The "FEEDING THE LLAMA" Project: UPLOADING DSO SHOWS TO ARCHIVE.ORG Using the new year's show (12-31-2002) as an example here is how to get some shows uploaded. 1: Getting the waves on your computer. A) Extracting from CD: Use Exact Audio Copy (or EAC) to extract wavs. GET EAC AT http://exactaudiocopy.de/ To avoid read errors which are not normally detected go to EAC> Drive Options and make sure you are NOT using Burst or FastMode!!! You can click on Detect Read Features and C2 Features to determine your particular CD player's features or just try it with the default settings. Extract a track and examine the resulting file for errors. If all is well you are set to extract files. Remember a three hour show is about 1.1 Gigs so make sure you have at least 2.5 gigs of free space on your hard drive. ::GO TO step 2:: B) Tranferring from DAT tape: Use a digital input only (no analog mini-jack inputs) Use SPDIF or Optical inputs only on a quality soundcard. Cheaper cards may not correctly buffer input and will result in dropped samples. In addition, your processor should be fast enough to keep up with the soundcard as it converts the information. This can be a "try and see" situation as some 250 Mhz processors work fine in a certain envornment and not in others. GET TO KNOW YOUR COMPUTER AND IT'S LIMITATIONS. Use CoolEdit, Protools, CDWin Wave (below) or another reliable edit software. Again...Remember a three hour show is about 1.1 Gigabytes of real estate so make sure you have at least 2.5 gigs of free space on your hard drive. ::GO TO step 2:: A WORD ABOUT TRACK GAPS: If you extract from a CD and notice a small pause in the music at the beginning of the track it is likely that the disc was burned using TAO (track at once). This process lifts the laser from the disc after each track creating a two second gap. IF YOU BURN CDRs OF DSO SHOWS BE SURE TO USE DAO (DISC AT ONCE). Check your burner's settings as the gaps can be easily missed when listening casually but they drive purist tapers nuts as a beautiful seque between songs can be spoiled by two seconds of silence. There are settings in EAC to remove track gaps if they exist. HOWEVER, IF YOU EXTRACT A TRACK WITH A GAP AND BURN A CDR USING DAO NOT ONLY WILL THE GAPS STILL EXIST THEY ARE NOW A PART OF THE TRACK AND NOT ABLE TO BE REMOVED BY EAC. This may be why you can't seem to get rid of the gaps no matter what you do. Only a careful editing job could restore the track continuity without sector problems (see below). It's best to just not process that show and not trade it so the gap problem doesn't get worse. 2: Creating Track Splits using CD Wave Editor GET WIN WAVE SPLITTER AT http://www.cdwave.com/ A) CDWave splits tracks only at sector boundaries (every 44100 sample bits) This avoids an audible click when tracks are split mid-sector. B) CDWave autonames the created tracks with a 2 digit numeric extension In preparation of step 3 (below) you may want to rename your file before opening. For example dso2002-12-31d1t.wav results in all the tracks being named in numeric order (dso2002-12-31d1t01, dso2002-12-31d1t02 etc) You can also manually rename the tracks in CDWave before saving. SOME TRACK SPLITTING CONVENTIONS: Try to split tracks a few seconds before the start of songs (unless there is pertinent banter in the break, then split there). This leaves breaks and tunings at the end of each track so the listener can fast forward through breaks. Try to cut disc two after drums but leaving some of the space jam for disc three to be indexed separately. Encores should be tracked a few seconds before start of song but filler should be tracked at the announcement of the original show (or the band's acknowledgement of the crowd) and left to run on through the subsequent chatter before the song starts. It may be a long wait but sometimes the crowd and band is really interesting at that point. :^) 3: renaming the WAV files to match etree convention. A) Etree Convention: Etree likes files with four digit years now. (ex dso2002-12-31d1t01.wav). B) Be sure to not change the filename extension (.wav) If you do you can always rename it back again. 4: Move all WAV track files to a new folder to run SHORTEN TOOLS on them GET SHORTEN TOOLS AT http://members.tripod.com/~rimeswel/shnguide.html BE SURE TO READ AND UNDERSTAND HOW TO USE SHORTEN TOOLS TO ACCOMPLISH THE NEXT THREE STEPS. 5: Create a Wave MD5 to safeguard exact extraction from SHN files Rename the MD5 to dso2002-12-31wav.md5 6: Create SHN files 7: Create a SHN MD5 to safeguard exact downloading from FTP site Rename the MD5 to dso2002-12-31shn.md5 8: Using any text editor create Info text file named dso2002-12-31.txt And example of an info file can be found at http://www.darkstarorchestra.net/dso2002-10-31.txt 9: Move all SHN files, the two MD5 files and the info text file to a new folder named dso2002-12-31.shnf (MUST BE NAMED CORRECTLY FOR UPLOAD TO WORK) A WORD ABOUT MD5 AND SHN FILES: MD5 files are checksum files which determine the integrity of a wave file after being SHN'd and extracted. It bases it's output on the wave file so if you edit a wave and re-SHN it the MD5 file will not be correct for the new SHN LIKEWISE YOU CANNOT CHANGE THE SHN FILE NAMES OR THE MD5 FILES WILL REPORT ERRORS MD5 files themselves can be renamed (and in fact HAVE TO be renamed to etree conventions) MAKE SURE YOU HAVE ALL FILENAMES CORRECT BEFORE CONVERTING TO SHN 10: Uploading files to ARCHIVE.ORG using SMART FTP GET SMART FTP AT http://www.smartftp.com A) Open Smart FTP and make some one-time settings 1) On the top menu under Tools> Settings and click on "connections" in left box Set server timeout to 150 or 300 You can also switch Data Connection Mode between Passive (your computer acts as server) or Active (the host computer is the server) if you have problems connecting Click "okay" to save settings 2) On the top menu go to Windows> Autoarrange> autoarrange and click it so windows will automatically be tiled. 3) On the top menu go to FTP> Local Browser to find the directory dso2002-12-31.shnf B) Connect to etree05.archive.org using your archive contributor login email address and password 1) Fill in your info in the boxes at top and click on the connect button to open a new connection window showing your personal upload directory at etree (note the root directory slash at the bottom of the window). Be patient while the program loads the remote directory and contents. 2) Click on "Session Queue" tab then drag the whole folder from your local browser window to the session queue window 3) Select all the files in the Queue and Right click and select "tranfer" If partial files already exist on the etree server you will have a chance to resume them rather than starting over again. Hint: You can easily check if all the files are uploaded by loading the folder into the session queue again and transferring. Check the file sizes to see that they match and hit "skip" if they do. If not hit "resume". If the file is not yet on the etree server the upload will start. Repeat this process until all files have been uploaded completely. 11: Processing the show and the MD5 Check A) Go to http://www.archive.org/audio/etree-contribute.php to process the show 1) Your directory should be listed. Click on "import show" at bottom of page 2) Fill in as completely as you can...Put original GD showdate info in the notes section Location=City, State Source=SBD or AUD or MTX Lineage=something like SBD>DAT>CDR>EAC>SHN BUT ONLY IF YOU KNOW IT A NOTE ABOUT LINEAGE: DSO's equipment includes a Sony R500 DAT deck and an HHB CDR-830 CD burner If you know that the source was from DSO's equipment you can include the model number in your lineage (ex. SBD>Sony R500>etc etc etc) It's better to have a generic lineage (SBD>DAT>CDR>SHN)than no lineage at all but don't guess if you don't know. In fact if lineage is dubious it may not be the best source for archiving. ::See step 12:: 3) Click the check box at the bottom and then submit The automatic system will check the MD5 file and send you an email if there is a problem with a file. If so go back to step 10 and upload the file again (or resume if partial). B) Go to http://www.archive.org/contribute.php to track your show's progress You won't be notified if the MD5's pass the check but you can see the results on this contributors page. Then the curator has to check the files before they'll appear in the Live Music Archive database. 12: PROBLEMS? YOU CAN EMAIL ME AT WEBMASTER@DARKSTARORCHESTRA.NET AND I'll TRY TO HELP. A GOOD TIP IS TO GET TO KNOW ALL THE PROGRAMS ASSOCIATED WITH THIS OPERATION.