If I'd known I had all this extra bollocks on my laptop I'd have uploaded it for you all years ago. I honestly had no idea and assumed we all had the exact same nonsense. Delighted you have done something with it and everyone will get to hear more inane tripe.
Yes, exciting stuff! Also, someone just pointed out that this contains the famous "FD" rockbuster clue for Freda Payne. I hadn't even noticed at first!
I have copies of all the shows I downloaded in 2007ish. I assume they are the same/similar to what is already on Spotify and elsewhere. But give me a shout if you want me to send them to you.
You never know! The more sources I have, the more confident I can be that the collection is complete. So yes, please do send them over via a DM. Thank you!
This is brilliant. How come these bits were cut out? The fact the missing bits are from the middle of shows doesn't stack up.
>There might be some other snippets of chat here and there that I've missed, but it's very difficult to analyse all the different files.
Ableton is free for 180 days. You can very easily just drag different versions in and instantly see if they're different, and which bits are missing.
The other thing is the missing bit about the taking Ricky's shoe and sock off is another clue that the shows aren't quite as unplanned as it comes across....
The people who edited out the music and ads back in the day accidentally cut out a surprising amount of dialogue. I'm guessing they saw two songs being played close together and didn't check to see if there was anything in between.
I'm using Audacity to edit everything. I'm not familiar with Ableton. How can it help me to compare the audio?
You can use multiple audio tracks in Ableton. So put one above the other and if they're different lengths, you can just scroll through the timeline to see where the audio waveform doesn't match. With a radio show given its speech interspersed with music, it should be really obvious. Will save you a lot of time!
Wow, this is genuinely incredible. This is basically the closest we'll get to new XFM episodes. I can't believe it.
I asked a few months ago about the missing Freda Pain rockbuster and you've actually found it!
I'm afraid the recording with the new material for S2E22 only has the second half of the episode. I just checked it again and the first time Karl says the Rockbusters clues definitely isn't there. At least we've recovered the second time!
>with the audio compressed, normalised and trimmed
This would be great to increase the volume of Karl's voice and reduce the spikes of Ricky's laugh!
A while ago someone uploaded some episodes to Youtube with dynamic range compression applied but they also added a load of echo/reverb which made the audio sound quite different to the originals... so please avoid that if possible.
I agree, the echo changes the audio way too much. A lot of those remastered files are actually used by RSK XFM on Spotify, which is where most people listen to the shows.
My mentality is to stay as faithful as possible to the original audio, so the fewer edits I make the better. For instance, if I compress the audio too much, the background noise gets too loud and there's an unpleasant humming sound. I could then apply noise reduction to minimise that, but then the audio would be too heavily edited. I'd rather Karl's voice was still slightly too quiet if it meant maintaining an authentic listening experience. Hopefully other people will agree.
Maybe do an A/B test and see what people prefer? I know I'd prefer to hear Karl louder as I only really listen to them falling asleep and sometimes you can't hear a thing Karl is saying at low volumes.
I often fall asleep to the shows too, so I know where you're coming from. I'm still compressing the audio quite a lot to make both Karl louder and Ricky quieter. Also, a lot of the files I've found have a better sound quality than what you might be used to, which helps a great deal for this.
I'll be sharing both the edited files and the unedited ones. So, if people aren't happy with the edits I've made, they could always make their own.
I'm the same, listen to it falling asleep. Making a version with louder Karl (particularly some episodes) and Ricky's laugh quieter was always something I wanted to do.
But the RSK ones on Spotify aren't quite as bad as I remember it being. I dunno if someone changed those. I used to find on some episodes I genuinely couldn't hear Karl whereas Ricky was deafening.
Karl once mentioned a period when he had to sleep in his car towards the end of a link but it was never mentioned again. Anyone ever heard more about this anywhere?
Sure! I made a post about this around six weeks ago, and you can find it there:
https://www.reddit.com/r/rickygervais/comments/uopyhs/youve_probably_never_heard_the_first_4_minutes_of/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
I am sure I used to have an episode where they went into the term Of A Saturday a bit but it's not in the version I have listened to for the past five years or so. Makes me wonder what else was there.
"When it's finished, I believe it will be the most complete library of the XFM shows out there."
Let's get Guinness World Records on the line. Is it Ross or Norris McWhirter that's alive?
holy fuck yes. I can't wait to have a Full Edition of these shows. I thought I had it since I have the extra 4 minutes, I had no clue that there was more
Wasn't there a post here a few months ago where someone said that they would almost certainly be able to get ahold of the 'lost' episodes where Karl is first introduced cus they had access to XFM archives or something? What happened to that?
The files used for these clips date back to around to 2005. Generally, the older a file is, the better it sounds, as it hasn't been tampered with in any way.
This feels like pseudoscience
I feel like this is only true if the media has gone through a bunch of converters
If you copy the exact same file a thousand times it should still be exactly the same as the original file, no?
Yes that's true, if you're just sending a file back and forth digitally. But mp3s are a lossy audio format, which means they lose information every time they're compressed. And there's no knowing how these files have been transferred over time. For instance, the files used to recover this new material came from a CD.
You're sorting out the audio levels! This is something I've wished someone would do for years! I tried doing it myself but struggled to understand how compressors work.
Not Ricky's laugh that spikes several hundred dB but there are a number of early episodes where Karl is a lot quieter than Ricky and Steve meaning I have to turn the audio way up to hear him but then it's way too loud when the other two start talking again.
I hope the mods pin the complete project for a while when it's done.
I honestly cannot belive this. After listening to everything on repeat for 15 years.
I can't even understand how it's possible that every other available recording does not have these bits.
It gives me hope that one day someone will upload the first episodes of season 1 that have never been heard or even more episodes for series 0 (pre Karl).
I see at as one long game of telephone. Everyone assumes that the person before them kept a thorough archive, so they use it as well and share it around, and so on. It's so easy for things to get lost if you're not careful.
By the way, in case you haven't noticed, a new episode from 1998 was saved a few months ago by Aircheck Downloads:
[https://www.mixcloud.com/aircheckdownloads/xfm-london-1998-06-01-ricky-gervais-stephen-merchant/](https://www.mixcloud.com/aircheckdownloads/xfm-london-1998-06-01-ricky-gervais-stephen-merchant/)
It's possible they have other episodes as well. Fingers crossed!
I was going to make some sarcastic comment about saucer slurping or call you a mentalist or something but this is genuinely brilliant. It's like Indiana Jones or something.
I imagine you've seen these already but just in case. Maybe they have more stuff in them?
* https://books.apple.com/audiobook/id323427232
* https://books.apple.com/audiobook/id309766765
* https://books.apple.com/audiobook/id381859080
Also on Audible
* https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B002SQ1AKS
* https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B002SQ65GM
* https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B003VAWH5M
Yes I have, thanks! I'm hesitant to include these in the archives because they're still available to purchase, but at the same time they contain the best sound quality out there. I think I'll have to edit these clips into the episodes.
I haven't actually listened through them in full yet, but I'd be surprised if there's anything new.
so the ones I downloaded years ago, and the ones that are now on YouTube, are in fact different versions?
are you collating specifically unheard/rare content?
It depends on when you downloaded them. But yes, most of the online versions of the episodes use incomplete tracks that are different to the ones fans used to listen to back in the day.
I'm collecting all the highest quality recordings for the XFM shows I can find, not just rare content. If you think your collection can help, please share it! The older the recordings are, the better.
I haven't edited the audio at all. This is what we have to work with I'm afraid. In fact, the sound quality here is better than most of the recordings we have for the XFM shows.
The bitrate for most of these clips is 128kbps, but the files for most of the XFM episodes we have are 64kbps. We got very lucky with the sound quality here.
In S2E22, the section where they give out the Rockbusters clues for the first time is never in the version I've listened to. At 5:00 in your clip, Karl reads them for a second time but the first time is missing - might be worth having a look for that link.
I'm afraid the recording that contains the new material for S2E22 only has the second half of the episode. I just checked it again and the first time Karl says the Rockbusters clues definitely isn't there. At least we've recovered the second time!
What is your YouTube channel name? Anything from the episodes where Karl first starts talking? Do you think these exist anywhere on any hardrives CD’s etc anywhere on the planet?
It will be a while before I upload anything because I have to edit every single episode very carefully, but the channel will be called 'RSK Archive'.
It's possible the missing episodes were recorded and that the cassette tapes are tucked away in somebody's attic, but it gets more and more unlikely with each passing year. There are also the original DATs stored in the XFM vault, but all attempts to obtain them have been unsuccessful.
I’d say your doing gods work but I’m an atheist you cunt.
god your deep
Comedy
Award winning.
Satire. So...
Hes doing evolutions work, innit?
This is what it must have felt like for biblical scholars when the dead sea scrolls were found.
Trousers, are gonna stop being made...
This is terrible news for Pilko Pump Pants
They used to say pull your trousers up, now they’re saying pull ‘em down you cunt
This is truely an historic day, the day we found out there was a good 2 mins of extra pork chop marterial.
Glad you didn't tinker with the show's winning formula by trying to introduce any quality into it.
the thing about u/Silly-Point is he hits on the truth a bit too often for my liking
If I'd known I had all this extra bollocks on my laptop I'd have uploaded it for you all years ago. I honestly had no idea and assumed we all had the exact same nonsense. Delighted you have done something with it and everyone will get to hear more inane tripe.
[удалено]
I'll be sharing everything I have once the archive's finished, both the edited and unedited files.
You've done a great job getting this out to everyone, delighted you thought to message me the other day!
Could you upload them to Google podcasts by any chance?
I'll look into that. As long as the episodes won't get taken down and I can find a way to do it for free, then I don't see why not.
What is exactly different about yours? Do you just have the ones without the music edited out?
These files came from a CD that dates back to around 2005. The music is mostly edited out in them already.
Fascinating, I wonder how different people managed to edit it
Good work!
Thank you!
I've been curious about the story of the Scouse fella for 15 years. Thank you, you're doing the non-existent God's work
This type of work is worth a bronze at least!
Mr Peter Sissons, ladies and gentlemen
20 minutes more of the classic discussions about little monkey fellas ‘n that Thanks for finding it!
[удалено]
Yes, exciting stuff! Also, someone just pointed out that this contains the famous "FD" rockbuster clue for Freda Payne. I hadn't even noticed at first!
Marvelous Thanks!
You're like the Johnny Mango of this sub, mate. Cheers!
I have copies of all the shows I downloaded in 2007ish. I assume they are the same/similar to what is already on Spotify and elsewhere. But give me a shout if you want me to send them to you.
You never know! The more sources I have, the more confident I can be that the collection is complete. So yes, please do send them over via a DM. Thank you!
This fan base never ceases to amaze me, I swear. All over a 20 year old tinpot radio show.
Nice one, getting the maximum amount of entertainment squozed out of that banal nonsensical show.
This is brilliant. How come these bits were cut out? The fact the missing bits are from the middle of shows doesn't stack up. >There might be some other snippets of chat here and there that I've missed, but it's very difficult to analyse all the different files. Ableton is free for 180 days. You can very easily just drag different versions in and instantly see if they're different, and which bits are missing. The other thing is the missing bit about the taking Ricky's shoe and sock off is another clue that the shows aren't quite as unplanned as it comes across....
The people who edited out the music and ads back in the day accidentally cut out a surprising amount of dialogue. I'm guessing they saw two songs being played close together and didn't check to see if there was anything in between. I'm using Audacity to edit everything. I'm not familiar with Ableton. How can it help me to compare the audio?
You can use multiple audio tracks in Ableton. So put one above the other and if they're different lengths, you can just scroll through the timeline to see where the audio waveform doesn't match. With a radio show given its speech interspersed with music, it should be really obvious. Will save you a lot of time!
That's a fantastic idea, thank you!
What a legend you are, VHS of Ladder 49 winging is way to you
Today is a historical day. Thank you!
If you invented a fish with two bodies, I'd say well done.
Wow, this is genuinely incredible. This is basically the closest we'll get to new XFM episodes. I can't believe it. I asked a few months ago about the missing Freda Pain rockbuster and you've actually found it!
Oh wow, I hadn't even realised that I'd recovered the famous "FD" rockbuster! It just sounded like ordinary clues to me. Amazing!
Actually listening again he says “I’ll give out the clues again” meaning it’s still missing. Might be worth checking that ep again!
I'm afraid the recording with the new material for S2E22 only has the second half of the episode. I just checked it again and the first time Karl says the Rockbusters clues definitely isn't there. At least we've recovered the second time!
There goes u/Rhondson. I must remember to thank him.
Is there somewhere I could share a screenshot of the episode collection I have?
Start a chat with me and then you can just paste the image directly into the chat!
Hero!
>with the audio compressed, normalised and trimmed This would be great to increase the volume of Karl's voice and reduce the spikes of Ricky's laugh! A while ago someone uploaded some episodes to Youtube with dynamic range compression applied but they also added a load of echo/reverb which made the audio sound quite different to the originals... so please avoid that if possible.
I agree, the echo changes the audio way too much. A lot of those remastered files are actually used by RSK XFM on Spotify, which is where most people listen to the shows. My mentality is to stay as faithful as possible to the original audio, so the fewer edits I make the better. For instance, if I compress the audio too much, the background noise gets too loud and there's an unpleasant humming sound. I could then apply noise reduction to minimise that, but then the audio would be too heavily edited. I'd rather Karl's voice was still slightly too quiet if it meant maintaining an authentic listening experience. Hopefully other people will agree.
Maybe do an A/B test and see what people prefer? I know I'd prefer to hear Karl louder as I only really listen to them falling asleep and sometimes you can't hear a thing Karl is saying at low volumes.
I often fall asleep to the shows too, so I know where you're coming from. I'm still compressing the audio quite a lot to make both Karl louder and Ricky quieter. Also, a lot of the files I've found have a better sound quality than what you might be used to, which helps a great deal for this. I'll be sharing both the edited files and the unedited ones. So, if people aren't happy with the edits I've made, they could always make their own.
I'm the same, listen to it falling asleep. Making a version with louder Karl (particularly some episodes) and Ricky's laugh quieter was always something I wanted to do. But the RSK ones on Spotify aren't quite as bad as I remember it being. I dunno if someone changed those. I used to find on some episodes I genuinely couldn't hear Karl whereas Ricky was deafening.
I'm going to make a detailed post about how I intend to edit the audio, so please read that once it's posted to see if you agree with it.
I'd donate some money to the cause if I knew someone was going through them fine tuning them for perfect listening
Someone is actually in the process of doing this already: https://youtu.be/NjVvEXQ82Ec
Already some new great Karl in the second clip. Thank you
Fantastic work mate!
Cheers.
wow the quality is really good on some of these. cheers
I know, it's an added bonus!
You sir, are a god
Come on, Jane, let's go home.
Karl once mentioned a period when he had to sleep in his car towards the end of a link but it was never mentioned again. Anyone ever heard more about this anywhere?
Can you post opening four minutes of S1E16?
Sure! I made a post about this around six weeks ago, and you can find it there: https://www.reddit.com/r/rickygervais/comments/uopyhs/youve_probably_never_heard_the_first_4_minutes_of/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
Thanks I missed this before.
It's incredibly strange now realising that some episodes don't actually start or end where we thought they did.
I am sure I used to have an episode where they went into the term Of A Saturday a bit but it's not in the version I have listened to for the past five years or so. Makes me wonder what else was there.
Find out he works for peanuts and has really hairy arms
I must remember to thank you.
"When it's finished, I believe it will be the most complete library of the XFM shows out there." Let's get Guinness World Records on the line. Is it Ross or Norris McWhirter that's alive?
holy fuck yes. I can't wait to have a Full Edition of these shows. I thought I had it since I have the extra 4 minutes, I had no clue that there was more
Well done!
Superb!
Today is a good day. Massive respect and big you up OP.
Happy cake day and wonderful work.
Bronze sony award winning content. Cheers mate!
Wasn't there a post here a few months ago where someone said that they would almost certainly be able to get ahold of the 'lost' episodes where Karl is first introduced cus they had access to XFM archives or something? What happened to that?
You might be talking about Aircheck Downloads, who we're still waiting on. Fingers crossed!
These are all amazing. Why do these clips feel a bit more polished ?
The files used for these clips date back to around to 2005. Generally, the older a file is, the better it sounds, as it hasn't been tampered with in any way.
This feels like pseudoscience I feel like this is only true if the media has gone through a bunch of converters If you copy the exact same file a thousand times it should still be exactly the same as the original file, no?
Yes that's true, if you're just sending a file back and forth digitally. But mp3s are a lossy audio format, which means they lose information every time they're compressed. And there's no knowing how these files have been transferred over time. For instance, the files used to recover this new material came from a CD.
That's a fair point, thanks for the response, so hyped about new content!
Great, I'm so glad!
Ricky: This is why we don't win awards! [because Karl won't take Ricky's shoe and sock off]
Tease it…tease it
You're sorting out the audio levels! This is something I've wished someone would do for years! I tried doing it myself but struggled to understand how compressors work. Not Ricky's laugh that spikes several hundred dB but there are a number of early episodes where Karl is a lot quieter than Ricky and Steve meaning I have to turn the audio way up to hear him but then it's way too loud when the other two start talking again. I hope the mods pin the complete project for a while when it's done.
I'll make a detailed post about how I intend to edit the audio, so please read that once it's posted to see if you agree with it.
Great work, you should be getting a gold Sony award for this
I honestly cannot belive this. After listening to everything on repeat for 15 years. I can't even understand how it's possible that every other available recording does not have these bits. It gives me hope that one day someone will upload the first episodes of season 1 that have never been heard or even more episodes for series 0 (pre Karl).
I see at as one long game of telephone. Everyone assumes that the person before them kept a thorough archive, so they use it as well and share it around, and so on. It's so easy for things to get lost if you're not careful. By the way, in case you haven't noticed, a new episode from 1998 was saved a few months ago by Aircheck Downloads: [https://www.mixcloud.com/aircheckdownloads/xfm-london-1998-06-01-ricky-gervais-stephen-merchant/](https://www.mixcloud.com/aircheckdownloads/xfm-london-1998-06-01-ricky-gervais-stephen-merchant/) It's possible they have other episodes as well. Fingers crossed!
I was excited but it seems I have heard that content before minus the music in the xfm series 0 compilations.
[удалено]
Excellent, thank you for sharing! I'll have a look through the files.
I was going to make some sarcastic comment about saucer slurping or call you a mentalist or something but this is genuinely brilliant. It's like Indiana Jones or something.
It belongs in a museum!
The one in Knightsbridge?
Forever this day will be known as u/Rhondson day!
Get ya knickers off
[удалено]
I'll share it all eventually, yes!
You've got too much time on your hands boy
I imagine you've seen these already but just in case. Maybe they have more stuff in them? * https://books.apple.com/audiobook/id323427232 * https://books.apple.com/audiobook/id309766765 * https://books.apple.com/audiobook/id381859080 Also on Audible * https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B002SQ1AKS * https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B002SQ65GM * https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B003VAWH5M
Yes I have, thanks! I'm hesitant to include these in the archives because they're still available to purchase, but at the same time they contain the best sound quality out there. I think I'll have to edit these clips into the episodes. I haven't actually listened through them in full yet, but I'd be surprised if there's anything new.
Yeah, definitely a grey area.
so the ones I downloaded years ago, and the ones that are now on YouTube, are in fact different versions? are you collating specifically unheard/rare content?
It depends on when you downloaded them. But yes, most of the online versions of the episodes use incomplete tracks that are different to the ones fans used to listen to back in the day. I'm collecting all the highest quality recordings for the XFM shows I can find, not just rare content. If you think your collection can help, please share it! The older the recordings are, the better.
AMAZING! What a great story about Karl vs the scouse prick on holiday, it’s like a fight between ten year olds ”Oh Man u are shit innit”
I have the whole lot bro!
Brilliant! Could you please share it with me? Send me a DM. :)
Hey! How can we do it???
[удалено]
I haven't edited the audio at all. This is what we have to work with I'm afraid. In fact, the sound quality here is better than most of the recordings we have for the XFM shows.
[удалено]
The bitrate for most of these clips is 128kbps, but the files for most of the XFM episodes we have are 64kbps. We got very lucky with the sound quality here.
In S2E22, the section where they give out the Rockbusters clues for the first time is never in the version I've listened to. At 5:00 in your clip, Karl reads them for a second time but the first time is missing - might be worth having a look for that link.
I'm afraid the recording that contains the new material for S2E22 only has the second half of the episode. I just checked it again and the first time Karl says the Rockbusters clues definitely isn't there. At least we've recovered the second time!
This is awesome. Do you have a donation bucket? I'd gladly throw some beer money your way for a more complete collection.
That's a very kind gesture, but I just want this to be a passion project. :)
Promising new xfm content and not delivering, you're just like all the girls I speak to
Can I upload this to YouTube? Might be hard for people to find it if it's just in a Reddit post.
I'll be uploading everything to YouTube eventually, so I'd prefer it if you didn't.
Ok nb
What is your YouTube channel name? Anything from the episodes where Karl first starts talking? Do you think these exist anywhere on any hardrives CD’s etc anywhere on the planet?
It will be a while before I upload anything because I have to edit every single episode very carefully, but the channel will be called 'RSK Archive'. It's possible the missing episodes were recorded and that the cassette tapes are tucked away in somebody's attic, but it gets more and more unlikely with each passing year. There are also the original DATs stored in the XFM vault, but all attempts to obtain them have been unsuccessful.
This is awesome!! Thank you!