Calling the digital music gurus.

Post #255,673 by Another Scott 5/17/06 12:37:20 AM Reply	Calling the digital music gurus. You know who you are. :-) I have an [link\|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=71437\|Archos Jukebox Recorder] but have only put about 5 CDs on it because I really don't know what I'm doing yet. I'm intrigued by [link\|http://www.rockbox.org/\|Rockbox] and [link\|http://vorbis.com/\|Ogg Vorbis] but haven't used either yet. I'd like to make digital files from my CDs (and eventually albums), but I don't want to have to do it again (at least not anytime soon). I also don't want to put them into a format that I can't easily share with others or play in reasonably standard CD boxes. (E.g. I'm willing to convert a CD or few of .ogg files to .mp3 files if necessary, but not if there is a hideous loss of quality.) I'm sure many of these things are addressed in FAQs, but I want your opinions. :-) How do you folks handle these issues? Are .ogg files playable on car stereos and CD boomboxes? I'm willing to give up some disk space for quality. What encoding rate and/or quality would you use? Is variable bitrate encoding a good idea (from a compatibility standpoint)? What software would you use to make playlists, etc.? iTunes? MusicMatch? Some GPL stuff? (I bought a copy of MusicMatch a few years ago, but haven't used it much.) Thanks a bunch. Cheers, Scott.
Post #255,769 by andread 5/17/06 3:31:33 PM Reply	Re: Calling the digital music gurus. I usually use mp3 @ 192 (you'll never get 5000 songs on your box at that bitrate) I haven't messed with VBR I use CDex to convert .ogg to mp3 (if I researched codecs, I probably could do a lot more with it) For m4a I use iTunes to burn to CD-RW and rip to mp3 and use Windows Media Player for wma in the same way My player (Creative) only plays mp3 and wma I have a SONY boombox with a line in so I can connect the player Similarly, the car stereo has an AUX in while in my wife's car we use on of those cassette adapters so basically anything the player will play you can playback if you work at it a little My player has its own software for playlists (iPod uses iTunes) winamp or real or wmp will also let you make playlists A Play I Some Music w/ Papa Andy Saturday 8 PM - 11 PM ET All Night Rewind 11 PM - 5 PM Reggae, African and Caribbean Music [link\|http://wxxe.org\|Tune In]
Post #255,774 by Another Scott 5/17/06 4:09:46 PM Reply	Thanks a bunch!
Post #255,785 by bepatient 5/17/06 4:50:43 PM Reply	Alot of "what he said" While GF has an encoding string a mile long that takes advantage of VBR (and does sound very good)...I've found that 192 burns in mp3 format are about as good as you can hear. Mind you, if its a collectable disk, I will also burn and store at lossless(320). Now, as far as Rockbox is concerned, it looks very cool. The one thing I did notice about the ARCHOS players was that the sound output wasn't as well tuned (or as tuneable) as the iPod...and it looks like that firmware corrects some of that. Consider a full load on a 20g box to be somewhere around 3250 songs. I would recommend sticking to MP3 format. My car stereo cannot handle even the ipod m4a which is damn near as standard. Haven't tried a wma file..because I don't have any nor will I ever. 2 word review of iTunes. IT SUCKS. 5 word review of Music Match. IT SUCKS A BIT LESS (I used it to burn my collection, the cddb lookup is handy). Winamp is free. It sucks a bit less than either of the other 2 (except the free version limits ripping to 2x...so don't use it to encode disks!!) There are alot of free ones...but there really aren't any great tools for handling monster libraries like mine or Gregs. If you keep a relatively modest 40-80gb...anything will handle it. XMMS had some database issues that bit somewhere around the 80thousand song mark last time I tried it to get library stats. If you push something hard enough, it will fall over. _{Fudd's First Law of Opposition} [link\|mailto:bepatient@aol.com\|BePatient]
Post #255,804 by Another Scott 5/17/06 7:56:34 PM Reply	80k songs?!?! Yeah, I know you've got many more than that. It's still mind-boggling. You'll need one of those [link\|http://www.engadget.com/2005/11/20/steve-jobs-presents-the-ipod-invisa-on-snl/\|iPod Pequeno]s soon! :-) Thanks Beep! Cheers, Scott.
Post #255,807 by bepatient 5/17/06 9:29:04 PM Reply	Nah. Stick with my old 20 gigger It would take 5 or 6 of the new 60s to house the whole thing anyway. Still, carrying around 3000+ songs on my hip is plenty. Another thing you MUST do is upgrade your headphones. I love my [link\|http://www.etymotic.com/ephp/er6i.aspx\|etymotics]....don't panic at the list price there...they can be had for less than 100 [link\|http://shopper.cnet.com/Etymotic_ER_6i_Isolator_white/4014-6468_9-31077372.html?tag=pdtl-list\|online]. Think Peter gave a good review of the Koss sparkplugs also, which are significantly less expensive. Dunno and have 2 sets of the others, so I'm not on the market for substitutes. I can mow the lawn in the etymotics and not hear the mower. They are great (unless, of course, you need to hear something other than the music). If you push something hard enough, it will fall over. _{Fudd's First Law of Opposition} [link\|mailto:bepatient@aol.com\|BePatient]
Post #255,812 by broomberg 5/17/06 10:03:37 PM Reply	Speaking of headphones I picked up a cheapie pair of these: Philips HE592 [link\|http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0001OY2W2/002-9469046-6504846?v=glance&n=172282\|http://www.amazon.co...v=glance&n=172282] Cost $8 at the Trenton State Computer Fair. Liked them so much I bought 2 more - 1 for Ben and 1 for reserve. They come very close to blocking out the world. Close enough for me at least.
Post #255,811 by Meerkat 5/17/06 9:49:20 PM Reply	2 word review of iTunes. IT ROCKS. Horses for courses, I guess. Two out of three people wonder where the other one is.
Post #255,844 by bepatient 5/18/06 8:28:23 AM Reply	Meybe if you are on a MAC and let it manage everything and actually CAN (by having a small enough library). I've yet to have anybody show me it can >update< a library when changes are made outside of iTunes. Tried it, get dupes and have to trash and rebuild the library. Plus on doze it is a monumental resource hog. If you push something hard enough, it will fall over. _{Fudd's First Law of Opposition} [link\|mailto:bepatient@aol.com\|BePatient]
Post #255,847 by pwhysall 5/18/06 9:00:56 AM Reply	Media Access Control? MAC isn't an acronym. It's an abbreviation.</pedant> iTunes is simple. You either use it to manage your music, or you don't. However, if you use that screwdriver to start pounding nails, you're going to be disappointed with the results. What iTunes works like on Windows isn't something that keeps me up at nights. Peter [link\|http://www.no2id.net/\|Don't Let The Terrorists Win] [link\|http://www.kuro5hin.org\|There is no K5 Cabal] [link\|http://guildenstern.dyndns.org\|Home] Use P2P for legitimate purposes!
Post #255,904 by bepatient 5/18/06 3:36:45 PM Reply	Point being if you make changes to the files once they are in the library...iTunes can't recursively find and change them. You delete and reinsert. Most of the free players have the ability to "update" that iTunes lacks. If you push something hard enough, it will fall over. _{Fudd's First Law of Opposition} [link\|mailto:bepatient@aol.com\|BePatient]
Post #256,052 by pwhysall 5/20/06 1:21:03 AM Reply	So use one of those, then. We're back to the screwdriver/nail interface again. (I'll take this opportunity to note that you could probably write some AppleScript to do exactly what you describe, but that leaves Windows users SOL. Mind you, that's normality for Windows users) Peter [link\|http://www.no2id.net/\|Don't Let The Terrorists Win] [link\|http://www.kuro5hin.org\|There is no K5 Cabal] [link\|http://guildenstern.dyndns.org\|Home] Use P2P for legitimate purposes!
Post #256,118 by lincoln 5/20/06 6:23:54 PM Reply	Why didn't you mention Goldwave to him? you told me about it 3 years ago, and I've been grateful ever since. It'll do the .OGG to .MP3 and go up to 320k on the "File Save As..." menu box. Converts songs to .WAV files reasonably quick. Cost is $40 last time I looked. [link\|http://www.goldwave.com\|www.goldwave.com] lincoln "Chicago to my mind was the only place to be. ... I above all liked the city because it was filled with people all a-bustle, and the clatter of hooves and carriages, and with delivery wagons and drays and peddlers and the boom and clank of freight trains. And when those black clouds came sailing in from the west, pouring thunderstorms upon us so that you couldn't hear the cries or curses of humankind, I liked that best of all. Chicago could stand up to the worst God had to offer. I understood why it was built--a place for trade, of course, with railroads and ships and so on, but mostly to give all of us a magnitude of defiance that is not provided by one house on the plains. And the plains is where those storms come from." -- E.L. Doctorow Never apply a Star Trek solution to a Babylon 5 problem. I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a *Citizen* of the United States. [link\|mailto:bconnors@ev1.net\|contact me]
Post #256,144 by Another Scott 5/20/06 11:20:09 PM Reply	Looks like a nice Win32 tool. Thanks for the pointer.
Post #256,146 by bepatient 5/20/06 11:38:18 PM Reply	Didn't think a full blown digital editor was necessary though I agree the batch operations are handy If you push something hard enough, it will fall over. _{Fudd's First Law of Opposition} [link\|mailto:bepatient@aol.com\|BePatient]
Post #255,825 by static 5/18/06 12:35:36 AM Reply	Some observations. For me (several years ago), MP3 was a too fiddly. Encoders like LAME had oodles of options and it was fun for a short while to fiddle with them. But it felt a lot like getting HiFi out of a cassette: a lot of work for only a little gain. That's why people settle on 192kbps - that's a good compromise of size vs quality. Ogg Vorbis, OTOH, usually sounds better at ~108 than MP3 at 192, if you can hear a difference. And the Vorbis encoders encourage you to use a "quality" option rather than fart about with small adjustments. -q3 gives you about 108 for mainstream pop and rock music. However, Ogg Vorbis is most widely supported on PCs. Most devices that can play MP3 cannot play Ogg Vorbis, alas. (This is the same problem as with AAC aka the iPod format.) I have been a quiet fan of MiniDisc since, well, forever. I finally got myself one of those new-fangled HiMD recorders a few months back. It's (mostly) brilliant. And ATRAC3+ at 64kps is just as good as Vorbis as 108. And it Just Works. SonicStage (Sony's ATRAC software) doesn't know anything about Ogg Vorbis, unfortunately, though it can import MP3. sigh So I've burnt all my Oggs off to a DVD (I had about 6Gb of them) and begun switching to MD and ATRAC. Sony make CD players that can play ATRAC CDs, which is a useful expansion path. Yeah, I've sold out. What of it? Wade. "Insert crowbar. Apply force."
Post #255,848 by pwhysall 5/18/06 9:02:21 AM 5/18/06 9:03:59 AM Reply	On AAC. It's MP4 and it's a standard. You can play un-DRMed MP4s (like the ones you make yourself, for example) on many different players. And you're funny. Just as MD is finally dying, you're leaping to it. At least the discs will be cheap, I suppose. (I've got a 20GB 4th gen iPod colour, and wish I had a 60GB - changing discs is so last century) Peter [link\|http://www.no2id.net/\|Don't Let The Terrorists Win] [link\|http://www.kuro5hin.org\|There is no K5 Cabal] [link\|http://guildenstern.dyndns.org\|Home] Use P2P for legitimate purposes! Edited by pwhysall May 18, 2006, 09:03:59 AM EDT Expand All History
Post #255,853 by static 5/18/06 9:35:36 AM Reply	I don't have any AAC. I got a free iPod shuffle a few months ago, but I already had my Hi-MD recorder then, so why bother putting stuff in iTunes? The shuffle is still in it's box. I don't think MD will really die for a long time. Sony have too much invested in ATRAC, for a start. Wade. "Insert crowbar. Apply force."
Post #255,865 by drewk 5/18/06 10:03:21 AM Reply	Is 'ATRAC' pronounced the way I think it is? === Purveyor of Doc Hope's [link\|http://DocHope.com\|fresh-baked dog biscuits and pet treats]. [link\|http://DocHope.com\|http://DocHope.com]
Post #255,871 by Another Scott 5/18/06 10:26:06 AM Reply	'e's put 'is 'at on an 'ATRAC.
Post #255,872 by drewk 5/18/06 10:46:28 AM Reply	/me is not sure he buys that ATRAC ~= 8-track ? Sure sounds that way. === Purveyor of Doc Hope's [link\|http://DocHope.com\|fresh-baked dog biscuits and pet treats]. [link\|http://DocHope.com\|http://DocHope.com]
Post #255,979 by static 5/19/06 1:55:34 AM Reply	How do you think it is? FWIW, all vowels are short, emphasis on first syllable. So Another Scott is right: like 'hatrack' but without the 'h'. Nothing to do with 8 tracks. :-) Wade "Insert crowbar. Apply force."
Post #256,175 by Meerkat 5/21/06 9:42:33 PM Reply	They invested a lot in Beta for home video too :) Two out of three people wonder where the other one is.
Post #256,145 by Another Scott 5/20/06 11:24:27 PM Reply	Thanks a bunch, Wade. :-)
Post #256,151 by andread 5/21/06 9:21:17 AM Reply	One More Thing Be sure to dl Audacity the best program I've tried for recording streaming media lets you export to mp3 (of course, you wouldn't want to take a Windows box download the new URGE online store and WMP 11, get a 2 week free trial download x amount of tunes that you basically can't burn or put on your player and then use Audacity to convert them that would take (slighly) longer than listening to them in real time and might be ethically questionable) A Play I Some Music w/ Papa Andy Saturday 8 PM - 11 PM ET All Night Rewind 11 PM - 5 PM Reggae, African and Caribbean Music [link\|http://wxxe.org\|Tune In]
Post #256,152 by Another Scott 5/21/06 9:32:38 AM Reply	:-) I wonder if that's going to go anywhere. [link\|http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=62\|Ed Bott] doesn't like the MTV Urge license agreement. (I think he's tilting at windmills, myself. Licenses like these are becoming very common in the Windows world.) I'm not interested in it as I hate "upgrading" Windows Media Player (I've got v9 but never use it if I don't have to). Thanks for the Audacity pointer. It looks like a very nice tool that'll be handy for making .mp3s from our albums. Cheers, Scott.
Post #256,158 by bepatient 5/21/06 12:44:24 PM Reply	mp3 from albums now I am forced to mention goldwave. Thats one of the things I use it for. You can hand edit some of the worst pops and there are some nice filters. If you push something hard enough, it will fall over. _{Fudd's First Law of Opposition} [link\|mailto:bepatient@aol.com\|BePatient]
Post #256,159 by Another Scott 5/21/06 1:02:44 PM Reply	Any idea how it compares to Audio Cleaning Lab? Santa brought a copy of the [link\|http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000092P2X/104-3356507-4407907?n=229534\|2004 version] a while ago. The latest is [link\|http://site.magix.net/english-us/home/music/audio-cleaning-lab-10/\|Version 10]. ACL seems to be more of a point-and-click denoiser than a general waveform editor. Naturally, I haven't even installed it yet... :-/ Thanks. Cheers, Scott.
Post #256,163 by bepatient 5/21/06 4:42:06 PM Reply	nfc :-) If you push something hard enough, it will fall over. _{Fudd's First Law of Opposition} [link\|mailto:bepatient@aol.com\|BePatient]
Post #256,279 by andread 5/22/06 4:44:09 PM Reply	only using 2 week free trial Play I Some Music w/ Papa Andy Saturday 8 PM - 11 PM ET All Night Rewind 11 PM - 5 PM Reggae, African and Caribbean Music [link\|http://wxxe.org\|Tune In]

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