Can anybody explain this?

Minn | 2/17/2006 | Minn

[Minn]

This is a mystery that has me dumbfounded. I sometimes record old vinyl records one song at a time onto individual wave files. I then create a homemade CD. Several years a go I did this for an album that was never produced on CD. The album is Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes “In The Heat”. I have a new Ipod and took this homemade CD off the shelf and inserted into the computer. Much to my astonishment Itunes immediately displayed all album information including album name, all tracks, and the times of each track. Not believing what I was seeing I fired up Window’s media player and it did the same thing. It even knew the composer of each song.

I played an old vinyl record on an old turntable. I fed the tape monitor out signal to my soundcard and recorded wave files named something like “Track1.wav”. I used CD burning software to create a homemade CD. This particular album has never been released on CD. How the could Itunes or Media Player have any idea what album was on a homemade CD?

[Proud2BeRight]

It was a long time ago that you made the CD? Did you simply enter the information in when you made the CD and forgot that you did it?

[scott says]

I have many many bootleg recordings and quite a few have the information you described on them. At some point somebody encoded the info onto the cd , thats why it is there.
I have been collecting boots for over 25 years, some are very poor quality as you say, but many are excellent.
It all depends on the equipment used....if a tape was made with a little recorder using the built in mic than it will suck.
Your comment about Dead tapes is wrong- (as a former Dead Head)- I have many live tapes recorded on high end equipment that is simply amazing- better than commercially released albums.
I use to record bands live and you would be surprised at the sound quality, especially today. Digital recorders plugged into $ 5,000 studio microphones- I have many Dylan, Van Morrison, ect....live cds that are simply spectacular and encoded with track listings .

[Minn]

That's probably correct. I wonder what it takes to examine that information from Windows. Windows explorer seems to recognize an audio CD and obscure any detail or tags.

Your comment about Dead tapes is wrong

I just remember college days hearing Dead Heads listening to the most God awful bootlegs. Probably had something to do with chemicals in the bloodstream, but it sounded unlistenable to me under the same toxicological conditions.

[scott says]

It all comes down to the equipment used....a little hand held cassette recorder with the built in mic will give you a terrible recording.When I was really into the Dead and live tapes (81-84) you had people with sony D5 cassette decks plugged into really good sennheiser or nakamichi microphones on a 10 foot stand- the results were quite good. Especially outdoor shows- you would be amazed if you heard these recordings-- Here is one you can sample---( click on stream show -Hi Fi) just to check the quality-
Ventura, Ca 7-18-82
I am just learning how to record cds on my computer and was transfering stuff yesterday and saw all the track listings on the boot cds...I saw your thread and couldn't believe it was there--strange coincidence!

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

Every song listing is correct. Theories?

Truly fascinating.

But, I have found the answer.

The answer can be found Here.

[HAL9000]

Audio recognition technology is used in all sorts of ways. Telemarketers can tell which television channel you are watching by using technology that listens to background audio during your telephone conversation.

[SamAdams76]

You have officially been assimilated into the iTunes/iPod cult. Not a bad place to be.

[endthematrix]

"Every song listing is correct. Theories?"

Because somebody with the same bootleg added the track info into the music database, making your life easier.