FAQ – Frequently Asked Questions

FAQ #1 Do I need to tag the music files I receive from TTT?

No, all TTT music files are fully tagged with the ID3v2.3.0 or with other corresponding metadata systems depending on the file format (i.e. VORBIS tags, etc), verified several times, with the highest player compatibility in mind and ready to go!

We tried to be as conventional as possible in the way we added the tags. We don’t use any non-standard fields for the singer info. Everything is in the “Artist” field. First the orchestra then the singer or if the track is instrumental, the marking “Instr.”. As the ID3 standard suggests, the separation between the orchestra and the singer is done with ” / “, SPACESLASHSPACE. If needed you can easily pattern match this symbol and further separate the singer info into a different field. It is important though to recognise that the “Albumartist” field is normally foreseen for the main artist, in our case, the orchestra or the special string “Various artists” because it is used for further dividing music collections into “Various Artist” folders when there are albums with more than one performing artist or orchestra, i.e. samplers or soundtracks. We also have agreed on using the most natural form of writing the orchestra name, i.e. Juan D’Arienzo (and not D’Arienzo, Juan).

We use the ID3 “Catalog number” field to indicate the shellac record number, the shellac matrix number and the take number. It’s presented as a comma separated list. Some of this info can also be found on the photo of the shellac label which is also tagged into every file.

The composers and authors are put into the ID3 “Composer” field. It’s presented as a comma separated lists.

The ID3 “Media” field contains the type of initial media from which the transfer is done: TT/78 means turntable 78-rpm, or shellac record played back at around 78-rpm. TT/33 would be a standard LP record.

TT Turntable records
/33 33.33 rpm
/45 45 rpm
/71 71.29 rpm
/76 76.59 rpm
/78 78.26 rpm
/80 80 rpm

Note: In this table /78 stands for 78.26-rpm which is based on a 60Hz power grid, like in the USA or Japan, on 50Hz power grids this is 77.92-rpm. The difference between both isn’t significant, around 0.45% deviation, hence the expression 78-rpm which is in between these two values.

FAQ #2 Which file format should I choose?

The proposed AIFF or ALAC formats are oriented towards MacOS users, whereas the FLAC is oriented towards users of all other platforms like Windows or Linux. Best choice concerning the sampling rate is “44.1kHz 16-bit”, the equivalent of CD-quality. If needed you can later transcode from “44.1kHz 16-bit” format to MP3, OGG or other lossy formats yourself, i.e. to have another set of files for your mobile devices.

Hi-Res 96kHz-24bit is special expert use and requires a lot of bandwidth to transfer and a lot of CPU power to process. It’s an interesting option when you have a HiFi system at home and use a high-end DAC for playback. This format is also intended for people who want to EQ the files to their liking, i.e. more or less bass or treble. We have though tried to best balance every track individually. FLAC doesn’t work out of the box on MacOS and you would need to add some extensions, in this case AIFF or ALAC is the better choice.

MP3 320kbit CBR is offered in order to have a low weight download if your internet connection isn’t very fast. Some people use MP3 as their playback format of choice. We have put special attention to make our MP3 format very well done with the same mastering options and quality checks as the other formats. We even added ID3v1.1 for old MP3 players alongside the ID3v2.3.0 tags for maximum compatibility. CBR means Constant Bit Rate. From MP3 you cannot go back to lossless, therefore transcoding to formats presenting higher sample rates makes no sense. You can though further compress if needed but will start to hear degradation of the signal and more and more artefacts.

Whether you chose AIFF, ALAC, FLAC or MP3, any different sampling rate or bit depth, all our download files went through the same mastering process and should therefore sound identically. Some experts say that they can hear differences on high-end equipment, especially via the high-res formats. Others prefer pragmatically the lowest possible file size because they believe that it’s impossible to hear anything more on higher encoding levels. In the end the choice depends on you, your personal preferences and playback setup.

When downloading individual ALAC files after your purchase, there are some browsers which rename the .m4a files to .mp3. Please read the FAQ#7 with our recommendations to solve this problem. Best is to use another browser or rename the files back to .m4a

FAQ #3 What payment methods are available?

The checkout is done via the payment provider Stripe with full SSL security on both sides. We don’t store any credit card infos locally. It’s all done on the payment provider’s side. Currently there are all major credit cards, regular and prepaid, which are accepted. We also added a SOFORT bank transfer option, Giropay, Bancontact and some other local payment methods. We do not accept Paypal. We had too much trouble with this method therefore it’s suspended until further notice.

When paying via SOFORT bank transfer, there is no immediate payment confirmation, please allow for around 3 days for the transfer to be validated. Once the validation received, the system will send you the download links. Payment by credit card is instantly.

FAQ #4 Why does the end price change when checking out?

Prices are shown as net prices. If you are living in the EU VAT area, during checkout the VAT is calculated and applied depending on your country of residence (MOSS system). For all other countries, the shown prices are to be understood as end prices.

FAQ #5 Can I get an invoice for my purchases?

Yes, there will be an invoice send by e-mail after each purchase. Don’t forget to put the right billing address when checking out.

FAQ #6 Why do I get an error message when uncompressing large downloaded zip archives?

Some zip programs cannot process large zip archives and seem to mistake them for zip bombs. In this case please try to use the open source utility 7zip which you can freely download here: https://www.7-zip.org/ 7zip contains a graphical user interface on Windows. Or, use something comparable.

If needed, on Macos or Linux you could also use the following utility command to overcome any zip limits (jar is part of the Java package):

jar xf name_of_archive.zip

On Ubuntu you could install 7zip and uncompress like this:

sudo apt-get install p7zip-full
7z x huge.zip

On Linux and MacOS you can also try to use the tar command, it’s present by default:

tar xzvf name_of_archive.zip

If you run into this issue, don’t hesitate to contact our support via the contact form

FAQ #7 Why do my Apple Lossless download files get renamed from .m4a to .mp3?

Some browsers have difficulties to deal with .m4a files and change the file extension to .mp3 or add .mp3, like name_of_file.m4a.mp3. A simple workaround would be to just rename the files back to the correct extension which is .m4a and delete the .mp3 part.

On MacOS, both Chrome and Firefox are reported to work fine. Safari seems to have problems with .m4a files and renames them to name_of_file.m4a.mp3.

On Windows Chrome works well. Some versions of Firefox reportedly rewrite the .m4a extension to .mp3.

On Linux the issue doesn’t seem to be present. Successful downloads with the correct extension were reported with Chrome and Firefox browsers on this platform.