Alas Alac Lossless

My hearing is less than perfect but for those that can hear the difference lossless digital audio formats offer the means of storing sound recordings whilst preserving as much of the original without resorting to the kind of heavy compression and lossy methods of mp3′s,MP4,WMA and the like.

Apple have just open sourced their Apple Lossless Audio Codec (ALAC) which has allowed audio purists to store their recordings in a lossless way for playback on iPods and similar Apple portable devices. ALAC is particularly suited to playback on low power devices so there is now a possibility that it could arrive on non Apple devices.

The best known lossless audio format is probably FLAC which is also open source but can only be used on Apple devices via a third party firmware hack called Rockbox.

Related articles

• Apple’s Lossless Audio Codec (ALAC) Now Open Source (apple.slashdot.org)
• Lossless music goes High Street (go.theregister.com)

Tape Archive: Phone-In January 17th 1983

Here’s something I’ve meant to share or a while. It’s part of a radio phone which I date as Monday January 17th 1983. It’s interesting as a historical piece as it’s a small window on the cultural  changes in our society revealed by both the host and the ordinary public calling in to comment.

There’s a slight topical link here with regard to the recent riots in Tottenham, London prompted by a shooting by the police. This recording references the mistaken shooting of Stephen Waldorf on January 14th 1983 by police on the streets of Kensignton, London.

Also referenced is the public’s opinion on the launch of breakfast television on the BBC which happened that very morning.

Oh and no surprise in the traffic report which tells us that the Blackwall tunnel is yet again closed.

The host is Robbie Vincent.

An AAC+ encoded version (size:7.5Mb) is available here.

Image by Affendaddy under this creative commons licence

DJ Deck Of Choice To Die?

It is rumoured that a classic workhorse of the music DJ is to stop being manufactured in February 2010. The Technics SL1200 series of vinyl turntables first saw the light of day in 1972 as a Hi-Fi turntable with an improved MK2 model released in 1978 and soon became the DJ’s dependable favourite. It is widely considered to be one of the durable and reliable turntables ever produced. The British Science Museum even has one amongst it exhibits of technology items that have shaped our world.

Much beloved of Hip Hop DJ’s due to the direct drive motor (rather than the belt drive of most Hi-Fi turntables) which easily leant themselves to the 80′s scratching phenomena. Highly accurate pitch controls made them an ideal tool for mixing too.

But demand has been falling as digital decks have become more sophisticated and as vast libraries of sound can now be stored on small memory cards, hard drives and laptop computers.

It is thought the SL-1200 and SL-1210 models will stop production in the new year. Their durability is almost their weakness as there are probably enough working models in circulation to satisfy its increasingly minority niche position with demand no doubt easily satisfied by the second user market.

If the rumours are true it will truly be the end of an era for many.

Photo by johanlundahl under this creative commons license

Playaway Time

Just picked up an audio book (Yes Adam I took the lazy option) from the library that’s in the playaway format which I’ve not tried out before. It was this or 22 CD’s which I didn’t fancy faffing around with. It’s a tiny pocket device that’s been supplied with x2 rechargeable AAA batteries. You use your own headphones. I had assumed that it’d perhaps be reasonable quality low bitrate  AAC/+ or more likely protected WMA loaded into an internal digital memory but sadly evidence of quite severe bitrate crushing is audibly evident so perhaps I should have suffered the suitcase full of CD’s instead (well it is unabridged so I guess they have to compress like crazy but do they really now in this day and age?). The audio can be speeded up or slowed down without the pitch being shifted and the device remembers the point at which you were last listening. A new experience technologically anyway.

See and download the full gallery on posterous

Audio Doodle: Parallel Skies

Smaller sized high quality AAC+ encoded* version available here

Ogg format here

More audio doodles

(*AAC+ audio files require this Plugin(Win) or a compatible player such as Songbird(Win,Mac,Linux), VLC(Win,Mac,Linux)or Winamp(Win) however Quicktime and i-Tunes will play file at half the audio bandwidth and in mono only)

Songbird Music Player Recommended

Audio Doodle: System Dub 8

A smaller size AAC+ encoded* (232KB) version can be found here

And just for completeness there’s a 788K ogg version here.

More audio doodles

(*AAC+ audio files require this Plugin(Win) or a compatible player such as Songbird(Win,Mac,Linux), VLC(Win,Mac,Linux)or Winamp(Win) however Quicktime and i-Tunes will play file at half the audio bandwidth and in mono only)

Songbird Music Player Recommended

Audio Doodle:Searching In Dream Sleep

Certainly a fair audio representation of my dream world of late and doodles stemming from or inspired by dreams are beginning to be a common theme.Ho hum.

A smaller sized (352KB) AAC+ encoded version of this is available here

More audio doodles

(*AAC+ audio files require this Plugin(Win) or a compatible player such as Songbird(Win,Mac,Linux), VLC(Win,Mac,Linux)or Winamp(Win) however Quicktime and i-Tunes will play file at half the audio bandwidth and in mono only)

Songbird Music Player Recommended