If you have to ask, the answer is probably “no”. Some people can, but not you.
cheese_greater@lemmy.world
on 14 Jun 19:29
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I appreciate taking the time to answer but this is also unhelpful unless it was calculated to stir an orherwise passive knowledgable bystander into action
It’s a simple answer to a simple question, with a touch of snark that may move someone into directly helping you with your audio collection.
Essentially, you’re asking the wrong questions.
Is your real question “where can I download lossless audio files of all the music I like to listen to on Spotify?” Because that’s a different question from what you asked.
I have music I’ve produced that’s never been encoded in FLAC and isn’t available for you to download anywhere, so your question as stated is “no” on two counts. There’s also plenty of musical performances that were never digitally recorded. And “FLAC” just means the audio as stored is the same quality as the audio source that was converted to FLAC — quality could easily be worse than a 128kbps MP3.
cheese_greater@lemmy.world
on 14 Jun 20:01
nextcollapse
Actually appreciate the hell out of this writeup.
But why or under what circulstances would a FLAC download be randomly consistent with that example you gave? Unless its a mass purveyor of counterfeit files what would be the economic angle enabling that?
You kinda have to look a little harder for all things FLAC/“lossless”, seems implausible to randomly stumble upon some serialization of that already unlikely case example
Edit: I guess if I’m being honest I would reformulate to
If there is a large combined/multi release album or work that I want and know to exist in lossless format (FLAC) how can I aquire it other than a torrent if not so already and findably available?
cheese_greater@lemmy.world
on 14 Jun 20:04
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How can I audit an audio file or a combined audio file to get the stats necessary to make an adequate evaluation consistent with what you’ve said?
It’s tricky; you really need to do spectral analysis to see if there are any obvious bands of audio missing or patterns in the output that suggest it’s been previously compressed, or was originally sampled at a suboptimal rate.
That reads the file metadata and audio stream headers to identify the digital encoding of the source files.
But the only way to be certain is to have the original audio that’s been ffmpeg compressed, because someone could easily have live recorded in mono to audiocassette, then recorded that to PCM 8 bit audio, then burned that to a red book audio track on a CD, then ripped that to FLAC. At which point the headers will indicate it’s 44.1kHz 16-bit 2 channel PCM uncompressed audio.
If you don’t mind using the analog hole and compressing the resulting audio yourself, sure.
EDIT: If you want a professionally-mastered FLAC, AFAICT, Bandcamp offers FLAC for bands that are listed on it along with other forms. though I haven’t done a comprehensive look to see whether some might not provide it. I’ve certainly downloaded FLACs for music that I’ve purchased there.
EDIT2: Note that IIRC Bandcamp does not enforce volume normalization or ReplayGain tagging, so if you want ReplayGain tags — I do — you probably want to run something like rsgain on the resulting files.
EDIT3: Note that FLAC alone may not solve all of your quality concerns. If you have music that was mastered in an environment where the loudness war was being fought, you may have audio with limited dynamic range.
threaded - newest
If you have to ask, the answer is probably “no”. Some people can, but not you.
I appreciate taking the time to answer but this is also unhelpful unless it was calculated to stir an orherwise passive knowledgable bystander into action
I am Zen
It’s a simple answer to a simple question, with a touch of snark that may move someone into directly helping you with your audio collection.
Essentially, you’re asking the wrong questions.
Is your real question “where can I download lossless audio files of all the music I like to listen to on Spotify?” Because that’s a different question from what you asked.
I have music I’ve produced that’s never been encoded in FLAC and isn’t available for you to download anywhere, so your question as stated is “no” on two counts. There’s also plenty of musical performances that were never digitally recorded. And “FLAC” just means the audio as stored is the same quality as the audio source that was converted to FLAC — quality could easily be worse than a 128kbps MP3.
Actually appreciate the hell out of this writeup.
But why or under what circulstances would a FLAC download be randomly consistent with that example you gave? Unless its a mass purveyor of counterfeit files what would be the economic angle enabling that?
You kinda have to look a little harder for all things FLAC/“lossless”, seems implausible to randomly stumble upon some serialization of that already unlikely case example
Edit: I guess if I’m being honest I would reformulate to
How can I audit an audio file or a combined audio file to get the stats necessary to make an adequate evaluation consistent with what you’ve said?
Is it an ffprobe thing (ffmpeg)?
It’s tricky; you really need to do spectral analysis to see if there are any obvious bands of audio missing or patterns in the output that suggest it’s been previously compressed, or was originally sampled at a suboptimal rate.
Ffprobe will get you most of the way there:
That reads the file metadata and audio stream headers to identify the digital encoding of the source files.
But the only way to be certain is to have the original audio that’s been ffmpeg compressed, because someone could easily have live recorded in mono to audiocassette, then recorded that to PCM 8 bit audio, then burned that to a red book audio track on a CD, then ripped that to FLAC. At which point the headers will indicate it’s 44.1kHz 16-bit 2 channel PCM uncompressed audio.
lucida.to
soulseek.org
check out soulseek. there’s a bunch of shared music there and a lot of it is FLAC
That’s quite an understatement.
If you don’t mind using the analog hole and compressing the resulting audio yourself, sure.
EDIT: If you want a professionally-mastered FLAC, AFAICT, Bandcamp offers FLAC for bands that are listed on it along with other forms. though I haven’t done a comprehensive look to see whether some might not provide it. I’ve certainly downloaded FLACs for music that I’ve purchased there.
EDIT2: Note that IIRC Bandcamp does not enforce volume normalization or ReplayGain tagging, so if you want ReplayGain tags — I do — you probably want to run something like
rsgainon the resulting files.EDIT3: Note that FLAC alone may not solve all of your quality concerns. If you have music that was mastered in an environment where the loudness war was being fought, you may have audio with limited dynamic range.
If you want to go the legal route, 7digital sells digital albums and separate songs. Not all are available in flac, but most I’ve seen are.
Then there’s also bandcamp of course, though you usually won’t find bigger artists’ music there.