Almost finished updating my entire system. What a task. My computer had a meltdown and something caused 2 of my partitions to disappear. If it weren't for religious backups I would have lost my entire photo archive plus a whole lot of miscellaneous documents. During breaks between installing devices and programs, and getting all my photos and documents in order, I was able to tackle a few other things.
I bought a usb enabled cassette recorder called the Grace Digital Audio as a birthday present for myself this past July. Actually, my sister paid for some of it. It has taken me until today (2 days ago) to figure it out. From what I read on the web I am not the only one who had a lot of frustrations with this product. I will also admit that I have no experience with music hardware and have never had luck dealing with the sound system on my computer so this is quite the achievement for me!
Anyway, for other people who may have thought they bought a hundred dollar paper weight, and who simply want to digitize cassette audio for the computer, I will share what I learned this evening:
1. Forget the stereo cables that come with the product -from what I've read you would need some kind of adapter to channel the voodoo from two cables into a single one for that port in the back of your computer. You should have usb ports on your computer and use the supplied USB cable.
2. The Audacity software on the disc is there so you don't have to rely on the shitty little sound recorder that comes with Windows. Also, when you are told you need the 'lame' file go find and download it from the net because the software will need it to work. I believe it's also required if you want to convert the music files you make into the MP3 format which is the standard because of it's balance of sound quality and size.
3. All your computer devices have 'drivers'...it's your sound card driver that's important to know about. I have something called Realtek, which deals with sound on my computer. You have to let the Audacity program know this in the preferences.
So, to begin. Once you have installed the software, got the 'lame' file, and KNOW BEYOND A SHADOW OF A DOUBT THAT YOU HAVE SOUND, power up the cassette machine and plug in the usb cable. By the time you plop in a favorite oldy cassette Realtek sound manager (or something similar) may have popped up. I believe I ignored it- can't remember! I do know Realtek likes to make a fuss whenever audio related equipment is introduced to the computer.
Run the program Audacity. Under Edit>Preferences> you will get a tabbed dialog. The Audio I/O is the important one to get you started. Under 'Playback' is Device and you can pick from a Microsoft, USB, or Realtek option. I chose Realtek because I have to go through it's software to hear sound properly.
Under 'Recording' is Device and there I chose USB audio CODEC which is the cassette player.
Under 'Channels' I chose 2 (Stereo)
Once that's done it's time to try it out. Use the record button on Audacity and then hit play on the Grace device. After the song is over use the stop button in Audacity and save the project with the name of the song you just recorded to avoid confusion. Replay the song (project) to prove that it actually exists and start thinking about learning the program to edit the blank parts out.
***IMPORTANT: As I understand it you can play an entire side of a tape, have it recorded as a single 'track' by the software, and then edit the gaps and imperfections with the software. I haven't tried it but it strikes me as being VERY HEAVY on your computers processing power, memory etc. so consider that when you fool around with this. My first project file was a MINISCULE 14 kilobytes that exported a nearly 4 megabyte MP3 file! This tells me Audacity needs plenty of memory available to it...and the default directory for it's working space is in your C drive which will be cause to defrag more often. I will be seeing how well it works with its working space (temp directory) set up on a partition. Also, as soon as you have edited a piece of music, export it to the MP3 format so it's ready to be played or burned to disc with whatever other software you may be using.
***later in the evening***
If you decide to record one side of a cassette as a single audio track in Audacity then be prepared for slow editing. I have been going about it (probably quite primitively) by 'cutting' the first song out of the saved project, opening another instance of the program, and pasting it in there and then exporting the file by the song's name. Sometimes the 'cut' command is grayed out and I have to start the program twice to get it back.
This might have something to do with having the temp folder on a partition. Will probably move it back to c drive.
Like I have time for all this!
***1 day later***
I am obviously in the process of converting hard-to-find music from cassettes into the MP3 format and discovered that songs burned to cd from MP3 become some other kind of format.
IT IS TOTALLY RIDICULOUS that car cd players can’t just simply play MP3- no, you have to go through a burning process that may or may not produce a working music cd (I’ve not had good luck in with that in the past!)
So today I broke down and bought an MP3 player. I don’t have a huge music collection but what I do have I want to listen to in the car. Besides not having a good track record (ha ha) at making viable cds the cd deck in the car is a joke- no play button (you have to press the tuner knob which sometimes kicks in the radio) and the cup holders are almost directly in the way…the cup holders are the only kind that can be fitted onto my car so it’s not like I can change this. And a COFFEE cup holder matters more than anything else in that car. While I love the JEEP it does have some serious design flaws like having no proper storage space on the dash, which is common on a lot of new cars. That and the ‘anti-whiplash’ headrest.
Anyway, the MP3 players is made by Sylvania (of light bulb fame) and evidently can play back movies and photos as well as music. Bought an auxiliary cable so it can be run through the car’s speakers which is the whole point of having bought it and it looks simple to navigate. Will update when I have more to say but suffice to say it plays music through head phones very nicely and has simple controls- yay!
Heidi Koehler - Art and Graphics
2010-11-17
2010-10-26
Oktoberfest and Computer Woes
Fun stuff! Pics from the Oktoberfest fund raising dinner hosted by Knights of Columbus in Merritt which I attended with my husband...there was Schnitzel, Bratwurst, rotkohl, weiskohl (red - YUMMY- and white cabbage), kartoffeln (potatoes), gravy, spaetzlie- I don't know how to even spell that- it's like a flour pasta that's hand cut but they kind of cheated by putting it through a meat grinder to get it to form shapes and used wholewheat flour (oops!). Also baked pretzels and Black Forest cake for desert!
Only sad part was not having Bill there. I'm sure he would have attended. But despite that it was really fun- who can resist oomphah musik? I even danced once- lol
Knights of Columbus Fund-raising Oktoberfest Dinner- as a panorama.
Our brave and fearless leader Mayor Rolene pouring the 'first' beer from the tap.
Germans love their hats adorned with isignia from their home regions and clubs.
Traditional German dress for men consists of white shirt, suspenders and lederhosen (leather pants that usually end above the knees), wooly socks...and beer!
German/Cowboy crossover style! German women's traditional dress is usually a snug laced vest over a feminine blouse and a skirt past the knees with a fancy apron. The whole ensemble is called a Dirndl Kleid.
Celtic Elf style posing with a beer whilst selling pretzles!
German Oompah band from Chilliwack- sorry I can't remember the name guys!
Due to changes within our local art club I am finally updating our groups online presence. Unfortunately there is a stall on that front because of some ruckus in our membership so I won't bother linking to anything just yet which is just as well- I've spent enough time on it and the members need to see printed stuff.
Topping it off I had a bizarre thing happen to my computer yesterday- 2 partitions just disappeared. 1 of them had my whole photo collection. I was a bit panicked at first but was relatively sure my pre-backup was up-to-date. Just confirmed that today but wasted a whole day yesterday trying to retrieve the partitions AND figure out what happened.
I felt sure I had been hacked somehow because this happened to my photo collection- my livelihood you could say- and the partition that held that data was neat as a pin and super well organized. The other missing partition was literally something I just kept around as a separate area for fiddling with websites and what not.
After some hours of looking at the state of damage I think that this doesn't really look like a targeted hack after all- that didn't stop me from spending a few hours dwelling on just how low a life of a loser a hacker must have; mean-spirited, no doubt friendless or whose only friends are similarly pathetic and disgusting.
More and more this is looking like: a. Hard drive failure (which I doubt) or b. Re-installation of the printer driver the night before had done some kind of drastic damage...if that is the case (and I am starting to think it is) then how is having logical partitions on the main drive useful at all? I understood that data retrieval is quicker on the partitions closest to C but is that all it's good for? I only think the reinstall of a hardware's driver (a small necessary program) might be at fault because a Microsoft website implies that this is possible based on the error message-if I'm reading that correctly.
You know on the old fashioned record players when the needle hits a tiny speck and skitters across the whole platter leaving a scratch? Now you have a crackling bit of sound on every song that fell under the scratch...the little bit of space between songs was no barrier to the needle.
I think it's something like that with the hard drive. Whatever. I often go to Major Geeks for answers to my questions. Need to figure out how to get the space lost from the absence of those drives back.
Only sad part was not having Bill there. I'm sure he would have attended. But despite that it was really fun- who can resist oomphah musik? I even danced once- lol
Knights of Columbus Fund-raising Oktoberfest Dinner- as a panorama.
Our brave and fearless leader Mayor Rolene pouring the 'first' beer from the tap.
Germans love their hats adorned with isignia from their home regions and clubs.
Traditional German dress for men consists of white shirt, suspenders and lederhosen (leather pants that usually end above the knees), wooly socks...and beer!
German/Cowboy crossover style! German women's traditional dress is usually a snug laced vest over a feminine blouse and a skirt past the knees with a fancy apron. The whole ensemble is called a Dirndl Kleid.
Celtic Elf style posing with a beer whilst selling pretzles!
German Oompah band from Chilliwack- sorry I can't remember the name guys!
Due to changes within our local art club I am finally updating our groups online presence. Unfortunately there is a stall on that front because of some ruckus in our membership so I won't bother linking to anything just yet which is just as well- I've spent enough time on it and the members need to see printed stuff.
Topping it off I had a bizarre thing happen to my computer yesterday- 2 partitions just disappeared. 1 of them had my whole photo collection. I was a bit panicked at first but was relatively sure my pre-backup was up-to-date. Just confirmed that today but wasted a whole day yesterday trying to retrieve the partitions AND figure out what happened.
I felt sure I had been hacked somehow because this happened to my photo collection- my livelihood you could say- and the partition that held that data was neat as a pin and super well organized. The other missing partition was literally something I just kept around as a separate area for fiddling with websites and what not.
After some hours of looking at the state of damage I think that this doesn't really look like a targeted hack after all- that didn't stop me from spending a few hours dwelling on just how low a life of a loser a hacker must have; mean-spirited, no doubt friendless or whose only friends are similarly pathetic and disgusting.
More and more this is looking like: a. Hard drive failure (which I doubt) or b. Re-installation of the printer driver the night before had done some kind of drastic damage...if that is the case (and I am starting to think it is) then how is having logical partitions on the main drive useful at all? I understood that data retrieval is quicker on the partitions closest to C but is that all it's good for? I only think the reinstall of a hardware's driver (a small necessary program) might be at fault because a Microsoft website implies that this is possible based on the error message-if I'm reading that correctly.
You know on the old fashioned record players when the needle hits a tiny speck and skitters across the whole platter leaving a scratch? Now you have a crackling bit of sound on every song that fell under the scratch...the little bit of space between songs was no barrier to the needle.
I think it's something like that with the hard drive. Whatever. I often go to Major Geeks for answers to my questions. Need to figure out how to get the space lost from the absence of those drives back.
2010-10-21
Adams River Salmon Run
I want to dedicate this post to Bill Otway who passed away in Merritt last Sunday. He was a champion of the rights of hunters, fishers, and the environment.
***
About 20 years ago I saw a thin red line on the southern bank of the Thompson River south of Spences Bridge, B.C. I had been swimming in this river on an off all August while I was living in the area after the carnival I had been working on had parked it's gear for the winter and I wasn't in any hurry to go home.
But as August cooled into October and the weather began to change I had decided that I could no longer handle the cold river because the lovely heat of summer had gone but I was still drawn to the river where I also had enjoyed sketching and reading. The day after that decision I walked across the highway to see how my swimming hole was looking and was shocked to see a blood red streak racing upriver.
I instantly recalled that this must be the massive fish migration we learned about in school and barreled down to see it up close.
I can't even begin to say how awed I was to see this. If I had been willing to get my feet wet I could have grabbed salmon right out of the water without any effort. Every shade of red and degree of abrasion was to be seen on these salmon as they swam their way against the rough current on their way to the Shuswap and onward to their place of birth on the Adams River. At this point in the river they had come about 2/3 of the way.
Over the years I often thought about that experience and always kept my eye on the river banks in October in the hopes of seeing this again. When I lived in Maple Ridge with my husband for a year I did manage to see chum salmon moving up Kanaka Creek and almost walked right into a bear eating salmon on that same river. But since we moved to Merritt a few years ago I made a vow that I would visit the spawning grounds - only a two hour drive from home - and show my husband this wonderful phenomena
It was a really fun day for us and I was awed and amazed at the sheer numbers of fish in the river. You could practically walk across their backs in some places. There were heavily congested parts of the river where the fish churned around restlessly waiting for the spawning beds to open up and further along they were evenly spread across the shallow gravels. Still in other places where the river meandered off into streams the salmon were going about their waiting in a more leisurely way.
I was also impressed with the turnout of people in Roderick Haig-Brown Park where the best viewing was to be had. I took videos on my phone to show Bill the next day but to our great sadness he had passed away that morning. We miss him and I know I will always think of him whenever I go to a river and see a salmon heading upstream in fall on it's way to finish off it's last days in the Shuswap.
The running of the salmon on the Adam's River.
Educating the younger generation.
A relatively calm pair of salmon.
Deformed head of a male salmon breaking water and showing his teeth.
Daring to touch!
A great view of all those fish.
The living swim among the dead.
Salmon awaiting space in the salmon beds downstream- one shows a tag.
***
About 20 years ago I saw a thin red line on the southern bank of the Thompson River south of Spences Bridge, B.C. I had been swimming in this river on an off all August while I was living in the area after the carnival I had been working on had parked it's gear for the winter and I wasn't in any hurry to go home.
But as August cooled into October and the weather began to change I had decided that I could no longer handle the cold river because the lovely heat of summer had gone but I was still drawn to the river where I also had enjoyed sketching and reading. The day after that decision I walked across the highway to see how my swimming hole was looking and was shocked to see a blood red streak racing upriver.
I instantly recalled that this must be the massive fish migration we learned about in school and barreled down to see it up close.
I can't even begin to say how awed I was to see this. If I had been willing to get my feet wet I could have grabbed salmon right out of the water without any effort. Every shade of red and degree of abrasion was to be seen on these salmon as they swam their way against the rough current on their way to the Shuswap and onward to their place of birth on the Adams River. At this point in the river they had come about 2/3 of the way.
Over the years I often thought about that experience and always kept my eye on the river banks in October in the hopes of seeing this again. When I lived in Maple Ridge with my husband for a year I did manage to see chum salmon moving up Kanaka Creek and almost walked right into a bear eating salmon on that same river. But since we moved to Merritt a few years ago I made a vow that I would visit the spawning grounds - only a two hour drive from home - and show my husband this wonderful phenomena
It was a really fun day for us and I was awed and amazed at the sheer numbers of fish in the river. You could practically walk across their backs in some places. There were heavily congested parts of the river where the fish churned around restlessly waiting for the spawning beds to open up and further along they were evenly spread across the shallow gravels. Still in other places where the river meandered off into streams the salmon were going about their waiting in a more leisurely way.
I was also impressed with the turnout of people in Roderick Haig-Brown Park where the best viewing was to be had. I took videos on my phone to show Bill the next day but to our great sadness he had passed away that morning. We miss him and I know I will always think of him whenever I go to a river and see a salmon heading upstream in fall on it's way to finish off it's last days in the Shuswap.
The running of the salmon on the Adam's River.
Educating the younger generation.
A relatively calm pair of salmon.
Deformed head of a male salmon breaking water and showing his teeth.
Daring to touch!
A great view of all those fish.
The living swim among the dead.
Salmon awaiting space in the salmon beds downstream- one shows a tag.
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