Tech: How is this possible?-track listing for LP

01 Nov 10 - 05:19 PM (#3021092)
Subject: Tech: How is this possible?
From: RTim

This all started because of the Thread about the Landfill Project.
See thread for details, but below is a different subject.

So, last week, after the thread mentioned above was created, I realized I did not have a Digital copy of Martin Carthy's Landfall recording.

So I went to my vinyl collection and removed my nearly 40 year old, many times played, original copy and put it on my turntable.
I have my audio system set up so that I can record from either tape or turntable onto CDR loaded into my wonderful Tascam CD-RW4U CD Rewritable Recorder to obtain a good digital copy.
After an hour of listening and recording, I removed the new CDR out of the Tascam and took it to my Mac Computer.

I wanted to load the CD onto my iPod, so I inserted the disk and iTunes automatically comes up with the CD (which on the Desk Top appears as ÒAudio CDÓ). I am currently using iTunes version 9.2.1 on a Mac Mini box using OS X 10.5.8.

Now I know from previous experience that the track list should just say: Track 1, etc. thru Track 10, and am therefore prepared (with the album cover) to type in the track names, etc.

Well blow me down - Somehow iTunes had retrieved all the correct track names and I did not need to write them in!!

What I want to know is - How the hell did it do that?

Tim Radford

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01 Nov 10 - 05:27 PM (#3021094)
Subject: RE: Tech: How is this possible?
From: Effsee

Seems to me that the album has had a commercial re-relase on CD.

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01 Nov 10 - 06:07 PM (#3021127)
Subject: RE: Tech: How is this possible?
From: Gurney

Probably, as Effsee says. Even Windoze Media Player will do an online search of the album title to see if it can put the track names in.

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01 Nov 10 - 07:03 PM (#3021179)
Subject: RE: Tech: How is this possible?
From: Richard Bridge

If you let it...

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01 Nov 10 - 07:13 PM (#3021185)
Subject: RE: Tech: How is this possible?
From: RTim

I didn't even Name the CDR? So how did it know it was Landfall?????

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01 Nov 10 - 07:17 PM (#3021189)
Subject: RE: Tech: How is this possible?
From: Jack Campin

It must have been scanning the content of the tracks. Fairly impressive trick. At a guess, a spin-off of the snoopware the recording industry uses to spot "illegal" download sites.

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01 Nov 10 - 07:26 PM (#3021197)
Subject: RE: Tech: How is this possible?
From: Bettynh

From what I've seen while loading into Itunes, it's the length of the tracks and order that identify the particular album. If it can't identify it, sometimes it'll ask you to enter the information (and presumably the next person who loads that set will get an automatic ID). It did make one mistake for me, IDing a worksong album as some random pop album, but it's been remarkably accurate. So - maybe someone else loaded the same album and labelled the tracks.

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01 Nov 10 - 08:49 PM (#3021243)
Subject: RE: Tech: How is this possible?
From: Stilly River Sage

I let windows media player fill in the information when I rip CDs for my mp3 player. It even loads the most recent cover art. But I don't let it do anything about sharing info or "acquire licenses." That sounds dodgy to me. I own it, I don't need a license.

SRS

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01 Nov 10 - 09:20 PM (#3021260)
Subject: RE: Tech: How is this possible?
From: GUEST,.gargoyle

If you could only grasp the BILLIONS upon BILLIONS ... of unique digital signitures (you believe YOU are the first to ever digitize the LP?)

If you could only imagine the HUNDRED hungry UK (and other "copy protected") restrictive rights protecting lawyers/solicitors/legal-begals ... salivating over the income of an rural India school teacher.....

YOU would tremble in FEAR .... for the birthright of your first born son....that you have just handed over (like a bent dick of a bridge) across continents...to an adjudgecator

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

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01 Nov 10 - 09:46 PM (#3021270)
Subject: RE: Tech: How is this possible?-track listing for LP
From: GUEST,leeneia

I dunno what the legal situation is in the UK, but here in the US, when we buy a copy of a recording, we are permitted to make one legal copy of it for our own use.

When we buy blank media, part of the money paid goes to musicians and composers. Somehow.

Personally, I think the spirits of the ancient songs were hovering over your Landfall LP, and the stereo inhaled them and sent them to your computer.

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01 Nov 10 - 10:09 PM (#3021280)
Subject: RE: Tech: How is this possible?-track listing for LP
From: John on the Sunset Coast

I wish it would happen to me. I've been digitizing old LPs using my ION USB turntable. The ION sends everything only through iTunes, but every album and track has to be manually entered.

I think, but am not sure, that I don't get that spiffy, automatic information since I do not subscribe to any upgraded offering by that company. Do you?

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01 Nov 10 - 10:25 PM (#3021288)
Subject: RE: Tech: How is this possible?-track listing for LP
From: Stilly River Sage

I don't subscribe to anything. Windows Media player is free. When I borrow a CD from the library I put it on my mp3. When I'm finished, I delete it. I'm sure there are a lot of gray areas those legal types would like to conquer.

SRS

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02 Nov 10 - 06:03 AM (#3021430)
Subject: RE: Tech: How is this possible?-track listing for LP
From: Geoff the Duck

RTim - You ask HOW they do it?
When I last looked it up, i-Tunes and Windows Player connect to a database which has info that is used to identify CD contents. The system that used was based on the number of tracks on a CD and the length in seconds (or fractions of a second) for each of the tracks (in the order they appear). For most LPs that appeared to be sufficiently unique to separate one possible ID from any others. At no point did it refer to the actual recorded content of the tracks, so it occasionally brings up a track listing for some completely different work that happens to contain tracks of the same duration.
More modern systems have been developed to identify music by giving a "sound fingerprint" to a recording, but as far as I am aware, the technology wasn't being used by the "media-players".
Info about the systems can be found on Wikipedia and via web searches, and some of it is interesting reading.
Quack!
GtD.

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02 Nov 10 - 06:28 AM (#3021440)
Subject: RE: Tech: How is this possible?-track listing for LP
From: Richard Bridge

Not in the UK you aren't.

My firewall spots the outgoing request and blocks it.

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02 Nov 10 - 11:00 AM (#3021614)
Subject: RE: Tech: How is this possible?-track listing for LP
From: Bettynh

John, try this: when you've finished digitizing an album, make it a playlist. Go to the "Advanced" menu on the toolbar and select "Get tracks." In the original scenario, a CD was made before entering Itunes, and loading the CD triggered a search for the tracks.

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03 Nov 10 - 01:26 AM (#3022249)
Subject: RE: Tech: How is this possible?-track listing for LP
From: Anglo

I have found the same thing as Tim as I go through some of my old LPs, digitizing them. I too am astonished. A lot aren't recognized, but many are.

I had heard GraceNotes identification was a function of track length, but when I digitize I try to do a little noise reduction thing, then put in a bit of a fade in at the beginning, and a bit of a fade out at the end, so there's no way the tracks can be exactly the same length as the original.

HOW DO IT KNOW?

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03 Nov 10 - 04:51 AM (#3022322)
Subject: RE: Tech: How is this possible?-track listing for LP
From: Geoff the Duck

Anglo - Noise reduction will not change the length of time a track runs and a fade in or out from the start or end of a track should still start or finish at the same point but at a very low volume. Unless you cut the track short, the time duration of the track ought to still be the same.
That said, the ID software probably has some level of error correction built into it to allow for different CD players running at different speeds.
Quack!
GtD.

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03 Nov 10 - 05:14 AM (#3022337)
Subject: RE: Tech: How is this possible?-track listing for LP
From: treewind

A track on a CD has its length in minutes and seconds stored numerically, and that's the data that's sent to CDDB.

It would be irrelevant if the CD player ran slow or fast, quite apart from the fact that they are crystal controlled and therefore at least as speed accurate as any digital clock that you might test them with.

Now, when you transcribe an LP, the LP player might well not run at the correct speed, and you have a point there.

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03 Nov 10 - 01:38 PM (#3022655)
Subject: RE: Tech: How is this possible?-track listing for LP
From: Geoff the Duck

Fair comment - I expect my brain is still on BST and is running an hour adrift from any postings I might make. ;¬}
Quack!
GtD.

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03 Nov 10 - 07:57 PM (#3023003)
Subject: RE: Tech: How is this possible?-track listing for LP
From: Anglo

So if I rip a CD of a CD, changing the order of the tracks, the GraceNotes database in iTunes won't recognize it because it uses the order of the tracks as well as the individual lengths?

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04 Nov 10 - 09:56 AM (#3023354)
Subject: RE: Tech: How is this possible?-track listing for LP
From: Barbara Shaw

Here's another thread where I had the same question with a slightly different twist:

thread.cfm?threadid=126654

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04 Nov 10 - 10:39 AM (#3023379)
Subject: RE: Tech: How is this possible?-track listing for LP
From: Geoff the Duck

Anglo - I believe that is the case from what I read about Gracenotes DB.
I think the idea is that any number of individual recordings could be of identical length, but on CDs the combination of different lengths in a particular order is unlikely to happen often.
Quack!

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04 Nov 10 - 11:03 AM (#3023399)
Subject: RE: Tech: How is this possible?-track listing for LP
From: John on the Sunset Coast

Bettynh--
Thanks for your suggestion, but that requires an iTunes Store Account. I don't put any identifying numbers, credit card, bank account, etc. on or through my computer. As I suspected, to get album covers, I would need to do so.

gargoyle--
Thank you, too for your suggestion. Forgive me, but I know nothing of what you suggest.

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04 Nov 10 - 12:15 PM (#3023451)
Subject: RE: Tech: How is this possible?-track listing for LP
From: Bettynh

John, for what it's worth, my Itunes account isn't usable. When I set it up, the credit card I used was quickly outdated and I never changed the numbers.

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29 Dec 10 - 07:18 AM (#3063183)
Subject: RE: Tech: How is this possible?-track listing for LP
From: GUEST,Doc John

This has puzzeled me too. I transferred two old LP's on CD and, yes, Gracenotes came up with the tracks. However these LP's may well be available as 'custom' CD's. The only possible information on my CDR's could be track length but that must be very uncertain feature. I also tranferred some - not all - tracks from a series of old LP's: this didn't work. These LP's are not available as CD's but I introduced two variables here. I'll try it again with something else and only one.

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29 Dec 10 - 08:06 PM (#3063535)
Subject: RE: Tech: How is this possible?-track listing for LP
From: Bernard

I've got an old version of Creative Playcenter on my PC which allows me to edit the Gracenotes database (CDDB). Whenever I convert a cassette or vinyl to CD, or create a new CD for a client I've recorded, I always update the database. I also do it if I find have a CD that isn't already in the database - which happens quite frequently with 'budget label' CDs we receive for airplay.

So it's reasonable to assume that others are doing it, too...

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29 Dec 10 - 08:18 PM (#3063538)
Subject: RE: Tech: How is this possible?-track listing for LP
From: Bernard

Sometimes the Gracenotes database comes up with more than one possible match... I believe the parameters used are the number of tracks and runtime.

What puzzles me slightly is the fact that I can, for example, convert vinyl to CD which is then recognised by the database even though it's highly unlikely that my edit of the tracks is going to result in precisely the same timings as someone else... so perhaps it's more to do with the ratio of the total runtime of all the tracks?

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