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do you have RMT cassettes?

Have any tapes lying around? Would you like to lend them to have them digitized to .mp3?

Now that all the shows are available in mp3 format the next job is to improve the encodes by finding new and better (or at least) sources. Here is the list of upgraded shows made possible by people like you.

why your tape is important

There are no masters of RMT available to the public. This means that every RMT .mp3 in existence is based on an amateur recording by a fan like you. Older shows like Suspense, the Shadow, etc, exist in transcription form, a kind of record that was distributed for broadcast. RMT fans are dependent on recordings made by other fans.

So even if you think your tapes are crummy (cheap media, bad recording, beat up, ugly, done when you were 10 years old, etc) understand that your tape may have content not on any existing recording. It may also contain clear passages not found elsewhere, or commercials, news or other content that may make it valuable. My job is not to evaluate the recording, only to preserve it and distribute the resulting .mp3 for the benefit of the RMT community. Your tape is important.

the deal

If you have old cassettes with RMT on them I have a proposition. If you mail me the cassette for digitization/encoding, you will receive:

the tapes back (of course). You're only lending the tapes, not donating them.
a RMT cd for each show you send. This can be a CD from my complete set or an audio CD of your show so you don't wear out your tape. Whichever you want is fine with me.
your shows in a high-quality .mp3 encode (LAME VBR, mono, 22.05kHz) on CD, about 20-30MB. The .mp3 will also be posted to News:alt.binaries.sounds.radio.cbsrmt so everyone can share in the bounty. All your encoded shows will be on one CD.
the satisfaction of knowing you are helping improve the herd.
greater life for your tapes since you can play the digital version instead.

This is a small way I can give back to the RMT community for the hours (and hours and hours) of pleasure the show has given me.

some caveats

I can only work on cassettes, although there are others who have indicated they can work with reels. email me for info on who to contact.
It may take weeks (or even months in extreme cases of large projects) to get your tapes digitized. You can check to see what I'm currently encoding. I average about one encode every two days, if that helps you plan.
Some of these tapes are in pretty brittle condition, and all are 25-30 years old at this point. There is an off chance that the tape will fall apart during playback. I've seen it happen only once so far (a C-120 from my own collection a few years ago) but it can happen. I will take extreme care with your tapes, but I can make no guarantees. This is one reason it's important to digitize the content now rather than later.
I punch out the write-protect tabs on the tapes just to be sure. This shouldn't be a problem, but I want you to know I'll do that. Your recording is important to me and I like to play safe.

Frequently asked questions

What shows do you need?
All of them.
There seems to be a great deal of confusion about this. I am not trying to complete the series (I have a complete set already), I am trying to improve the series for everyone. The best way to do this (IMO) is to encode every tape I can get my hands on, upload them all to the 'net and let people compare them to the encode they current have. The result is the continual improvement of fans' collections.

If I send you tapes can I get the whole series on CDs I can play on my stereo?
You will get back a CD for each show you submit; what is on that CD is up to you. Most people pick mp3 CDs so they can get 50 shows for every taped show they submit. But you can certainly request an audio disc instead; one show fits on one audio CD. So to get the whole series (1400 shows) in audio CD format (1400 CDs) you'd have to loan 1400 shows to the project.

Will I get my tapes back?
Yes. All your materials will be returned.

Why are you doing this?
Because I'm a geek, and because I love RMT. It's a way to give back to the RMT community that has been so good to me.

Making it happen

If interested, email me.

$Id: index.orb,v 1.1 2004/06/23 02:28:02 mouse Exp $

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