KB/s) 2006 material, converted to AAC (256 KB/s) via itunes and then burned to CDR is pretty amazing on playback.


HYSYMBSITS

Sod having a top 5, the point is MP3 and other lossy crap should not be used for bootlegs, END OF!

Considering that most of bootlegs aren't of great quality anyway (except for Leeds, Brussels, Handsome Girls...), mp3s don't degrade the quality that much, if they are at least 192kbps. Also, compression has more negative effect on clean, 'dynamic' instruments such as piano and acoustic guitar. The Stones' sound is mainly based on electric guitars, altough lately Chuck and Blondie are getting more prominent. Anyway, keep the mp3s coming!

Brano Wrote:
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> Considering that most of bootlegs aren't of great
> quality anyway (except for Leeds, Brussels,
> Handsome Girls...), mp3s don't degrade the quality
> that much, if they are at least 192kbps.

But that's not the point - they are being degraded (i.e. frequencies are being discarded) no matter how high the bitrate.

...if ya don't like 'em, don't download 'em - END OF!!!...

The MP3s are awesome and easy to use. FLAC files are too complicated. I've been told FLAC files open your computer up to catching viruses as well.

Charles Baudelaire
1821-1867

Is the bit rate 64,128,192,256,320 etc... what the boot was recorded at originally? Each time someone gets a copy can that bit rate change up or down as one is posting it?

In other words can you convert a 128kbps recording to 256kbps recording?

Charles Wrote:
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> The MP3s are awesome and easy to use. FLAC files
> are too complicated.

How are they too complicated? If you want to burn them as an audio CD, download the FLAC software at [flac.sourceforge.net], add the FLAC files to the program window, click Decode to convert them to WAV files, then burn the WAV files using your normal burning software.

> I've been told FLAC files open your computer up to catching viruses as well.

Who on earth told you that? Absolute bullshit.