Re: OSRL Presents: A World Exclusive - SCAMP has arrived

[supertimer@aol.com (Supertimer)]

CUTblakeney@home.com (Jeff Blakeney) wrote:

>supertimer@aol.com (Supertimer) wrote:
>
>>Hi Jeff, I find Oversampler better than LongPlay in this regard,
>>mainly because of oversampling but also because the play
>>routine seems cleaner and you can set the file type/aux type
>>to make Oversampler default to a playback rate of your
>>choice.
>
>Yes, I know that Oversampler is the better choice for playing back
>samples.  I just wanted to correct the statement that Oversampler was
>the ONLY program that could play long samples.
>
>Actually, in the case of the two WAV files listed, I could have pretty
>much any sound player to play these files as they would fit in RAM on
>my machine.  Even in the Finder, which is a large program, I have
>about 6.5 MB of free RAM.  :-)

Sure, Charles Turley's wave files could fit, but not a
typical MP3 song one is likely to convert.  I say this
even as a IIGS user with 8MB of memory.  ;-)

>>I wrote an article that I posted to csa2 about conversions of
>>MP3 to the IIGS using a PC.
>
>I'm still much happier listening to 44 kHz, 16 bit, stereo MP3s on my
>Pentium II than listening to whatever frequency, 8 bit, mono sounds on
>my IIgs.

Of course.  But that's Apples to oranges.  Both you
and I know that a program like Oversampler playing
large waves of converted MP3s is itself an impressive
achievement for a computer of the IIGS' era.  It is as
impressive in its own way as a Pentium II of THIS era
playing the original MP3.  ;-)

As for the difference in quality, everyone would notice
the loss of stereo.  However, the difference between
16 bit and 8 bit is much much more subtle.  Sort of
like listening to a hit song on an FM station.  The
song sounds great on the radio.  With a clear signal,
it is so good that it can get you hooked to the sound.
But how often have you then went out and got the CD
and when you first played it noticed something off.
In time, you'll say that the CD album original sounds
better than the radio broadcast.  But initially, I at
least, have a nagging feeling that the CD version is
not the song I've grown to love to hear on the radio.
That's the way I define the subtle difference between
16-bit and 8-bit sound.  It is not great, but it is there.
And that does not necessarily make the 8-bit audio
unpleasant to listen to.

I convert MP3s for the IIGS for the same reason I
use the IIGS for other tasks.  If one wanted modern,
one would not use the IIGS at all, right?  But using
the IIGS to do what others consider impossible for
a computer of its age, that's the fun of using a IIGS.
Besides, with today's greater than 1GB hard drives,
what ELSE are you going to do with all that space?
Or to those who fear using HFS volumes, why not
fill them up with converted MP3 music?

>>Lastly, there's a shift in frequency balance between
>>the IIGS audio and most PC sound cards.  That's why
>>I suggest processing the wav file using the Goldwave
>>program on the PC before taking it to the IIGS (and
>>doing a reverse process with Goldwave if taking
>>something digitized on a IIGS to a PC).  See the
>>article I posted for more information.
>
>The only real difference I can recall hearing between playing stuff on
>my PC versus playing it on my IIgs is due to the fact that I'm not
>running them both through the same amplifier or speakers.  I used to
>and they both sounded about the same but now I'm running my PC sound
>through an external amplifier and a pair of high power car speakers
>mounted in wooden boxes and my IIgs is using the amplifier and
>speakers in my Commodore 1084S RGB monitor.  The monitors speakers are
>smaller and have much different frequency response giving me a lot
>less low end not to mention the fact that I have the loudness (boosts
>the bass) turned on on the external amplifier on my PC.

Try running the IIGS off the PC's amplifier and
speakers while playing a converted MP3 and you'll
see what I mean.