• Registered: 2007-07-19
  • Posts: 77

Topic: Reading soundfiles into RAM

When playing soundfiles from a data CD or DVD, the noise of the disc drive repeatedly spinning up and then back down again can get a little annoying.  The same can happen with my Firewire external hard drive, which is a little more troubling.  Sometimes this will happen about once per minute, which seems likely to put excess wear and tear on my drives.

Is there any chance of an option to tell Cog to read each soundfile into RAM in its entirety, all at once, so that the disc is only spun up once per track?  Or, at least, to take in larger chunks per disc access?

Not a high priority item, mind you, but...

Last edited by goldenband (2007-09-02 19:08:16)

  • Registered: 2007-07-23
  • Posts: 86

Re: Reading soundfiles into RAM

Your disc spins down in the time between two songs?? that's strange, it should spin down only after 10 minutes or so. Are your tracks so long or not?
Anyway, check the energy saving settings, it makes no sense to spin down hard disks before 10 minutes.

  • Fuga
  • Member
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  • Registered: 2007-07-08
  • Posts: 97

Re: Reading soundfiles into RAM

Much classical has well over over 10 minute selections.

  • From: new york
  • Registered: 2007-07-08
  • Posts: 95

Re: Reading soundfiles into RAM

yes, in the energy saver preferences pane, just uncheck "put the hard disk(s) to sleep when possible" and the disk spin downs will be much less frequent and bothersome, with that unchecked your disk will only spin down after 3 hours of inactivity. also, increase the amount of time under "put the computer to sleep when it is inactive for", with these two changes, your problem should be solved.

  • Registered: 2007-07-13
  • Posts: 94

Re: Reading soundfiles into RAM

i don't know if there's such a thing for the mac, but for the pc the solution for this kind of situation was to use a program (such as nero drivespeed) to limit the maximum read speed of the cd/dvd drive. you could set it plenty fast enough to play music or video off the disc, but it wouldn't reach a noisy spin speed, and would spin at a more consistent speed rather than constantly speeding up & slowing down.

anyone know one for the mac? smile

  • Registered: 2007-07-23
  • Posts: 86

Re: Reading soundfiles into RAM

No, there is none.
As there are no softwares do do some quality/low level scans of burned optical media.
Mac OS X software is lacking for these things.

  • Registered: 2007-07-19
  • Posts: 77

Re: Reading soundfiles into RAM

Last edited by goldenband (2007-10-04 21:10:18)

  • Registered: 2007-07-19
  • Posts: 77

Re: Reading soundfiles into RAM

Last edited by goldenband (2008-06-04 12:48:28)

  • sam
  • Moderator
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  • From: Vancouver
  • Registered: 2007-07-08
  • Posts: 90

Re: Reading soundfiles into RAM

might be easier just to soak the labels off then label the discs with a sharpie...

  • Registered: 2007-07-19
  • Posts: 77

Re: Reading soundfiles into RAM

Yikes, I don't think so -- these are commercially sold discs by indie bands, and I'd rather not ruin them, visually speaking.

  • Zitz
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  • Registered: 2007-07-31
  • Posts: 218

Re: Reading soundfiles into RAM

External harddrive should fix the problem. They are pretty cheap and you can fit a gazillion records on one. And then there will be no more risk of scratches

  • Registered: 2007-07-19
  • Posts: 77

Re: Reading soundfiles into RAM

  • Registered: 2007-07-13
  • Posts: 94

Re: Reading soundfiles into RAM

the code on the svn linked from that thread makes it look pretty simple, tho i haven't looked to see what setting up needs to be done before that command can be used. it's the kind of thing tho that should really be quite straightforward, and i think there's enough info there to make it happen. i might take a look at it myself at some point, tho i'm not a good programmer in the slightest these days and if somebody more competent felt like taking a look i'm sure they could work it out a lot quicker big_smile

  • Registered: 2007-07-19
  • Posts: 77

Re: Reading soundfiles into RAM

Anything you can do would certainly be appreciated!

  • Registered: 2007-10-22
  • Posts: 11

Re: Reading soundfiles into RAM

There is the program DiscRotate 0.3.

I haven

  • Registered: 2007-07-13
  • Posts: 94

Re: Reading soundfiles into RAM

Last edited by hippy dave (2008-06-13 08:57:16)

  • Registered: 2007-07-19
  • Posts: 77

Re: Reading soundfiles into RAM

  • Registered: 2007-07-13
  • Posts: 94

Re: Reading soundfiles into RAM

yeah i tested it (v0.4beta on tiger), and it does the job big_smile
(when i was fiddling with it, the daemon crashed a few times, but that's no big issue as it restarts automatically)
i'm chuffed such a thing finally exists! cool

  • Registered: 2007-07-13
  • Posts: 94

Re: Reading soundfiles into RAM

discrotate doesn't work on snow leopard sad the daemon just crashes. any ninja hackers feel like seeing if they can fix it? smile