Le Orme (1972-75) X 4

[Fuzi]

Four releases by the Italian prog band Le Orme, produced by Gian Piero Reverberi in the ’70s

• Le Orme - Uomo Di Pezza (1972)[LP WAV]
• Le Orme - Felona E Sorona (1973)[LP WAV]
• Le Orme - Contrappunti (1974)[LP WAV]
• Le Orme - Smogmagica (1975)[LP WAV]

*** PROG Warning ***   PROG Warning ***   PROG Warning ***   PROG Warning ***   PROG Warning ***   PROG Warning ***   PROG Warning ***   PROG Warning ***   PROG Warning ***   PROG Warning ***   PROG Warning ***   PROG Warning ***   PROG Warning ***   PROG Warning ***    PROG Warning ***   PROG Warning ***   PROG Warning ***   PROG Warning ***   PROG Warning ***   


WAV: pixeldr@in.com/l/CxpDFdza

[likedeeler]

Very nice! Reminds me of Franco Battiato.

[likedeeler]

PS Consider providing files in FLAC format. Conversion is fast and easy, and it will have several benefits for everyone:

(1) Quicker download,
(2) less bandwidth used, which means
     (a) less energy consumption, and
     (b) more efficient use of the quota that many filesharing services impose on non-paying users.

Note that WAV files offer zero advantages over FLAC (or any other lossless compression). If someone wants his WAV file back he just has to decompress the FLAC -- the result is going to be bit identical with the original.

[Fuzi]

Thanks, that makes sense

I suppose I can do a script with ffmpeg and output FLAC files

Is 16 bit/44.1 kHz a good standard?

[Kwantum Assassin]

Thanks !

[likedeeler]

... I suppose I can do a script with ffmpeg and output FLAC files ...

Hi Fuzi, you don't really need to do anything other than install FLAC Frontend -- provided you're on Windows. It's a nice little tool that provides drag-and-drop, encodes/decodes FLAC and can also test FLAC files for integrity. It does nothing more than pass commands to flac.exe.

You can, of course, also operate flac.exe directly via the shell or a script.

... Is 16 bit/44.1 kHz a good standard?

The value of these parameters should not be fixed (otherwise conversion might not be lossless). Good practice means preserving them as they are. FLAC can handle up to 24 bits of depth and (I think) 384 kHz of sampling frequency. The result of the conversion from WAV (or W64, AIFF, RAW) to FLAC will automatically have the bit depth and sampling frequency of the original.

Don't hesitate to ask if something is unclear.

PS Any other lossless and compressed format (APE, ALAC etc) will do the same job -- there's nothing special about FLAC in this regard. They can all be converted into each other. The point is file size.

[Ice8]

Thanks Fuzi for the wonderful four of Le Orme!

[kpmhill]

Another advantage of FLAC is better support for ID3/metadata.

Looking at "Smogmagica," there's no metadata at all. No. titles, track numbers – or anything else.

If you don't tag tracks at all, then no surprise there. But I've definitely encountered WAV files that had been tagged, but the tag data got lost in transfer due to compatibility issues. I've had no problems with FLAC metadata.

[STABERZ]

THKS

[Fuzi]

The value of these parameters should not be fixed…

Thank you likedeeler for your input. Ffmpeg should be able to do the job on my Mac, and here's what I get without specifying formats or options.
Please let me know if this looks right.

Code: [Select]

Input #0:0: Audio: pcm_s16le ([1][0][0][0] / 0x0001), 44100 Hz, stereo, s16, 1411 kb/s
Stream mapping:
  Stream #0:0 -> #0:0 (pcm_s16le (native) -> flac (native))
Output: Audio: flac, 44100 Hz, stereo, s16, 128 kb/s
  Metadata:
  encoder: Lavf59.27.100
Note: Sampling freq is unchanged but bitrate has gone from 1411 kb/s to 128 kb/s, does this look right to you?

Thank you for your help

[Greta]

Fuzi, if you are on a Mac machine, you may want to try XLD. Powerful, reliable and constantly updated.

tmkk.undo.jp/xld/index_e.html

[likedeeler]

The value of these parameters should not be fixed…

... Ffmpeg should be able to do the job on my Mac, and here's what I get without specifying formats or options.
Please let me know if this looks right.

Code: [Select]

Input #0:0: Audio: pcm_s16le ([1][0][0][0] / 0x0001), 44100 Hz, stereo, s16, 1411 kb/s
Stream mapping:
  Stream #0:0 -> #0:0 (pcm_s16le (native) -> flac (native))
Output: Audio: flac, 44100 Hz, stereo, s16, 128 kb/s
  Metadata:
  encoder: Lavf59.27.100
Note: Sampling freq is unchanged but bitrate has gone from 1411 kb/s to 128 kb/s, does this look right to you? ...

Hi Fuzi, cheers for the feedback.

Just to be sure let me first say: don't sweat it. It's no big deal -- posting WAV files is perfectly alright.** You should of course be doing this because you want to, because you think it's fun to find things out, not because someone on the internet (me, in this case) told you so.

Consider also Greta's tip with XLD. She will have a lot of experience with that particular program, and the fact that she recommends it means XLD is recommendable.

Regarding your question about the (alleged) low bitrate of the ffmpeg conversion result: it may mean nothing. Check the actual bitrate of these FLAC files. Do they really have 128 kb/s? If not, the stated value can probably be ignored.

As an aside: bitrate is not a very good measure because it depends on the degree of compression of the FLAC file. Better to ascertain the bit depth and the sampling rate -- these are constant for any FLAC file and independent of compression.

I'm a Windows and Linux user, so I cannot easily try out pure Mac programs, and thus XLD wasn't an option. I have no experience with ffmpeg and at the moment no time to learn the finer points of using it.

What did I do?

I went to Xiph's canonical FLAC tool page and chose the first item of the Mac OS X front-ends, which is fre:ac, the Free Audio Converter.

(I am not trying to sell this program. I did not know it before today. I'll just describe my experience as a first-time user.)

Like XLD, fre:ac is under active development, the latest version came out a week ago or so, and -- that was the important point for me -- is available for all major operating systems.

Website looks professional (in the good sense, not in the let's-see-what-we-can-palm-off-on-you sense), nothing fishy there, the licence is ok, and it has been very easy for me to operate.

-- I decoded a 24-bit, 176-kHz rip from FLAC to WAV with flac.exe.
-- Selected the FLAC Audio Encoder 1.3.3 that comes with the fre:ac installation (not the latest one but fairly recent) in the drop-down menu on the lower right -- which is nothing other than the flac.dll.
-- Converted the WAV files mentioned above to FLAC with fre:ac.

Result: 24-bit, 176-kHz FLAC files containing the original metadata. As required.
_____

** As long as they are in an additional container such as ZIP, RAR and the like. Plain WAV files are vulnerable to undetectable corruption during download.

[likedeeler]

PS >> If you wish to continue using ffmpeg I'd suggest you try it out on WAV files that have a larger bit depth (24 bits) and considerably larger sampling rate than the CD standard, like I did. The files should also contain metadata. If the conversion result is as expected, namely:

-- FLAC files with the same bit depth and sampling rate, and
-- with metadata intact,

then ffmpeg may be your best bet as you seem to be familiar with it already.

Perhaps also test the FLAC files for integrity to ascertain that they are valid. What I don't completely like in the ffmpeg output you've posted above is the fact that the program does not use the flac.dll but some other encoder called Lavf59.27.100. Xiph is the owner and maintainer of FLAC -- there should not be any reason for using something else than their official DLL for the treatment of FLAC files. But then again, Lavf59.27.100 may itself be passing jobs to the flac.dll internally.

[Greta]

XLD:   tmkk.undo.jp/xld/index_e.html
xACT:   xact.scottcbrown.org/

Both are good softwares to complete conversion tasks on a Mac.
I have both installed on my machine since many many years.

But I usually prefer to use XLD cause it's more frequently updated.
It uses more recent codecs and libs than xACT.

Some examples of XLD vs xACT:

flac: 1.4 vs 1.4 (the same)
lame: 3.100 vs 3.99
monkey's audio: 4.11 vs 3.99
opus: 0.3.9 vs 1.3.1

Just to name a few, but the codecs list is long.

As the flac codec is the same you may consider using xACT too, it's up to you.
Best option is to install both (they're free), and use each one of them depending on your tasks.

[nidostar]

I suppose I can do a script with ffmpeg and output FLAC files

Is 16 bit/44.1 kHz a good standard?

I've been using XLD for a few years now and have had no problem with it. As Greta says it is frequently updated. So I don't think there's any need to go out of your way to write a script.

I usually convert the FLACs and WAVs shared on this forum to Apple Lossless (ALAC) so that they are compatible with Apple Music (formerly iTunes). If you plan to do the same just be sure the Sample Rate and Bit Depth Rate in the Apple Lossless settings of XLD are set to "Same as Original" so that you don't unwittingly degrade or upgrade the original. XLD will also convert ALAC files back to FLAC, WAV and other commonly-recognised formats.