Track Marking in SS 4.3?

[Levanel]

Recently, I had the misfortune of ripping a CD without synchronizations and ended up with one big PCM file. I seem to recall a function on earlier SS versions that enabled you to edit or more specifically track mark directly on SS but it seems the very latest doesn't support this..

Anyway, what would you guys suggest? Opening up the wave file in a sound editor and separating out individual tracks? Separating it the old school way on your MD unit using the T-mark button? Meh..

[KJ_Palmer]

You can divide tracks in ATRAC or PCM format in SS4.3. It's under the Edit menu at the top. You can access this when playback is stopped, you get a 'rehearsal' short playback section to position the divide point quite accurately and end up with 2 tracks ending and beginning at the split point. You can also combine tracks in a similar way, but that's about it for editing in SS.

[sfbp]

There's a trick - you *must* put SS into "My Library" view, and while in there must set the menu on the left to view "all tracks". About as hard to find as it gets, because now you have 11,000 (or whatever) tracks, and you have to find your target in all that mess.

Wave editors are easier than this. You get to clean things up as you go (trimming, and noise reduction). However when the track is so enormous then you can use SS to break it down. Problem is now you have to export the divided file as a second step.

Track-marking is fine; beware the observation I noted a month or two ago, you cannot track mark if you move things around from one group to another on the HiMD. Group ownership appears to be a key restriction on editability of files whilst on the MD, at least for Optically-recorded files (haven't tried that with mic or analog in).

[Levanel]

Track-marking is fine; beware the observation I noted a month or two ago, you cannot track mark if you move things around from one group to another on the HiMD. Group ownership appears to be a key restriction on editability of files whilst on the MD, at least for Optically-recorded files (haven't tried that with mic or analog in).

I assume the restriction is in place to prevent or minimize the amount of fragmentation on the disk..

[sfbp]

I don't understand why that should be any sort of technical restriction. From what I recall MD are FAT file systems, which means that moving files in the catalog doesn't affect their position on disk. Hence the easy ability to edit/move/combine/delete on decks.

[Levanel]

I don't understand why that should be any sort of technical restriction. From what I recall MD are FAT file systems, which means that moving files in the catalog doesn't affect their position on disk. Hence the easy ability to edit/move/combine/delete on decks.

Unless you record new music over deleted ones. But hey, I think you know more about this than me..

[sfbp]

What i mean is: you leave the data where it is; and merely move the catalog information. In some cases this means that, after deletion, unused space is now available in the middle of good data - this is known as fragmentation, and one piece of equipment that will deal with this is the MDS-W1. But the same effect occurs when you copy all the files on an MD to Sonic Stage, format or erase the MD, and then copy back. You will achieve defragmentation, although with all the interaction of different lossy formats, you must be very careful or the sound that ends up back on the MD will not be as good as what was before.

Since all decks and the RH1 can actually send real CD-quality digital data (over the optical line or over USB), which is one tiny step away from uncompressed wave files, you will find out (as I did and I am sure many others have) that the least number of potentially damaging transfers is best. Once a sound is compressed (I don't include original ATRAC because ATRAC itself is about perfect, cutting out only things the human ear cannot deal with) then it's best to leave it at that compression. It's ok to downgrade, but there will be horrid surprises any time you change the bitrate of an already compressed signal. Especially if you recompress something that was uncompressed from MP3 or Atrac LP modes.

I think this is another reason Sony made it difficult to transfer compressed sound FROM md. They didn't want to deal with the complaints. On that score they did good, because you have to try really hard before you can make crappy sound with any of the MD setups.

So the recipe which works is, record in SP (or PCM), upload to WAV file, edit the wave file as much as you like (there should be no artifacts as a result of such editing), and THEN and only then, save to the compressed format of your choice. Typically I save the wav files before that, and burn them to CD when I get too many (or if I really dont want a gazillion CD's put on DVD's where they cannot be played but at least can be recovered from if necessary). After I have a "good" copy on CD then I might send back onto MD for portable or car use, either with SS or perhaps on my CD/MD deck, which does a reasonable job (except for high-speed copying of the LP formats) of making MD's without involving any computer at all.

Recording in 256K Atrac3+ is ok, about the same as SP. Recording in MDLP modes (132kbps or less) is basically hopeless, if you want to do anything to manipulate the waveforms.

Sorry got into a rather long-winded digression answering a simple question.