As per subject, does anyone know of such a beast?

I have a number of old recordings which I'd like to skim through to see
if there's any music worth saving from them, without having to listen
through the interminable wittering in between the music.

--

Fake news kills!

I may be contacted via the contact address given on my website:
www.macfh.co.uk

On 17/08/2023 13:53, Java Jive wrote:
> As per subject, does anyone know of such a beast?
>
> I have a number of old recordings which I'd like to skim through to see
> if there's any music worth saving from them, without having to listen
> through the interminable wittering in between the music.
>
If you look at the waveforms on the likes of Audacity, can you recognise
the difference between speech and music sections? If so, you could
select the speech bits and zap them.
--
Cheers,
Roger

On 17/08/2023 17:58, Roger Mills wrote:
>
> On 17/08/2023 13:53, Java Jive wrote:
>>
>> As per subject, does anyone know of such a beast?
>>
>> I have a number of old recordings which I'd like to skim through to
>> see if there's any music worth saving from them, without having to
>> listen through the interminable wittering in between the music.
>
> If you look at the waveforms on the likes of Audacity, can you recognise
> the difference between speech and music sections? If so, you could
> select the speech bits and zap them.

Oh, sure, but there are too many to do individually by hand. I'm hoping
that there is some way to produce a copy with the speech removed. It
doesn't matter if the edits are crude, because if there's anything I
found I wanted to keep, then I'd go back to the original and do the job
properly by hand.

--

Fake news kills!

I may be contacted via the contact address given on my website:
www.macfh.co.uk

On Thu, 17 Aug 2023 18:22:15 +0100, Java Jive <java@evij.com.invalid>
wrote:
>On 17/08/2023 17:58, Roger Mills wrote:
>>
>> On 17/08/2023 13:53, Java Jive wrote:
>>>
>>> As per subject, does anyone know of such a beast?
>>>
>>> I have a number of old recordings which I'd like to skim through to
>>> see if there's any music worth saving from them, without having to
>>> listen through the interminable wittering in between the music.
>>
>> If you look at the waveforms on the likes of Audacity, can you recognise
>> the difference between speech and music sections? If so, you could
>> select the speech bits and zap them.
>
>Oh, sure, but there are too many to do individually by hand. I'm hoping
>that there is some way to produce a copy with the speech removed. It
>doesn't matter if the edits are crude, because if there's anything I
>found I wanted to keep, then I'd go back to the original and do the job
>properly by hand.
What is involved in "skim through"? What's the difference between
playing suitably spaced snippets of a speech-removed recording and
playing bits that don't look like speech in Audacity? Admittedly you
could play the speech-removed recording at four times the speed (two
octaves higher). Or even the recording including the speech -
wittering would be incomprehensible.
--
Dave W

Well, not really, but there is software too remove pauses below a certain
volume level.
The biggest issue is how often do they talk over the intros?
Professionally, they do have software to actually bring out instruments
from mono or add them to conversions of old basic stereo when making
surround versions as they recently did on the Beatles Revolver and the big
Get back documentary. I'd guess its not exactly usable on a domestic system
though and probably needs a lot of tweaking and training on what to remove
and what to keep and complex software controlled hardware as well.
All the AI is at the moment is a huge database on what you are working with
and a set of rules to interpret an input when compared to the learned data.
Brian

--

--:
This newsgroup posting comes to you directly from...
The Sofa of Brian Gaff...
briang1@blueyonder.co.uk
Blind user, so no pictures please
Note this Signature is meaningless.!
"Java Jive" <java@evij.com.invalid> wrote in message
news:ubl593$3pdrf$1@dont-email.me...
> As per subject, does anyone know of such a beast?
>
> I have a number of old recordings which I'd like to skim through to see if
> there's any music worth saving from them, without having to listen through
> the interminable wittering in between the music.
>
> --
>
> Fake news kills!
>
> I may be contacted via the contact address given on my website:
> www.macfh.co.uk

Yes but your ears are better at it. And there will always be false positives
or vice versa.
Think of the old Shangrilas recording of Past, Present and Future, its
spoken lyricks with a classical piece played below it. Deck of Cards is
another one that springs to mind.
Brian

--

--:
This newsgroup posting comes to you directly from...
The Sofa of Brian Gaff...
briang1@blueyonder.co.uk
Blind user, so no pictures please
Note this Signature is meaningless.!
"Roger Mills" <mills37.fslife@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:kk71toFf275U1@mid.individual.net...
> On 17/08/2023 13:53, Java Jive wrote:
>> As per subject, does anyone know of such a beast?
>>
>> I have a number of old recordings which I'd like to skim through to see
>> if there's any music worth saving from them, without having to listen
>> through the interminable wittering in between the music.
>>
> If you look at the waveforms on the likes of Audacity, can you recognise
> the difference between speech and music sections? If so, you could select
> the speech bits and zap them.
> --
> Cheers,
> Roger
>
>

On 18/08/2023 09:54, Dave W wrote:
>
> What is involved in "skim through"? What's the difference between
> playing suitably spaced snippets of a speech-removed recording and
> playing bits that don't look like speech in Audacity? Admittedly you
> could play the speech-removed recording at four times the speed (two
> octaves higher). Or even the recording including the speech -
> wittering would be incomprehensible.

I can listen in the background while concentrating on something else,
without having to keep breaking my concentration to ff over distracting
and irritating sections of mindless jabber.

--

Fake news kills!

I may be contacted via the contact address given on my website:
www.macfh.co.uk

On 18/08/2023 10:58, Brian Gaff wrote:
> Well, not really, but there is software too remove pauses below a certain
> volume level.

Yes, I found some examples of that in my researches before posting.

> The biggest issue is how often do they talk over the intros?
> Professionally, they do have software to actually bring out instruments
> from mono or add them to conversions of old basic stereo when making
> surround versions as they recently did on the Beatles Revolver and the big
> Get back documentary. I'd guess its not exactly usable on a domestic system
> though and probably needs a lot of tweaking and training on what to remove
> and what to keep and complex software controlled hardware as well.

There seems to be some misinformation/confusion/urban myths about
Beatles recordings ...

The original LPs were all available in stereo, onwards from the very
first one which was 'Please, Please Me'. I know this for a fact,
because I had every single one of them, all in stereo, even buying a
second copy of one of them, I think it was in fact PPM, because I'd
already bought a mono version which I sold to a fellow school pupil
after I bought the stereo version. Although I didn't actually have a
stereo at that time, I was future proofing by using a stereo stylus and
cartridge wired mono - which therefore could play stereo LPs without
ruining them; the styli were different shapes and supposedly playing
stereo LPs with a mono stylus would ruin them - and buying only stereo
records.

Yet when I was in HMV in Oxford Street in the 1990s, replacing my
favourite Beatles LPs with CDs, I noticed that the White album CD was
mono. I asked the guy behind the counter why they had only a mono CD,
and he tried to tell me that back in those days there were no stereo
recordings. I tried to put him right, but I don't think he believed me,
even after I'd pointed out that all the others, even those that
chronologically preceded it, were available in stereo!

> All the AI is at the moment is a huge database on what you are working with
> and a set of rules to interpret an input when compared to the learned data.

Yes, and I think it should be possible to do what I want, the question
is simply whether anything is actually available to do it, and at an
affordable price.

--

Fake news kills!

I may be contacted via the contact address given on my website:
www.macfh.co.uk

On 18/08/2023 11:01, Brian Gaff wrote:
> Yes but your ears are better at it. And there will always be false positives
> or vice versa.
> Think of the old Shangrilas recording of Past, Present and Future, its
> spoken lyricks with a classical piece played below it. Deck of Cards is
> another one that springs to mind.

Or the Magna Carta album 'Seasons', but such are unlikely to feature in
what I want to review.

--

Fake news kills!

I may be contacted via the contact address given on my website:
www.macfh.co.uk

On 18/08/2023 13:30, Java Jive wrote:

>
> There seems to be some misinformation/confusion/urban myths about
> Beatles recordings ...
>
> The original LPs were all available in stereo, onwards from the very
> first one which was 'Please, Please Me'.  I know this for a fact,
> because I had every single one of them, all in stereo, even buying a
> second copy of one of them, I think it was in fact PPM, because I'd
> already bought a mono version which I sold to a fellow school pupil
> after I bought the stereo version.  Although I didn't actually have a
> stereo at that time, I was future proofing by using a stereo stylus and
> cartridge wired mono  -  which therefore could play stereo LPs without
> ruining them; the styli were different shapes and supposedly playing
> stereo LPs with a mono stylus would ruin them  -  and buying only stereo
> records.
>

Could just be folk memory of the way IIRC "Please Please Me" was
released in mono only, with the stereo version following a few weeks later.

--
Robin
reply-to address is (intended to be) valid

Java Jive <java@evij.com.invalid> wrote:
> after I bought the stereo version. Although I didn't actually have a
> stereo at that time, I was future proofing by using a stereo stylus and
> cartridge wired mono - which therefore could play stereo LPs without
> ruining them; the styli were different shapes and supposedly playing
> stereo LPs with a mono stylus would ruin them - and buying only stereo
> records.
>
If my memory serves me right mono records' grooves waggle only
horizontally (i.e. in the plane of the disc's surface), stereo records
have one channel at 45 degrees on one side of the groove and the other
channel at 45 degrees on the other side of the groove. The sum of the
two stereo channels in the horizontal direction is the mono signal.
However a needle that doesn't have vertical compliance will damage the
stereo information.

An elliptical stylus isn't necessary for stereo, it just helps get a
bit more detail out of what's in the groove.

--
Chris Green
·

On 18/08/2023 13:30, Java Jive wrote:
> which therefore could play stereo LPs without ruining them; the styli
> were different shapes and supposedly playing stereo LPs with a mono
> stylus would ruin them  -  and buying only stereo records.
I would have thought the cartridge might be more important, as might not
have good compliance in the vertical direction.

On 18/08/2023 21:10, David Woolley wrote:
> On 18/08/2023 13:30, Java Jive wrote:

>> which therefore could play stereo LPs without ruining them; the styli
>> were different shapes and supposedly playing stereo LPs with a mono
>> stylus would ruin them  -  and buying only stereo records.
>
> I would have thought the cartridge might be more important, as might not
> have good compliance in the vertical direction.

Some stereo LPs had an elaborate screed about what was required to play
them. It included the tip radius of the stylus, and the requirement to
use either a stereo cartridge, or a stereo compatible mono cartridge, or
a stereo cartridge wired for mono. Most LPs were available in either
stereo or mono versions, and sometimes there was a hole in the sleeve
that showed red for mono or blue for stereo.

--
Max Demian

On 19/08/2023 11:15, Max Demian wrote:
> On 18/08/2023 21:10, David Woolley wrote:
>> On 18/08/2023 13:30, Java Jive wrote:
>
>>> which therefore could play stereo LPs without ruining them; the styli
>>> were different shapes and supposedly playing stereo LPs with a mono
>>> stylus would ruin them  -  and buying only stereo records.
>>
>> I would have thought the cartridge might be more important, as might
>> not have good compliance in the vertical direction.
>
> Some stereo LPs had an elaborate screed about what was required to play
> them. It included the tip radius of the stylus, and the requirement to
> use either a stereo cartridge, or a stereo compatible mono cartridge, or
> a stereo cartridge wired for mono. Most LPs were available in either
> stereo or mono versions, and sometimes there was a hole in the sleeve
> that showed red for mono or blue for stereo.
>
The original vinyl "Tubular Bells" had this:-

"This stereo record cannot be played on old tin boxes no matter what
they are fitted with. If you are in possession of such equipment please
hand it in to the nearest police station."

Decca did the red/blue inner sleeve thing with the hole in the outer sleeve.