How These .ra Files Were Made

These files began as transfers from records I have acquired. There are no restrictions printed on these recordings. For convenience, they were recorded on tape. They were sampled at 11 KHz to .wav format. Then they were condensed to .ra format with version 1 of the RealAudio Encoder. They have not been filtered except for any filters that may be present in the conversion processes. So don't be alarmed if you hear scratches.

The recordings were sampled using the Windows Sound System version 1 (which cost me and presently sells for $46 shipped). The designers of the RealAudio software say that you need at least a 486 machine to play them and at least a 486DX to encode them (must have a coprocessor). These files were encoded and succssfully played with a 386DX-33 with a 387 coprocessor and 8 Meg of RAM and 128 K of cache. The 387 was recently added for $10. On this machine, the encoding took 30 times the actual playing duration of the songs (a Pentium can do it in 0.8 times).

I was able to force the playback to the 11 KHz mode for better sound quality. However, I had to minimize the RealAudio Player to prevent falling behind and skipping. Minimizing the player eliminates the task of moving the sliding indicator bar display. I cannot use 11 KHz mode for live Internet RealAudio because when the server makes brief pauses, this processor falls behind and sound is lost.

I pride my site on being one of the most frugal RealAudio sites. I hope to live up to our signature song "The Best Things In Life Are Free". This should encourage anyone to get the RealAudio Player and Encoder from the Official RealAudio Home Page and use it to receive and send (unrestricted) audio over the Internet. You can e-mail the .ra files by UUENCODING them. Don't bother zipping them as they can't be compressed any more (unless you want to collect several together).

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