source file: m1364.txt
Date: Wed, 25 Mar 1998 03:54:48 -0600 (CST)

Subject: 88CET Ear-Training CDs, Part 4

From: mr88cet@texas.net (Gary Morrison)

Yes, CDs
--------

   You might be asking, why CDs?  Why not just use plain, simple cassette
tapes?  Clearly audio-quality isn't the reason;  after all, it's mostly
just narration.  Why did I spent $50 to get each of three DAT masters
transferred to "one-off" CDs (more properly called "CDRs" - those green,
recordable jobbies)?  The answer is one very important word:

                              * CONTROL *

Just like working out in the gym, you need control over how you flex those
ear muscles!  As you know, CDs do track-seeking, and that lets you do very
important things like:

*  Jump immediately straight to, say, leap-destination  identification
   exercises, if that's what I need practice in at the moment.

*  With the press of a single button, immediately jump back to the
   beginning of a series of exercises, if after doing them all I'm
   concerned that I didn't really get them down well enough.

*  Jump past a section if it's just proving too easy (then again,
   next time it might turn out exactly the opposite!).

*  Put it on "shuffle" (random) play to cause me to switch off between
   skills less predictably.

   Let me also point out that typical cassette track-seek mechanisms won't
work for this.  They search for a few seconds of silence between a blocks
of a few minutes of mostly continuous sound.  These CDs consist almost
entirely gaps of silence.  A cassette track-search mechanism stops at every
one of those gaps of silence, rendering it useless.

   Believe me;  CDRs are almost ideal for personalized ear training practice!

   Also, CDR transfers are probably cheaper now.  Lord knows the technology
to do them certainly is!  In the three years since I did my 88CET
ear-training CDs, the cost of the equipment to do those CDR transfers
(using a PC) has dropped to about what just those three CDR transfers alone
cost me!