21 replies to this topic

[Phokus]

Edited: 18/11/10

An update on sound clips. We've now increased the length of clips that we're making on the site and are trying to go back and update many of the clips that have already been made.

All steps below are the same but we are now uploading 3 minute long clips. We've found that starting 30 seconds in often gives best results and gets most of the song's intro and a fair bit of the drop.

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So as some of you may have noticed we have sound clips in the new rolldabeats...which is nice!

For an example check the little grey play icons on these pages

http://www.rolldabea...talheadz/tracks
http://www.rolldabea...alheadz/met006/

We need people with collections of mp3s to spare a little time to help make and upload clips. It doesn't take long and providing we follow some basic guidelines it all works fairly smoothly.

What to do

We're trying to get complete labels done as much as possible from all genres and eras. it's harder to manage one release here and there but that's not to say we don't want clips for these if that's all you have

Step 1

Download mp3 cropping software

PC

http://www.rolldabea...staller-0.8.exe

Mac

This will crop mp3s for you

http://deepniner.net/mp3trimmer/

and this will then do encoding

http://www.apple.com...oconverter.html

Step 2

Convert your mp3s to 180 second clips at 128kbps. Don't make the start point 0 seconds but set it to 30 seconds in so we can make sure we get as much of the actual tune as possible and skip any long intros.

Step 3

Rename the tracks to match the catalogue number of the release

catno + - + side + track number

The metalheadz 6 example above has three mp3s

met006-a.mp3
met006-b1.mp3
met006-b2.mp3

Never use aa for a b-side even if that's what's listed on rdb and don't use capital letters for the file name

If you are doing many mp3s on a label that has a bunch of varying catalogue numbers then use a label identifier (substituting any spaces for underscores) at the start of the filename just so we can keep things tidy. There are also so many clips now that it's often best to add the label name anyway to keep file names unique

e.g.  
brain_dope11-a.mp3
brain_dope11-b.mp3
brain_slammer6-a.mp3
brain_slammer6-b.mp3
brain_raw4-a.mp3
brain_raw4-b.mp3
http://www.rolldabea...l/brain_records

Step 4

You can upload directly to our web server via FTP

capone.dreamhosters.com
user: rdbuploads
pw: rolldabeats

This info is now out-of-date. Contact me directly for details on how to upload clips - haste at rolldabeats dot com. We'll need you to send the files over so that we can upload for you at the moment

Give haste a shout if you have any problems or would like to send them another way

[hanswurst]

the naming of the clips does not work for every tune in the database!
for example "ar010-a" would have to match 2 different tunes
http://www.rolldabea...catalogue/ar010


@haste: also the request done by the swf is not able to seperate this!


i think the best way would be to name it like the integer track-id of rdb.
of course it is not comfortable for clip-submitters but there would be a few advantages:
*) same catalognumbers of different labels could be submitted & requested
*) a submitted clip would match every appearance of this tune in the database and there would be no need to upload Roni Size's Brown Paper Bag with 30!!! different clip-filenames
*) in case the CatNr gets a correction there would be no need to correct any clip-filename

anyone has a better idea/solution?
(prefixing the catnr with labelname would also cause problems in case of label-name-change)

greets from austria
hanswurst

[haste]

We thought having track IDs as the file names but managing this many mp3s (from an uploader perspective) is a complete nightmare. With this system when you're browsing the directory structure you can at least work out roughly what each tune is. Not everyone who uploads has access to the track IDs, they're only really available to me & Thijs so using these isn't really an option.

We're well aware that some cat nos are duplicated, a label identifier is used to prepend the file name here. It doesn't have to match the exact name, it's just there as a helping hand to the people who manage the files.

The files are tied to the track IDs in the system manually at the moment, it's no an automated process based on track ID. This may well change when/if the method of upload changes but, for now, that's our solution.

[haste]

Added full info here...

[hanswurst]

 Phokus, on Feb 8 2009, 09:44 PM, said:

....Convert your mp3s to 60 second clips at 128kbps....

in case i will upload clips of a cd whichs first track is a 40 seconds intro:
should this be uploaded in full length?

i think there also some "tracks" called "sample me" by Dev Paradox which are pretty short....

[haste]

 hanswurst, on Feb 26 2009, 06:47 AM, said:

in case i will upload clips of a cd whichs first track is a 40 seconds intro:
should this be uploaded in full length?

i think there also some "tracks" called "sample me" by Dev Paradox which are pretty short....

Yup, if the tune is shorter than a minute then just include the entire thing.

Stuff that is just there for sampling is probably not worth including. If there are only a couple then go for it but if we're talking about loads of really short tracks then leave them out

[Cob]

Started seeing the fruits of all this uploading the past couple of days, simply a staggering job you guys are doing!

[kn00tcn]

so i notice there's a few mp3s on the ftp dated feb25th, & the releases in the db of those clips do not have a sample

should i still prepare a bunch of clips? what if a CD is used as the source of a vinyl clip when it's the same track on both vinyl & cd?

[haste]

Ooops...forgot about those. Just added them now.

Yes please on new clips!

If you've done it from the CD then just name it after the CD tracks. We don't really mind which is used as long as the file names are easy enough to follow.

If the CD release has 15 tracks on it and the vinyl has 10 of those then just make the track names match the CD

[kn00tcn]

roni size 26bass/snapshot, the audio clips are flipped on those 2

[haste]

 kn00tcn, on Apr 20 2009, 01:50 AM, said:

roni size 26bass/snapshot, the audio clips are flipped on those 2

Cheers...that should be fixed now!

[FuZion]

I've been working on recording my collection for a while now & am pretty close (Well, later this year I'd say) to beginning to upload clips.

I'll need to know where you guys need these files uploaded to.

Cheers, FuZion.

EDIT: My bad Haste, I missed that part. Cheers.

[haste]

That sounds great...any clips you can send will be greatly appreciated!

All the info you need for uploading is in the first post

If you have any problems with this then let me know

 Phokus, on Feb 8 2009, 09:44 PM, said:

Step 4

You can upload directly to our web server via FTP

capone.dreamhosters.com
user: rdbuploads
pw: rolldabeats

make sure you email us and let us know that you've uploaded clips to this space after you've done it - haste at rolldabeats dot com

[haste]

A little bump for this one - new clip info in the first post

[H-man111]

Hi There i was just reading your post's about adding clips of audio for rdb. i might be able to help you over last 2 or 3 years i have been collecting mp3's of old skool tunes dating from 1991 up until 94 i have put alot of them into labels then release's im not sure if i have the time to upload them all myself but if you want i could send them to you on a memory stick or something? let me know you can e-mail me at

paulhodder72@hotmail.co.uk

[IBGriffith]

Can we sacrifice some "boring" intro to permit to include the reversal when its more interesting than introcuction ?

[haste]

Yeah, of course. If the intro is long then feel free to cut it out. With 3 minute clips you should be able to get a fair bit of the tune in place even if there's a lengthy intro

[Lixx]

So is it just me or are all the audio clips for the tracks not working in the label discographies?

[eXtreme]

Yeah Lixx, seems to be a problem .. cant get any working here.

[bungle]

me either