HW: Live at The Kinetic Playground

[Paul Mather]

On Mon, 6 Jul 1998, Kevin Sommers wrote:

> > ObTechnologicalAdvance: Being able to divide trax without silent spaces
> Oh, but you can, you can!  The recording program I use, which allows a
> zero-second gap between tracks, comes from http://www.goldenhawk.com/.

And it's trivial to do with Adaptec's Easy-CD Pro program that's bundled
with many a CD-R drive.  You just write in "disc-at-once" mode, and the
gap between audio tracks is set to zero seconds.  The only "downside" is
that this closes the CD-R to further writing (so you can't add further
tracks on the end later), but if you've assembled everything on hard
disc, and written your masterpiece bootleg final version, it's no
problem.

Actually, making CD-R bootlegs is so easy, I'd say that's grounds for
not including them in discographies (to comment on the recent thread).
At least with silver CD bootlegs, someone has gone to the prior effort
of pressing a *release*, i.e. taking some risk of making a fixed-size
run.  With CD-R bootlegs, it seems anyone with a CD-R burner and a
colour printer can just crank them out of his or her basement at
leisure, with no real investment other than the time it took to sample
the tape, write the CD-Rs and design and print the inserts.  A sizeable
project, yes, but no great threat financially.  And once the first is
made, the rest are quick 'n' dirty to run off.

The best thing about CD-R bootlegs, IMHO, is that it is easy to "beat
the boots" and copy them yourself, since you have access to the same
media the bootlegger had.  This is not always the case with silver CD
bootlegs, which can exceed the 74 minute running time limit due to
professional pressing.

(Actually, if the Kinetic Playground bootleg had not been a CD-R one, it
might have avoided the jarring cuts described in another posting,
because you can squeeze almost 80 minutes on a silver CD.  I have two
Bevis Frond CDs that clock in over 79 minutes, and I've heard "the
longest CD" is just a tad over 80 minutes.  I have some silver CD
bootlegs that cruise the 78 minute mark.  It's surprising what proper
mastering can do for you.:)

Cheers,

Paul.

e-mail: paul at gromit.dlib.vt.edu

"I didn't mean to take up all your sweet time"
        --- James Marshall Hendrix