SOS Past Issues on WebArchive.org

[Forum Admin]

Hi Bill and desmond,

Converting back issues has been a task I took on but my workload has prevented me from having time to create any new "old" issues, but it is still our intention to get back to January 1994. I ceased creating and publishing old archives on a monthly issue basis as it became easier to respond to requests for special reviews or features, eg. I did all 63 parts of Synth Secrets.

I am happy for desmond to create an Index of those 1994-2002 articles and link to their version on Wayback.

And once desmond has got mu:zines up to date for SOS November 1985 through to December 1993, as he states, we'll put that content in some form on our own site.

[muzines]

Thanks Ian.

I'll liaise with Bill (as it was his idea/suggestion) and we'll see what we can come up with.

[BillB]

Desmond has come forward with a far more technically elegant solution than I had in mind, so I'll step back
...cheer from the sidelines
...and let the man get on with what he excels at

Very much looking forward to a reasonably continuous searchable SOS archive.

[Hugh Robjohns]

Desmond has come forward with a far more technically elegant solution...

He's astonishingly good at doing that...

[muzines]

Well, I get things done, but it isn't necessarily pretty...

I've scraped the 1994-2001 articles and meta data into a DB, which I can generate indexes from. There's a little over 3600 articles.

Obviously, if this stuff is going to live as forum posts, they will be statically-generated indexes, and you'd use the web browser's search function to look for something in particular in that thread. I'd probably want to do indexes by issue, and then alphabetical indexes for reviews, interviews, and techniques, for easy browsing.

While I could put the data up on the web with proper search functionality, I think everyone would prefer those indexes to be somewhere on the SOS site at least, for Google etc to crawl, even if searching is a little clunkier.

So if anyone has ideas to preferences for how to present the indexes, and where they should go, by all means I'm open to suggestions. I'll probably put up some test data shortly to people can get a feel with what we are dealing with.

So what I'm thinking at the moment is to create a thread in the appropriate forum called something along the lines of "SOS Article Index 1994-2001 - Internet Archive links", with a first post giving a brief introductory blurb, then a second post with indexes by issue, a third with indexes by gear, a fourth post with indexes by interviews etc (assuming each fits into a single post).

That keeps everything contained in it's own thread. (Alternatively, maybe even be a thread for each index type? Not sure...)

(I already do something similar to this over on LPH, in this thread:
https://www.logicprohelp.com/forum/view ... 8&t=138224
...which is an index of individual upload contributions by plugin from a larger unmanageable thread.)

[BillB]

Ideally, information like this would be on its own SOS webpage, associated with, or linked from, the Magazine issues selection page. Appreciate that would involve SOS in additional work which may not be a priority. If it does go into a forum thread:
a) it should be made sticky
b) it should ideally be linked to whenever a magazine ‘select by date’ does not turn up a full issue (i.e. before 2002)
c) hope there is enough capacity in individual posts to hold the amount of data that may be required for some categories....

Forum posting would be fine for now, does the job, but perhaps when SOS takes the full Muzines SOS 1985-1993 data set and gives it a home, it could also think about a home for the links to this webarchive data, to provide a full archive on or from the SOS site. Perhaps another tab under https://www.soundonsound.com/magazine ?

Thanks for taking it forward (so very quickly!) Desmond.

[muzines]

Ok - so here's an example of a typical "By Issue" index (just one issue for now as an example), exported from my db.

Please note that formatting options are *very* limited on the forum, I can't do bigger issue or section headings, or generally make things hugely readable over the basic formatting options, which is annoying, but it is what it is.

This is from the issue contents here:
https://web.archive.org/web/20150404205035/http://www.soundonsound.com/Contents.php?Month=1&Year=1994

I do have the description text as well which is useful but I expect will push the forum posts into being so large they become unmanageable and would have to be split too much, unless we do one post per issue.

Obviously, if this ends up going somewhere outside the forum, the formatting options would let this be presented much better.

Thoughts and suggestions welcome. I don't know what the max length of forum posts is, but there might end up needing to be one post in the thread per issue - I'm just feeling my way in this, so we'll work out together what formats best make sense for this. I can obviously change sort order, display things differently and so on, and like I say, I think it would also be useful to do indexes alphabetically for all reviews, interviews and so on.

--

SOS Index - By Issue | 1994 - 2001

SOS 1994 - January

REVIEWS

AKG C3000
Large-diaphragm Capacitor Microphone
AKG H30; Aiwa XD-S1100; P&G; 8000 Series
Widgets
Alesis Monitor One
Studio Monitors
Allen & Heath GS3V
Automated Mixer
ART FXR & FXR Elite
Digital Effects
Big Noise MaxPak V2
PC Software
Dance Industrial 2: David Frangioni & Rich Mendelson
Sample Library
Digital Audio Labs cardD
PC Hard Disk Recorder
EMS VCS3
Analogue Synthesizer (Retro)
Ian Boddy: Ambient Vol. 2
Sample Library
MOTU Digital Performer
Mac Sequencing & Digital Recording Environment
Studio Electronics SE1
Analogue MIDI Monosynth
Tascam PE40
Parametric EQ

PEOPLE + OPINION

Jonathan More (Coldcut): Philosophy
Interview | Band
Necroscope: Surviving Live
Interview | Band
Stephen Morris & Gillian Gilbert: The Other Two and You
Interview | Band
Tony Platt: Production Lines
Opinion | Music Production
Toyah Wilcox: Leap
Interview | Artist
Will Mowat: Soul Music
Interview | Artist

TECHNIQUE

Atari & CD-ROM
Atari Notes
Aural Hygiene: How To Keep Noise At Bay, Part 2
Tips & Techniques
Buying Used Gear
Tips & Techniques
Creating Analogue Sounds On Digital Synths, Part 1
Tips & Techniques
Kawai K1
Sequencing Clinic
Macro Systems Toccata 16-bit Sampling System
Amiga Notes
PC Retrospective 1993
PC Notes
Power Vocoding
Boss SE50 & SE70
Shift and Conquer; Compress and Sustain; Simple Midi Switch
Sound Bites
What's In Store For 1994?
Apple Notes
Yamaha QY10
Sequencing Clinic

[muzines]

Or maybe a little more compact, eg:-

SOS Index - By Issue | 1994 - 2001

SOS 1994 - January

REVIEWS

- AKG C3000 | Large-diaphragm Capacitor Microphone
- AKG H30; Aiwa XD-S1100; P&G; 8000 Series | Widgets
- Alesis Monitor One | Studio Monitors
- Allen & Heath GS3V | Automated Mixer
- ART FXR & FXR Elite | Digital Effects
- Big Noise MaxPak V2 | PC Software
- Dance Industrial 2: David Frangioni & Rich Mendelson | Sample Library
- Digital Audio Labs cardD | PC Hard Disk Recorder
- EMS VCS3 | Analogue Synthesizer (Retro)
- Ian Boddy: Ambient Vol. 2 | Sample Library
- MOTU Digital Performer | Mac Sequencing & Digital Recording Environment
- Studio Electronics SE1 | Analogue MIDI Monosynth
- Tascam PE40 | Parametric EQ

PEOPLE + OPINION

- Jonathan More (Coldcut): Philosophy | Interview | Band
- Necroscope: Surviving Live | Interview | Band
- Stephen Morris & Gillian Gilbert: The Other Two and You | Interview | Band
- Tony Platt: Production Lines | Opinion | Music Production
- Toyah Wilcox: Leap | Interview | Artist
- Will Mowat: Soul Music | Interview | Artist

TECHNIQUE

- Atari & CD-ROM | Atari Notes
- Aural Hygiene: How To Keep Noise At Bay, Part 2 | Tips & Techniques
- Buying Used Gear | Tips & Techniques
- Creating Analogue Sounds On Digital Synths, Part 1 | Tips & Techniques
- Kawai K1 | Sequencing Clinic
- Macro Systems Toccata 16-bit Sampling System | Amiga Notes
- PC Retrospective 1993 | PC Notes
- Power Vocoding | Boss SE50 & SE70
- Shift and Conquer; Compress and Sustain; Simple Midi Switch | Sound Bites
- What's In Store For 1994? | Apple Notes
- Yamaha QY10 | Sequencing Clinic

--

Anyway, once we decide on the preferred formats and posting details, I can have the whole lot done and up today...

[muzines]

I don't know what the max length of forum posts is

"Your message contains 695168 characters. The maximum number of allowed characters is 90000."



That means I could get a year's worth of issues into a single forum post, with ten posts for the full index by issue.

Or, if we kept each issue to a single forum post in an overall index thread, that would let those posts/issues be directly linked to from other site pages, if that is something that the PTB might find useful.

If we're going to keep this to a single thread, then I'd propose the first post be some blurb, and a direct link to the posts in the thread by issue, and then the same for the others - although we're not going to be able to pull indexes by reviews etc all in one post due to size.

[BillB]

Desmond

With databases or data lists the important thing is how it is used. How does somebody approaching this information request a result and how is it presented. In my case it might be that I would like all articles on Roland JV or Korg Trinity (to name two obvious examples from the period).

If all the possible links are visible on one page, I would be happy with the browser search - it would tell me how many instances, it would highlight them, and it would allow me to step through them.

If the data is across two or more pages, I suppose we would be reliant on the Forum search, which would bring them up, but also mix them with any other references to those bits of gear in the Fora - which means a less focussed search than just results from the SOS web archive.

If, as seems likely, it will not be possible to fit all of the links on one page of the Forum, might it be an idea to split them by Reviews, People and Opinion and Techniques? Would that make (say) all the Reviews searchable in one page?

Or is there a more focussed way of searching within the a Forum thread that I haven't understood?

p.s. the more compact look is fine. Well done - again!

[muzines]

With databases or data lists the important thing is how it is used.

Indeed. How we are doing this here is a compromise for sure, but it's better than the current situation of having to go use the Wayback Machine to find your way around.

How does somebody approaching this information request a result and how is it presented. In my case it might be that I would like all articles on Roland JV or Korg Trinity (to name two obvious examples from the period).

If all the possible links are visible on one page, I would be happy with the browser search - it would tell me how many instances, it would highlight them, and it would allow me to step through them.

That would be the ideal and what I'm trying to go for, but again, I'm a bit limited in options with the forum - it depends on how many posts get paginated and so on. (Looks like 15 posts per page, non-user-configurable).

If, as seems likely, it will not be possible to fit all of the links on one page of the Forum, might it be an idea to split them by Reviews, People and Opinion and Techniques? Would that make (say) all the Reviews searchable in one page?

Yes. I've done essentially indexes for:
- By Issue
- All Reviews
- All People + Opinion
- All Technique
- Other (mainly Sound Advice and Music Business)

While it's nice to keep the indexes in one thread to keep everything together and for searching, it might be not ideal to try to bung everything in one thread for usability reasons - so perhaps we should have a few threads?

p.s. the more compact look is fine. Well done - again!

Thanks - yes, I prefer that too and is more or less what I have initially gone with for now.

Presumably this should go in the Useful Information forum? With maybe the sticky/information thread (this thread) updated so the first post includes links to the eventual indexes.

Also - it seems there were issue contents on SOS for Jan 2002 so I've stopped at Dec 2001 - would that be correct?

I'm basically ready to post, so perhaps I should post them up in the way that seems most sensible, and we can discuss whether it works, what needs to be changed etc, from there? Obviously, once the post edit window expires I'll need to pester the mods to make changes...

[BillB]

Great stuff! Look forward to seeing the the result.

[muzines]

I'm building a work-in-progress thread in the Feedback forum so we can see how it's shaping up:
https://www.soundonsound.com/forum/view ... 29&t=72711

I'm hitting the post size limit limit on these - just a smidge over 90000... I've deleted the last few articles to make the last few years fit, but if we could up the max post limit from 90000 to 100000 that wouldn't affect most people, but would mean we can fit everything in this format without splitting up years etc.

Edit: There have been some posts in that thread, so I've stopped while I wait for a mod to move Drew's feedback post to this thread so I can continue... Sorry about the delay.

[Hugh Robjohns]

Let me know when you're done and I'll lock and pin it so that it remains a tidy index, rather than a thread full of feedback comments.

[muzines]

It's a work in progress Hugh, I'm just pulling it together so we can see and discuss it - it doesn't mean that particular thread should stay there or that it's it's final form just yet. I'm just building it out, but I'm trying to hit page boundaries to see how the data falls which I can't do when there's other posts popping up.

I've edited the first post to ask people to not post there for now.

Edit: Thanks! Carrying on...

[muzines]

Ok, everything is up now.

Page 1 of the thread is the first post, and the By Issue indexes, one post per year (12 issues). Keeps everything on one page.
(As I say, I've had to snip a few articles from the last two years for length).

Page 2 is the "All" indexes - Reviews, People + Opinion, Technique, & Sound Advice + Music Business, which all fits neatly on one page.

So how's it looking?

[BillB]

So how's it looking?

Utterly stunning

Just browsing and discovering stuff that I didn't know was there or had ever been covered by SOS.

Is it really only 24 hours since I said "it would be a good idea if" and "I could do it this really clunky way...."

This is an amazing addition to the SOS heritage, and adds greatly to the fabulous resource that is Muzines.

I hope SOS can link to it (or its final location) from the places where people look for back issues, reviews etc. Perhaps a link from Muzines too?

Running out of praise terminology.... Very well done, Desmond

[muzines]

Thanks - Well, it's a proof of concept, anyway, to see what we are dealing with.

We really need to see what the PTB would like done with it, but at least we've started the ball rolling...

[Hugh Robjohns]

I don't think the forum is the ideal location, and not least because the forum software is apparently on its knees with the amount of content it already has (hence the planned post culls).

I think the best place for this would be a dedicated page within the main SOS website, so it can be integrated with the site search engine more efficiently, and where casual site surfers would expect to find it.

I gather Ian will be in contact to discuss options with you.

Amazing work though, fantastic effort!

[BillB]

Just spotted something where a bit of editing would help. On the Reviews / People / Techniques listings, particularly with the Techniques where there are multiple parts (e.g. Synth Secrets)
a) the reference titles were not always written the same way, so appear out of sequence e.g.: some in CAPS, some not; some use 'and', some use '&'; where they are numbered parts they should ideally be 01~09, 10, 11 etc, rather than 1~9, 10, 11 etc.

All of these force the lists out of sequence and, I am sure, will offend your order-seeking brain as much as mine

Still fab, though

Glad to hear Hugh's suggestion that this may have a more permanent home than the Forum. It adds greatly to SOS's heritage and usefulness, so deserves it.