Ritchie Family Album Downloads

[Zef]

Hey Y'all
I know it ain't the same because you don't get the nice picture sleeves and all that, but.......
itunes has just released all the Ritchie Family LPs for download.
Thought this might be of interest to those who want CD quality versions of the LP's. I'm happy having a merry old time burning away!

Ritchie Family : African Queens

Ritchie Family : Bad Reputation

Ritchie Family : All Night All Right

[Bernie]

Just found the entire first album by The Ritchie Family: Brazil as a download:
Ritchie Family : Brazil

and also:
Ritchie Family : Life Is Music
Ritchie Family : Give Me A Break

[Bernie]

Just found more Ritchie Family albums that are available as a complete download...
Ritchie Family : I'll Do My Best

Ritchie Family : American Generation

[ol'skinflint]

It's a timely issue because I recently re-read an article in Rolling Stone about people who were sued by the RIAA for downloading. Some were forced to pay thousands of dollars, including people who had not downloaded anything PERSONALLY, but their children and other people in their households had. If you're wondering how the RIAA identifies who downloads, they subpoena your ISP. I'm not saying this to scare anyone but I just wondered if everyone was aware of this. It's never concerned me personally up until this point because I hadn't seen anything on the net I was interested in downloading (how much rap, teen pop and Metallica can one take?) But classic disco on the net would at least get my attention. I still wouldn't download it though, I'm waaaaaay too cute for jail.

[Bernie]

Originally Posted by ol'skinflint

It's a timely issue because I recently re-read an article in Rolling Stone about people who were sued by the RIAA for downloading. Some were forced to pay thousands of dollars, including people who had not downloaded anything PERSONALLY, but their children and other people in their households had. If you're wondering how the RIAA identifies who downloads, they subpoena your ISP. I'm not saying this to scare anyone but I just wondered if everyone was aware of this. It's never concerned me personally up until this point because I hadn't seen anything on the net I was interested in downloading (how much rap, teen pop and Metallica can one take?) But classic disco on the net would at least get my attention. I still wouldn't download it though, I'm waaaaaay too cute for jail.

:-? :-? :-?

Please read the above posts more carefully and click on the links... This is a legitimate music release by the record label through Apple iTunes. Tracks only cost .99¢ each. This is not illegal.

Zef, thanks for bringing these great classic reissues to our attention. I check iTunes often and even saw all the Cerrone albums available for download, but somehow must have missed this one.

[Videoskooter]

Thx guys for mentioning them. So maybe there's hope after all to get some of the music we missed BITD and purchase it, even if it's not available on CD.

Sir Alec, are U reading this, are U With us? U don't want to see me mààààààààààd, I can tell U that :evil:

[Zef]

Hey this is such a great site which I have get so much from, it's a true pleasure to be able to contribute. I will co back to itunes and check out the cerrone.

[rhessel]

Hi guys:

I was wondering what file format do they use?

Also which is the convertion rate? My experience tells me that anything below 256kbps in mp3 format is so compressed that high frequency is all lost.

Cheers,

Hessel

[Bernie]

Originally Posted by rhessel

Hi guys:

I was wondering what file format do they use?

Also which is the convertion rate? My experience tells me that anything below 256kbps in mp3 format is so compressed that high frequency is all lost.

Cheers,

Hessel

Last night I bought the entire "Brazil" and "African Queens" albums. So here's some pertinent info:

The format is AAC @128kbps.

I'm certainly no fan of compressed music file formats, but since these are not on CD I decided to take the plunge. Played them through a good system at a decent volume and while they're not up to my usual standards they actually sounded petty good. Best news is that these releases sound as though they were taken from the original master tapes and are not vinyl transfers as with many CDs.

My main gripe is that some of these tracks flow from one to the other and AAC does not play gapless. For the price, I'm not complaining and I can burn to CD and play that if I need to.

[mrbmarco]

I downloaded AFRICAN QUEENS--Since I use apple lossless, this sounded a bit saturated and distortion was present. C+
I can't take the songs cutting off with dead air due to the digital download on the medley from side one. I wish this would come out on CD.
I remember playing this at the club and watching the dance floor thin out as the medley progressed.

[Bernie]

Originally Posted by mrbmarco

I downloaded AFRICAN QUEENS--Since I use apple lossless, this sounded a bit saturated and distortion was present. C+
I can't take the songs cutting off with dead air due to the digital download on the medley from side one. I wish this would come out on CD.
I remember playing this at the club and watching the dance floor thin out as the medley progressed.

Not being able to hear the medley's played without a gap is ruining the experience as I noted earlier, but easily fixed if you burn it to CD and set a gap of 0 in the prefs. You can also print out a CD insert with the cover art and tracklisting.

[DJ Jimmy M]

128 bitrate?? Sheese! That is shitty. My suggestion, if you have the original lps, good equiptment and the records are in near mint condition, just record the entire LP in one .wav file. Do the surface noise removal and restoration in cool edit pro, cue the tracks up right and cut the wav files apropriatly, then burn the wavs direct to CDR and walla, you got something sounding 100xs better and all it costs is about 2 hours of your time

[ol'skinflint]

are you happy with the quality of the CDs? I read in the type that it only removes "some" of a record's pops and clicks.

[Graham_Start]

Originally Posted by DJ Jimmy M

128 bitrate?? Sheese! That is shitty.

It's not great, but keep in mind that this is AAC, not MP3. AAC fares much better at lower bitrates than any MP3 encoder.

I'd still like to see lossless downloads though.

[Graham_Start]

Originally Posted by ol'skinflint

are you happy with the quality of the CDs? I read in the type that it only removes "some" of a record's pops and clicks.

You can remove them all if you do them manually, which is what I do.