Sansa Community - My Music & Other Media

Encoding CDs and Organizing Your Digital Music Library

savvyscribe

Mountainous stacks of CDs and traditional stereos and boom boxes are quickly giving way to digital music libraries stored on the hard drives of PCs. If you find yourself on the outside looking into the digital music world – then read on! Compressing your CD's Into Digital Music Files Okay. Let’s say you have a CD of Kansas’ Greatest Hits. There are a number of songs on that CD which include an even greater number of different sounds: from pipe organs, to vocals, to percussion, to electric guitars. All that sound – for lack of a better word – is stored on that CD. Now, think for a moment… That’s a lot of musid! How do you get all that sound onto your PC’s hard drive, while at the same time not taking up too much of that precious storage space? Enter: audio compression. For more information on this, I'll refer you to an article I recently wrote entitled The Novice’s Guide to Audio Formats and File Extensions . This article goes into detail concerning the various popular audio file extensions available, such as WMA, MP3, RA, and WAV. Nonetheless, I will simply compress (no pun intended) the high points...

I Kissed a Girl - before?

Audiolicious — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 04:16:39 GMT

Many of you may not remember this, but Jill Sobule had a hit with a song entitled "I Kissed a Girl" back in 1995, long before Katy Perry exploded with her own tune; a different song with the same title. Here's the first time we "Kissed": Unlike my feelings for a similar situation involving a Rhianna song that shares the title of a Madonna hit ("Take a Bow" anyone?), I actually really like both versions of this song. They both have different sentiments, so I don't feel like it's an original that's being recycled. But... what does the first girl-kisser have to say about the latter? Jill Sobule spoke out: “I don't feel precious about the title, but I've gotten tons of e-mails from annoyed fans....Some think it’s more of a Girls Gone Wild thing than anything shocking or empowering to true gay feelings....Maybe I'll write a third 'I Kissed a Girl' for fun. It will be about how I kissed her, I left the dull boyfriend, got gay-married in California, and really no one gave a s---.” Still, Sobule does confess: "Katy Perry's song is a kind of catchy party song, although I will admit that I do smile...

Sid Melancon Country's Rising Star

Audiolicious — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 01:48:12 GMT

If you are into Country Music you should check out Sid's Album. "On My Own" by Sid Melancon is a collection of impressive country songs brought to you with a modern sound and a bit of tradition. The album is strong in many ways. The lyrics are clever and tell a story. Sid's vocals are certainly memorable, both in terms of excellent pitch as well as his well-suited country voice. The excellent harmonies in the choruses of many of these tracks are also noteworthy. The arrangements and musicianship behind Sid's vocals are professional, lively, and well layered. Overall the CD has a commercial radio-ready professional quality. Highlights include "Stronger in Love," a tale of love lost that is a definite sing-along. "Done Her Wrong" is a high energy upbeat tune, with a nice walking bass line and fun solos. "Just What to do" is another "barn-burner" with nothing but a good time in mind. If you enjoy country music, especially male country vocalists, you'll like this one. William and the RadioIndy.com Reviewer Team - RadioIndy Here is a video of the song Quotes from the album.

Download a library for free

Brandon C — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 02:01:45 GMT

It may be about time to dig out that old library card. Hoping to draw back readers, libraries have vastly expanded their lists of digital books, music, and movies that can be downloaded to a computer or MP3 player -- and it doesn’t cost a cent, unlike, say, media from Apple Inc’siTunes or Amazon.com Inc. In Phoenix, for instance, branches have banded together to create a digital library that currently has about 50,000 titles of e-books, audiobooks, music and videos that can be “checked out” from anywhere. Once discovered, says Tom Gemberling, the electronic resources librarian for the Phoenix Public Library, the program often proves wildly popular. Not long ago, Gemberling visited a local trailer park to speak about the program to 100 or so seniors -- who regularly travel the roads touring in their recreational vehicles. “They were cheering and screaming by the end,” he said. “They were so excited. They’re RVers, so they can go anywhere on the road, find a computer, go into the Phoenix Public Library catalogue, download a book and play it while they drive down the highway.” Available in thousands of libraries across the country, the programs work like this: First you need a...

Normalizing your Sound Volume

Brandon C — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 00:59:55 GMT

Do you find yourself having to change the volume levels on your Sansa MP3 player everytime the song changes? Are you turning the volume up to hear soft songs, then getting blasted by louder ones? Luckily, there's a great little utility called MP3 Gain that does lossless volume analysis and adjustment, as well as allowing for the volume of entire albums to be processed. MP3 Gain has been around for a number of years, and it doesn't appear that it is being actively developed anymore, but since MP3 technology hasn't changed much either that doesn't matter for our purposes. You fix an entire library of music pretty easy and quickly, MP3 Gain offers batch processing options that allow you to process an entire folder at once. If you collect music albums, you'll want to do those separately. The reason is that MP3Gain offers two modes: Radio and Album. Radio analysis and gain adjustment will adjust all songs to the same maximum decibel level. Album mode analyzes all of the songs in an album, essentially considering them to be one entire song, then adjusts them all to a maximum decibel level, but maintains their relative volume. The nice thing about MP3Gain...

Miley Cyrus To Debut At No. 1

Audiolicious — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 02:58:36 GMT

Miley Cyrus will land her second No. 1 album on The Billboard 200 tomorrow (July 30), as "Breakout" bows with 371,000 U.S. copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan. That's the second-biggest sales week of the year for a female artist, following the 463,000 debut of Mariah Carey's "E=MC2". Cyrus' last album, the half soundtrack, half studio set " Hannah Montana 2/Meet Miley Cyrus" (Hollywood/Walt Disney), started at No. 1 last summer with 326,000. The first "Hanna Montana" soundtrack, which launched her recording career, also bowed at No. 1 in 2006, with first-week sales of 281,000. It went on to be the best seller of that year's fourth quarter with less than three months of shelf life. Debuting in the runner-up slot on The Billboard 200 is country duo Sugarland with the deluxe version of "Love on the Inside" (314,000). It's easily the Mercury Nashville act's best sales week and highest charting album ever. The band's previous high came with 2006's "Enjoy the Ride," which debuted and peaked at No. 4 with 211,000. Sugarland also enjoys the best sales week for any country act since the Eagles' "Long Road Out of Eden" (ERC) shifted 359,000 in its second week of release last...

A Wedding Reception - Sans DJ?

Momo — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 00:25:47 GMT

Are you so in love with music you can't imagine life without your ten-thousand favorite songs? Are you a little bit of a control freak? Do you obsess over song order when composing your over-mulled playlists? Most importantly, are you getting married soon? If you answered yes to all of the above, have I got an idea for you! It may be time to consider an MP3 player as your reception DJ instead of the typical human variety. My upcoming nuptuals are quite a while away, so I have sufficient time to plan a 4-hour playlist of songs that really speaks to me and my fiance. I've read about this concept in bridal magazines, and this is a great new trend that even acts as a money saver. Why do such a thing, you ask? First and foremost, it really works best for smaller parties of your nearest and dearest, who don't need gimmicky games hosted by an obnoxious DJ to entertain themselves. The company of loved ones is really the best game you can play at a wedding. Secondly, I am a major control freak. Everytime I heard a song that I loved I penciled it down and said...

7 Facts Audiophiles Need to Know About Digital Music

Audiolicious — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 22:35:11 GMT

Brought to you by Techlore.com Stay up to date on the latest technology articles from the TechLore Consumer Electronics Community and get more out of your gear! Visit them at www.TechLore.com Remember back in the 1980s when you purchased your first CD? Whether it was Billy Idol or The Psychedelic Furs, imagine if you had gone home and placed the Sony-manufactured CD in your Panasonic CD player, only to find out that it didn’t work. Or, what if that CD from Virgin Records only had half the sound quality as a CD bought from Best Buy? Believe it or not, this is exactly the current digital music environment in which we live. To navigate a digital world without standards, today’s audiophiles must gain some digital music knowledge to optimize their listening experience as they convert their CDs to digital music. To understand where we’re headed with today’s digital music, it’s key to understand where we’ve been. All digital music formats are based on the principles discovered by German researchers at the prestigious Fraunhofer Institute. In 1987, the Institute began researching high quality digital audio compression. They discovered that by understanding how humans hear music, a particular song could be stripped...