A call for help!

I'm posting this everywhere I post to, to get the best chance of a positive result. Sorry

I need help finding an album. It's a rare one and I've exhausted what limited sources I have. So, here's what I'm asking of you folks:

The next time you're in a record store that has vinyl, or if you have any sources that are good for finding albums, please look out for:

Screaming Trees - Clairvoyance

It's the first Screaming Trees album, it's only on vinyl, and I haven't been able to find it anywhere. This is my all-time favorite band, and I'm sure you can understand what it's like to not be able to get music by your favorite group or artist. All but one track on this album are completely new to me.

Thanks for any help I can get.

ps-here are some links:
AMG
Sweet Oblivion - the albums page on a fansite. the listing is about a third of the way down the page.

Why not drop them a note and see if they have a spare copy lying around they're willing to sell?

Screaming Trees
P.O. Box 1042
Ellensburg, Washington
98926
USA

Where did you find that?? Wow!

I've actually exchanged emails with the bassist and drummer before, but I felt odd about this, and I think I recently tried sending a second email but received no reply.

Anyway, thanks for the help! I might try that

Found it here.
And I wouldn't feel too weird. I would consider it the highest form of flattery. The most they can do is ignore you.

Interesting. That's an interesting site. The only thing is, I wonder if that address is still valid. I mean, the band hasn't released an album since '96, and broke up officially in 2000. I guess it can't hurt! Thanks again, I'm going to send off a letter soon.

Also, keep an eye on ebay. That's where I seem to find rare albums I can't find other places.

Good point. It's kind of hard, though, since it seems like something that would come up once a year, if that. I don't do enough ebaying to see an auction that only lasts two weeks at most.

Does anyone know of any services that would do this for me? There are so many sites revolving around ebay, I figured there might be.

Woop, woop. Vinyl alert!

Ebay UK Link

FYI - A poster named Daz over at http://giantrhino.co.uk/trees/board/ posted on May 1st that his friend was going to be selling Clairvoyance on Ebay. This apparently is the one.

Bid to win!

You are a king among internet men. I am very impressed. I hate that there are 9 days left on it. Hopefully I'll have enough cash to win this thing. Oh please let the interest be veeeery low

Thanks again, excellent job.

Ahh king for a day. It's good to be the king.

Just so you know, I linked to this thread from the Rhino board saying that you were interested. It may have been coincidental that it just appeared but the auction was not up before I posted to the Rhino site. I thought maybe it was a scam but the seller has a very good rating. Now you know...

Not sure what you're experience with Ebay is but I see he has it setup as a reserve auction. IIRC there used to be some special rules about ending an auction early on a reserve auction if no bids were placed. I can't find any reference in Ebay's rules on this though. I'll usually bid until I hit the reserve and then back off and snipe my max amount to avoid a bidding war. Maybe Paul can comment on how reserves work these days?

Yeah, that makes sense. I might contact him and see, though I would suspect he's expecting a good price on this, and I don't want it to be too high.

Damn! This is the wrong time for me to need to save my money

*edit*
D'oh! I just visited the link to that board you were talking about. I've been there several times! I should have asked those folks. I just haven't been there in a long while.

But thanks, I hope this all ends well

*edit edit*

IIRC there used to be some special rules about ending an auction early on a reserve auction if no bids were placed

I've read through ebay's rules, and it appears you can end any auction early, even if there are bidders. In fact, if that's the case you can even opt to let the current high bidder win! Not what I would have expected!

Still, I feel weird sending the guy a message saying I want to circumvent the process, especially when there's a little message right there telling anyone who receives such a message to report it

Honestly, this is the kind of thing that ought to be on file-sharing networks, not the latest release from Britney, but, at the same time, never is.

You are absolutely correct. And I'd love to see someone get busted by the RIAA for sharing thousands of out-of-print albums.

If I eventually get a copy, I'll make MP3s out of them. Then maybe I'll do that. I removed Kazaa from my machine, but maybe I'll use it again to share this one album.

Ah, screw it. I'll make a torrent

Well, as ashamed as I am about the final price of the auction, I'm equally pleased about having it:



Now I just need to get my receiver back so I can play it!

Thanks again for the link, Mach!

Ouch. Make sure to rip it cleanly and share it. (This would seem to be fair, since no one associated with the band or its publishers or anyone involved in the creation of the music or its distribution, promotion, or anything else is apparently even interested in making any money from it. See the Digital Archive Project for more info along these lines.)

Yeah, fortunately my girlfriend helped me a bit with the price as a birthday present.

I know there are a lot of programs out there that are aimed at cleaning up analog rips (tape hisses and record pops etc). But which ones would you suggest. I currently have Cool Edit Pro and have used the hiss reducer before. It worked well and I have the program already so I might use that. But that's if I use anything. Do you think it would be better to just leave it "uncleaned"?

Edit: Ouch on the price of the vinyl, but I agree - rare vinyl is worth it. I paid $100 for a mint copy of Steeleye Span's "On Tour", an Australian only release. I have been enjoying it for a while, but they finally re-released a lot of the tracks on compilation albums.

If you want to do that level of archiving, you might just want to rip with EAC (highest possible quality settings) and then compress the original, uncleaned, unedited to FLAC. Share the FLAC as a lossless compression. Then clean and compress the way you want it.

how do you propose that he rips vinyl with EAC?

Uh, yeah, good point... Ooops...

Well, record it in using the best audio card and software you can...

Well, record it in using the best audio card and software you can...

I quess I'll have to find better than my $12 garage-sale Technics and 8 year old Sound Blaster...

Well, they will work. As long as you can get a clean signal, they should be fine. Anyone have comments about high end audio cards and if they would help this kind of situation?

I've sampled vinyl with several cards : a Gravis Ultrasound (anyone remember that one ?), a Soundblaster Live and a Soundblaster Audigy. I can't hear any difference in sampling quality of tracks that were made with the oldest card (Gravis) and the newest card (Audigy)
So my guess is, as long as you use a decent soundcard (not AC '97), the quality will be more than adequate.

A high end audio card should have a much lower noise floor and be able to handle hotter input signals than a cheap one. If you don't care about those things, though, then I suppose a cheap sound card is fine.

Remember that the outputs of a phonograph turntable are not line-level. You'll need a phono-to-line-level converter, or have to run it through a receiver with monitor outs and a phono input.

Remember that the outputs of a phonograph turntable are not line-level

I was worried about that issue. Unfortunately I only have speaker outputs on my receiver. I have RCA jacks for a second room audio output, but I can't use the phono input in second-room mode.

I'll see what's on my dad's old Tandberg audio receiver

Honestly, this is the kind of thing that ought to be on file-sharing networks, not the latest release from Britney, but, at the same time, never is.

uhhh... no. It IS there. You just have to look.

For example, after spending about 3 seconds typing "Screaming Trees" into E-Mule, I get...

ed2k://|file|Screaming.Trees.-.Clairvoyance.(128).Por.Wagnerian.rar|40392432|7ADE8202D4C8E0D46D3C04F66358C2C2|/

May just be 128-bit, but personally it's not that big a deal to me. Especially when I'm saving ~$100US.

The RIAA is laughing their ass off right now. I understand collecting, but I will NEVER pay premium for an out of print album. Frankly I have problems with paying ANYTHING for an album the record company isn't interested in selling to me.

No offense.

Any generic receiver should be easy to repurpose as a phono pre-amp. Phono in, tape out. For ripping vinyl myself, I've got a borrowed turntable, a Radio Shack "Disco DJ" mixer, and an Onkyo USB external audio card. If you want to have a lower noise floor, the external USB devices are the way to go because you don't have all the electrical noise inside your computer messing with your sound.

If you're using a Soundblaster, be careful what resolution you're digitizing at. I think Soundblaster's only run natively at 48KHz. If you ask them for something else, they first sample at 48KHz and then digitally resample. You want the original 48KHz data to feed to your MP3 encoder (assuming you can tell it that you're giving it 48KHz data rather than the usual 44.1KHz data).

For example, after spending about 3 seconds typing "Screaming Trees" into E-Mule

That's assuming:

a) I would ever use E-Mule (I've sworn off all those P2P systems as you never get what you want, at least never at acceptable speeds)

b) I'm not a huge fan and collector.

Yeah, you can look at this and say "It's dumb to pay $100 when I can get it for free." But I look at it in the way that I now have the rarest album in the catalog of my favorite band of all time. I have the sleeve, I have the vinyl, I have the insert which is in mint condition - suprising for an 18 year old album.

So yes, your point is fine for some people. Me, I'm the type that probably won't move toward digital music stores. I'm one of those "I like the artwork" types.

The RIAA is laughing their ass off right now. I understand collecting, but I will NEVER pay premium for an out of print album. Frankly I have problems with paying ANYTHING for an album the record company isn't interested in selling to me

Why is the RIAA laughing at my private purchase?