Me and Bobby McGee 45RPM remix
 

Hi All

Well I just went and did another transfer with the nice turntable I got for Christmas - this time I dug out my copy of Me and Bobby McGee on 45RPM. This version has never been released to CD. This is the one with louder handclaps and piano added.

My 45 is a re-issue, the "Back to Back Hits" series, but it's still the 45RPM remix. However, after copying it to my computer and then combing the wav file over trying to remove ticks and pops, I noticed that only the noise was in stereo. The track is mono! I don't know if I ever noticed that before.

I did get about as good a transfer as you can expect. Since it was in mono, I converted my stereo track to mono and made a mono MP3 from it. The way I mixed the two channels actually allowed me to get rid of a little bit more noise.

I'll leave this link up as active for a month or so, like I've done for the other couple of 45RPM remix transfers I've done since Christmas.

http://members.trainorders.com/andro...remix-mono.mp3

-Andy

PS -a photo of the 45 label. I notice no S after the M17782 number, the other side of the record - IYCRMM has an S there, I'm assuming that means stereo, as that side indeed stereo. I may have to search for a stereo version of this now.

http://members.trainorders.com/andro...BM-45label.jpg

PPS- if anyone ever wants one of these 45RPM tracks after I've taken them out of my FTP share folder, just ask and I'll get them to you. But don't ask for tracks that were officially released digitally though, I won't do those.

Re: Me and Bobby McGee 45RPM remix
 

That sounds great Andy many thanks for sharing it. :)

Re: Me and Bobby McGee 45RPM remix
 

Hey Andy! Can you believe it's been almost 11 year since we did our original Massey pilgrimage?

Now you are a sound and Train Engineer!

Re: Me and Bobby McGee 45RPM remix
 

For the life of me I can not make out the piano. It's probably my cheap speakers and/or my cheap ears.

Thank you very much........you brought a bunch of 'goodies' today.

Re: Me and Bobby McGee 45RPM remix
 

You're welcome.:)

The piano comes in at about 1 minute and 03 seconds into the track. I can hear it fine on my laptop speakers. It's only really noticable for about 20 seconds, after that I think it's present but buried so far you really can't make it out.

-Andy

Re: Me and Bobby McGee 45RPM remix
 

Yo Doug!

11 years, heck, I thought it was even more than that! In my folder of GL-related photos I have a date of 5/98 on this one: (shunk and compressed here - the Android is on the left, The guru of plumbing on the right)

http://members.trainorders.com/andro.../ORILLIA-1.jpg

Re: Me and Bobby McGee 45RPM remix
 

it seems like an unconventional place to introduce it in the arrangement....but any piano (as long as its not electric, imo), however inaudible is better than no piano...perhaps played an octave higher would have allowed it to project over the rest of the mix...i dont think this mix was particularily hummed and hawed over

thanks for taking the time to share another treat with all

Re: Me and Bobby McGee 45RPM remix
 

If memory serves, I think I read an interview with Gord where he says the piano and extra guitar part was added by the record company without his consent. I can see why he was annoyed by that.

The album version is far superior, imho.

Re: Me and Bobby McGee 45RPM remix
 

Yeah, I remember something about that too. Didn't they play the 45 mix to Gord, and he had no idea it had been remixed and was not happy to hear it?

I think I'll try to dig up an original release of this 45 and see if it's in stereo, and if it sounds any better/worse.

-Andy

Re: Me and Bobby McGee 45RPM remix
 

excellent posting Quasimondo err umm "glutomodo"
(during our November 1999 excursion to Orilia I videotaped Andy telling me that glutomodo was a charactter on the Fireside theatre or something
Andy is number 8 in this famous photograph (back row in a palish blue jacket)

http://www.johnfowles.org.uk/lightfoot/grouplegend.jpg
anotated picture as displayed in thread:-
http://www.corfid.com/ubb/Forum1/HTML/002292.html

Apologies to all for being a bit geekish here but Andy could you possibly explain how you went about making a "mono mp3"
I noted that you used VBR (Variable Bitrate Recording) and that the mp3 is only
2.02 MB which is evidently much smaller than one would expect for a 3+ minute full stereo mp3
(due to its being only mono of course so only one channel was recorded
I was able to analyse it using the very useful freeware utility MediaInfo from:-
http://mediainfo.sourceforge.net/en/Download
http://www.johnfowles.org.uk/LIGHTFO...on_bitrate.jpg
I have been using that nifty little program (1030KB) to find out the parameters of compressed divx video files and hovering the mouse over the mp3 filename as you can see reveals that the average bitrate was only 112 KBPS and that the mp3 does indeed comprise only one channel
I do actually have a very serious purpose in asking for information on your technique Andy
I had previously myself attempted to make a mono mp3 in order to make a mono CD since by having only one channel on the CD in theory one could get twice as much running time on the CD but all I could ever discover was that unless you were content to have sound coming out of one speaker only it was not possible as by definition CDs and their PCM/wav audio format were always stereo.
But why did I want to know?
As well as doubling the capacity of CD I had a purpose for making mono mp3s myself
Back in the bad old days before stereo broadcasting began either on radio or television and in any case a stereo tape recorder was beyond my budget I made many monaural tapes from either a radio or atelevision indeed one of my tapes (the great 1969
Chartlottetown Festival appearance by GL as broadcast in October that year in Montreal by the CBC) surfaced as a pretty impressive live CD.
And I know beyond any doubt that it was made from my original recording (as traded with other fans because there are 2 incomplete tracks on the CD that are identical to those on my tape (where the tape had simply ran out and it took time to rethread a replacement on to the recorder!!!)
Now a little history break kiddies
from a wiki
"The BBC made radio's first stereo broadcast in December 1925...The BBC repeated the experiment in 1926, using 2LO in London and 5XX at Daventry. Following experimental FM stereo transmissions in the London area in 1958 and regular Saturday morning demonstration transmissions using TV sound and medium wave (AM) radio to provide the two channels, the first regular BBC transmissions using an FM stereo signal began on the BBC's Third Programme network on August 28, 1962."
I can remember those 1960s BBC stereo experiments and still have the first stereo LP that my grandfather bought (filled with such wondrous recordings as a ping pong match;(the ball is on the right "ping" and now on the left "pong"!!)

OK end of my history break.Oh do shut up hooligan from Sydney
I have several interview recordings that contain music as well as speech and whilst it would be possible to digitise them to small audio files at sampling bitrate as low as say 32 KBPS (of course you all know don't you that the size of any digitally sampled audio file is directly and exactly proportional to the bitrate) the musical content would suffer too much
But if I could make monaural mp3s of them then the file sizes should be dramatically smaller (no not half because I believe that to some extent the mp3 compression algorithm compares the right and left channels and where possible only includes the same or nearly identical sound information once then then cross refers on playback but I might be wrong there)

Re: Me and Bobby McGee 45RPM remix
 

( Pretty good memory there! Glutamoto was a take-off on Godzilla from the Firesign Theatre's 1972 album NOT INSANE. I had to use an alternate (glutamodo) spelling since the correct one was already taken on AOL. )

I don't think you're going to be able to get any more PCM minutes onto an audio CD. You can cram a lot more mono MP3 files onto a data CD though!

My making mono MP3s dates back to those thrilling days of yesteryear when saving bandwidth and file size was much more important. I found that, as you noticed, if you don't need it in stereo, you can save a lot of file size if you go mono. Back then it was an option on the program I used at the time to make MP3s. Nowadays I use CDEX. And it's got tons of different settings on it. I usually go with an ABR/VBR setup. When you go mono you can drop your bitrate settings in half and still get the same fidelity.

I'm not sure how the computer determines the average bitrate - you can find that just by hovering over the file name in Windows, file explorer. I actually had the bit rate set up on this particular MP3 to average 80kbps with extremes of 64 and 112. It must detect the maximum bitrate on that one. Stereo ones, I've seen it where it comes up with more accurate average bitrates though.

It had been a long time since I made a mono MP3 until the other day. I forgot about the halving the bitrates and just clicked the mono button, and ended up with an MP3 that was nearly identical in size to the stereo one I had just made. Then I remembered and set it up something like this:

MONO:

http://members.trainorders.com/andro...monoconfig.jpg

vs the STEREO setup I think I used:

http://members.trainorders.com/andro...ereoconfig.jpg

Here's how the two files compared in size:

http://members.trainorders.com/andro...Mfilesizes.jpg


There are just so many protocols and parameters you can select when encoding MP3s. I've not done any research on the subject in a few years though. Back then, there was no consensus as to which one was the best. So I took a certain track and made tons of MP3s out of it with different settings comparing sound quality vs file size. I didn't find a whole lot of difference actually, as long as you kept the bitrate up. Usually over 144kbs in stereo I found eliminated most of that "treble warble" you get from compression. 128 isn't bad either, but you can tell it's an MP3 more easily. So I tend to just go with a an average bitrate of 144 or 160, sometimes 128 if the track is not as important, with upper and lower variable points a few notches up and down the scale from the average, and it works. Mono, cut those all in half. (hell, when I buy MP3s online, they come usually in 'insane' 320kbps format, which I transfer to wav then re-encode to the 144 or 160 level)

Then there's the 44khz vs 22khz - I used to make Mp3s in 22khz and get a little bit of savings in file size too, works good if your source is not high fidelity. But it's been so long since I did that, that I can't remember exactly how I did it. I'm sure I had to have them saved as 22khz wav files first. It was certainly before I started using CDEX. I used to "EC's MPEG Suite" before that. I don't have it on my computer anymore, but I do have it on backup CDRs somewhere I'm sure.

Oh, I remember my mom talking about how one of stations back in Illiniois did early stereo broadcasts, AM for one channel and FM for the other. Must have sounded odd with the channels having different fidelity.

-Andy

Re: Me and Bobby McGee 45RPM remix
 

I loved listening to this, thanks Andy! oooh I canught what Kenyon mentioned...I did note the piano part -was nice but not the way it came in like that and too loud, out of the blue was distracting.

Must be a nice turntable and great quality sound file -came through my speakers loud and crystal clear.

Re: Me and Bobby McGee 45RPM remix
 

I went and bought an original-release version of the 45 of this. The copy I got looked to be in fair condition, but it played poorly. It did play just well enough for me to determine it was in mono, just like the re-issue. So I have to wonder if they ever mastered a stereo verison of the 45RPM remix? Appears not.

-Andy

Re: Me and Bobby McGee 45RPM remix
 

interesting link re the piano, etc. found on both non-album mixes:

http://www.lightfoot.ca/repromo.htm