Music Streaming Basics
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simon
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#16
I've used Audacity (and other simple wave recorders) a few times when I want a digital copy of a vinyl album Paul. I've only used the on board sound card and the results are okay. Perfectly good enough for the car and other less demanding locations, I can hear the limitations on a good hi fi system. If you're going to do a lot it might be worth considering a decent standalone sound card?
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Mike H
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#17
When I've tried this I've found the analogue side of things is a possible problem, like if you change to a better phono pre-amp, or cartridge or deck, or PC's sound card or audio adapter etc., do you do it all over again, or just leave it... but always have that nagging doubt that maybe you should do it again.....
"No matter how fast light travels it finds that the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it."
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pre65
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#18
Is that because it might be "better" ?Mike H wrote:... but always have that nagging doubt that maybe you should do it again.....
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
Edmund Burke
G-Popz THE easy listening connoisseur. (Philip)
Edmund Burke
G-Popz THE easy listening connoisseur. (Philip)
#19
So, you've got some files containing your music in the format that you've decided upon.
The next thing is to host them somewhere. Ideally you want to keep them somewhere they are safe and easily accessible, after all the idea is to listen to them at your convenience.
My personal preference is to store them on a NAS (network attached storage) or a dedicated home server; either of these options should run all the time but be efficient with respect to power consumption and should include resilience for your data.
Most NAS appliances and home servers will use very little power, just a few 10s of watts and be almost silent.
By resilience I mean they should be tolerant to faults, typically a hard disk failure, usually achieved by some level of RAID (redundant array of inexpensive disks). RAID 1 will simply mirror your data (i.e. it exists as two copies on two (or more) disks so if a disk fails you still have one copy. RAID 5 does clever stuff spreading your data across multiple disks so that even if one disk fails there is redundant parity data elsewhere that will enable your data to be reconstituted. These are the most common RAID systems used for home storage; there are other RAID levels and there is much more to the topic that I don't propose to go into; you won't go far wrong with 1 or 5.
I must emphasise here that resilience is about day to day availability and should not be thought of as a secure backup of your music (or any other precious personal stuff you might have stored). After all, no level of RAID is going to protect your files if your house burns down or is burgled! I recommend that you take proper backups of your data that you keep remotely (I keep mine in work). It's all about managing risk, the probability of your house burning down is, hopefully, low but the impact of it happening will be pretty significant.
It is also possible to keep your music files on a normal computer or laptop but these aren't best suited as they tend to be turned off and are less resilient. You can also use something like a USB hard drive, which is portable but not very resilient.
More to follow.
Ray
The next thing is to host them somewhere. Ideally you want to keep them somewhere they are safe and easily accessible, after all the idea is to listen to them at your convenience.
My personal preference is to store them on a NAS (network attached storage) or a dedicated home server; either of these options should run all the time but be efficient with respect to power consumption and should include resilience for your data.
Most NAS appliances and home servers will use very little power, just a few 10s of watts and be almost silent.
By resilience I mean they should be tolerant to faults, typically a hard disk failure, usually achieved by some level of RAID (redundant array of inexpensive disks). RAID 1 will simply mirror your data (i.e. it exists as two copies on two (or more) disks so if a disk fails you still have one copy. RAID 5 does clever stuff spreading your data across multiple disks so that even if one disk fails there is redundant parity data elsewhere that will enable your data to be reconstituted. These are the most common RAID systems used for home storage; there are other RAID levels and there is much more to the topic that I don't propose to go into; you won't go far wrong with 1 or 5.
I must emphasise here that resilience is about day to day availability and should not be thought of as a secure backup of your music (or any other precious personal stuff you might have stored). After all, no level of RAID is going to protect your files if your house burns down or is burgled! I recommend that you take proper backups of your data that you keep remotely (I keep mine in work). It's all about managing risk, the probability of your house burning down is, hopefully, low but the impact of it happening will be pretty significant.
It is also possible to keep your music files on a normal computer or laptop but these aren't best suited as they tend to be turned off and are less resilient. You can also use something like a USB hard drive, which is portable but not very resilient.
More to follow.
Ray
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Mike H
- Amstrad Tower of Power
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#20
If you've changed the equipment it's presumably to make it better so yes.pre65 wrote:Is that because it might be "better" ?Mike H wrote:... but always have that nagging doubt that maybe you should do it again.....
"No matter how fast light travels it finds that the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it."