From: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org (ecto-digest) To: ecto-digest@smoe.org Subject: ecto-digest V5 #271 Reply-To: ecto@smoe.org Sender: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk ecto-digest Wednesday, August 11 1999 Volume 05 : Number 271 Today's Subjects: ----------------- MIDI-to-MP3 [Bill ] never thought I'd see the day ["Mike Mendelson" ] Re: MIDI-to-MP3 [larnep@pathfinder.com] RE: MIDI-to-MP3 ["Foghorn J Fornorn" ] aimee mann news/old interview [Jeff Wasilko ] Re: aimee mann news/old interview [James Gurley ] Re: aimee mann news/old interview [Jeff Wasilko ] Re: MIDI-to-MP3 ["Bill" ] RE: MIDI-to-MP3 ["Foghorn J Fornorn" ] New to the list / My desert island picks [tefinn@altavista.net] Anja Garbarek Trade? [jjhanson@att.net] Desert Islands! [Robert Lovejoy ] Re: Desert Islands! [Bill Adler ] Innocence Mission--cracked discs warning [Neile Graham ] Re: MIDI-to-MP3 ["Kat" ] desert island ["JoAnn Whetsell" ] New E mail!!! [Reneecamp@aol.com] desert island discs [Michael Curry ] Re: desert island discs [Joseph Zitt ] bliss? [neal copperman ] re : bliss? [Paul Kim ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 10 Aug 1999 00:03:35 -0700 (PDT) From: Bill Subject: MIDI-to-MP3 Ectofolk: I am looking for a MIDI-to-MP3 conversion utility; know of any? And now for the ob ecto content: Got the latest Sophie B. Hawkins. The jury is still out; the album has got that overall Sophie quality, but no one track has grabbed me yet. Then again, that's how I felt at first about the prior two albums, and ended up liking them enough to keep them. So, we'll see. - - Bill G. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 10 Aug 1999 08:40:49 -0500 From: "Mike Mendelson" Subject: never thought I'd see the day ...when any commercial vendor was pumping IM, but, from CDnow: >>POP/R&B NEW RELEASES ====================================================================== The Innocence Mission Birds Of My Neighborhood This Pennsylvania-based group, fronted by the gorgeous voiced Karen Peris, has long been heralded for their soothing, languid pop, which is vaguely reminiscent of early 10,000 Maniacs. Their latest and most assured outing yet contains "Where Does the Time Go," as well as the lovely, lyrical "You Are The Light." Go there now: http://p01.com/r.d?YDOExy_eA=/cdnow.com/switch/target=album/lcc=7863+67810+2 /from=rex:x:cdn:nr12 << YAYAYAYYAYAYAYAY!!!!!! IM rocks. (Not sure I'd agree with teh 10KM comparison, though.) So now the next time they send me a "$10 off" certificate, I'll have something to buy. (So far, I spent a $10 off cert. on both of Sloan W.'s CDs, and another one of the 2 Rachael Sage CDs, in preparation for you know what, which is less than 4 weeks away. Can't wait!) - -mjm _______________________ Michael J. Mendelson mjmjm@usa.net Harmonic Vision Makers of Music Ace and Music Ace 2 Software that brings music to life! http://www.harmonicvision.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 10 Aug 1999 10:11:04 -0400 (EDT) From: larnep@pathfinder.com Subject: Re: MIDI-to-MP3 > I am looking for a MIDI-to-MP3 conversion utility; know of any? I don't know of anything that will do that directly, but there is TiMidity++ (http://www.goice.co.jp/member/mo/timidity/) which will go from Midi to wav, au, and some other popular formats. From there it should be possible to find a wav->mp3 converter, although a quick search didn't turn up anything. Of course the problem with this is TiMidity is only as good as the sound samples it has to work with, which means that it makes everything sound like its being played through a $50 casio. The best approach would probably to send the file through a good sequencer and synth, record it, and then go to MP3, but that may not be a realistic option. - Larne ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 10 Aug 1999 10:40:02 -0400 From: "Foghorn J Fornorn" Subject: RE: MIDI-to-MP3 This will probably be a 2 step process unless you want to pay a lot of money. Midi - to WAV should be fairly common. WinAmp can do that conversion, if the MIDI is well behaved. I just tried it and WinAmp could only recognize one of the .MID files laying around on my computer. If WinAmp accepts your MIDI, changing Preferences -> Output to the DiskWriter plug in will convert it to a WAV. (Incidentally, this is one way to create WAV files for burning audio CDs from MP3s using WinAmp). For the WAV to MP3 conversion, you will probably have to spend money. The company Xing makes what I believe is the original MP3 encoder, and you can buy it for $19.95. See http://www.xingtech.com Generally any program that claims to "rip" CDs to MP3 files has an encoder built in, Xing's Audio Catalyst is one, I think RealJukebox and MusicMatch are others. They'll be a little more expensive than the base encoder but if you want to load up your hard drive with MP3s real fast they're great (I use Audio Catalyst). WinAmp's (aka Nullsoft) website is a good source for all things techie regarding MP3s. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 10 Aug 1999 12:59:20 -0400 From: Jeff Wasilko Subject: aimee mann news/old interview I saw Aimee in NYC on Saturday, and it was probably one of the best shows I've seen in NYC in a long time. You could tell that every person in the club (tramps) really was there to see Aimee. Aimee mentioned that the day after her van was run off the road and rolled over many times, their new rental car was struck by lightening and died. ugh. There's an old interview with her in the Boston Phoenix: http://www.bostonphoenix.com/alt1/archive/music/reviews/01-18-96/AIMEE_MANN.html - -jeff ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 10 Aug 1999 10:04:58 -0700 (PDT) From: James Gurley Subject: Re: aimee mann news/old interview Also, there's a review piece on the Tramps concert in todays' New York Times. I read it on their web pages. - --Jim On Tue, 10 Aug 1999, Jeff Wasilko wrote: > > I saw Aimee in NYC on Saturday, and it was probably one of the > best shows I've seen in NYC in a long time. You could tell that > every person in the club (tramps) really was there to see Aimee. > > Aimee mentioned that the day after her van was run off the road > and rolled over many times, their new rental car was struck by > lightening and died. ugh. > > There's an old interview with her in the Boston Phoenix: > > http://www.bostonphoenix.com/alt1/archive/music/reviews/01-18-96/AIMEE_MANN.html > > -jeff > > > ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 10 Aug 1999 13:23:14 -0400 From: Jeff Wasilko Subject: Re: aimee mann news/old interview On Tue, Aug 10, 1999 at 10:04:58AM -0700, James Gurley wrote: > Also, there's a review piece on the Tramps concert in todays' New York > Times. I read it on their web pages. Yup. it can be found at http://www10.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/news/arts/mann-pop-review.html - -jeff ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 10 Aug 1999 12:52:23 -0700 From: "Bill" Subject: Re: MIDI-to-MP3 Thank you all for your replies. You all are absolutely right: A MIDI file is just a "piano roll" providing timbre, pitch, velocity and duration instructions to a MIDI player, whereas an MP3 file is a compressed digital audio file which can be played back via MP3-enabled decoder and digital-to-analog converter. I suppose that I asked the wrong question for what I am thinking about doing. This is what I'm really trying to do: I have a couple of sequences on my Web pages, which I developed using my Roland JV-50 synth. Trouble is, when others download my sequences and play them on their garden-variety El Cheapo sound cards, the sequences sound like crap (as is to be expected). So, I thought that I would provide, along with each MIDI sequence, an MP3 version of the tune played on my synth so that the person looking up my sequences can get a taste for what they were intended to sound like, should they be played on a Roland GS-compatible synth. So, now I see that what I really need to do is hook up the audio output of my JV-50 to the sound card in my computer, play my sequence, digitally record it in the computer as a .WAV file, and then convert the .WAV file to an MP3 file. It's true! Two (and three and four) heads think better than one! :) So, is there a WAV-to-MP3 utility that anyone can recommend? (and yes, I realized that some were already recommended in the original replies). Better yet, you real music professionals out there, how would you go about recording audio output from your profressional-grade synth into a professional-grade MP3 file? Is the A-to-D converter in my SoundCrapper AWE-32 good enough? Or might I be able to talk my local recording studio (Binary Recording Studio) into doing a bit of "public service" and letting me hook up my JV-50 to their audio gear and make some MP3s? Or is anyone out there with a Roland GS-class synth and a decent digital recorder that might be able to do this for me? Any other ideas? Thanks again for all of your insightful replies! - - Bill G. On Tue, 10 Aug 1999 00:03:35 -0700 (PDT), Bill wrote: > >Ectofolk: > >I am looking for a MIDI-to-MP3 conversion utility; know of any? > >And now for the ob ecto content: > >Got the latest Sophie B. Hawkins. The jury is still out; the album has >got that overall Sophie quality, but no one track has grabbed me yet. Then >again, that's how I felt at first about the prior two albums, and ended up >liking them enough to keep them. So, we'll see. > >- Bill G. > > > ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 10 Aug 1999 16:21:43 -0400 From: "Foghorn J Fornorn" Subject: RE: MIDI-to-MP3 Well, again I'd recommend Xing's encoder. 20 bucks. They were the first and probably still the best. I get good MP3 encodes from WAVs using it myself. Not sure what a "SoundCrapper" is but if its your euphemism for SoundBlaster, they have pretty reputable D/A & A/D converters. I have a real cheapo Ensoniq card that to my surprise is rated pretty highly on newsgroups that discuss this sort of thing. SoundBlaster rates high too. If you're going to record thru the card's audio in, I strongly recommend a good digital editor. I use Cool Edit 96 from www.syntrillium.com. It's shareware and can be made fully functional for $50 registration. Even in demo mode it will probably do enough to do what you want. I use it all the time for recording vinyl/cassetes from my stereo to WAVs then burn CDs with it. Can do noise reduction and effects too. The best thing about it in my opinion is that its recording function is rock solid, never had it skip or miss a bit in recording. I get good results with this combination, and I think you'd get what you want. And for $70 you'll have software you can use for other things, too. Not too shabby. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 10 Aug 1999 01:00:17 -0400 (EDT) From: tefinn@altavista.net Subject: New to the list / My desert island picks Hello Everybody, My name is Tom. I've been following the list through the archives for some time now and finally decided I really ought to subscribe. I got to see Happy at the Tin Angel last month and was also able to meet and talk to some of you who were there. What a really great bunch of folks you all are! I figured I'ld have a try at making a desert island list and boy was it tough1 I had to leave off tons of discs! I tried to include stuff that would cover most my musical tastes as well as what my moods and/or emotions might be. Well here goes in no particular order: 1. Loreena McKennitt - Book of Secrets 2. Kate Bush - The Sensual World 3. Roxy Music - Avalon 4. Bryan Ferry - Boys and Girls 5. Tori Amos - Under the Pink 6. Happy Rhodes - Equipoise 7. Happy Rhodes - Building the Colossus 8. AC/DC - Back in Black ( for my wild moods :) ) 9. Stanley Jordan - Flying Home 10. Dave Brubeck - Time Out 1. Don't Ask Me Why - The Eurythmics 2. No More "I Love You's" - Annie Lennox 3. Cloud Busting - Kate Bush 4. Isobel - Bjork 5. Look for the Child - Happy Rhodes ( version from The Keep) 6. Bridge - Queensryche 7. Mr. Marigold - Michelle Lewis 8. God Bless the Child - Blood, Sweat and Tears 9. All Things - Happy Rhodes 10. Feelin' Love - Paula Cole There, now that thats done with I'll sign off by saying, congrats to the Blooms on the new addition and Happy B'day to Happy! Tom - ---------------------------------------------------------------- Get your free email from AltaVista at http://altavista.iname.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 10 Aug 1999 23:58:22 +0000 From: jjhanson@att.net Subject: Anja Garbarek Trade? I'm interested in getting the Anja Garbarek CD everyone's been talking about, since I've been a fan of her father's for a while, and because it sounds intriguing on its own. However, I don't want to pay the $35 import prices. Anyone interested in working out a trade? Jeff Hanson ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 10 Aug 1999 20:38:19 -0400 From: Robert Lovejoy Subject: Desert Islands! Hi all, My 2/3rds of a pfennig: I self limited to one disc per artist and skipped the orchestral works... (in no particular order) Happy Rhodes - Warpaint Beatles - Sgt. Pepper Spirit - 12 Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus Frank Zappa - Weasels Ripped My Flesh Procol Harum - Shine On Brightly Gentle Giant - In A Glass House Dead Can Dance - Toward The Within REM - Life's Rich Pageant Joni Mitchell - Hejira Blue Oyster Cult - Tyranny & Mutation Uncle Ecto aka Bob Lovejoy ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 10 Aug 1999 21:06:19 -0400 From: Bill Adler Subject: Re: Desert Islands! I just returned from a long driving vacation, where I got to test the desert island CD theory. Indeed, sometimes traffic on the interstate moved like sand moves on a desert island. So here's my list in no particular order: October Project, October Project Grey Eye Glances, Eventide Capercaillie, To the Moon Renaissance, Ashes Are Burning Yes, Fragile Jimmie Spheeris, Isle of View Mary Coughlan, Love Me or Leave Me Clannad, Clannad 2 The Beatles, Abbey Road Figgy Duff, Weather Out the Storm - --Bill n.p. Bachue, A Certain Smile Bill Adler Adler & Robin Books Literary Agency Washington, DC www.adlerbooks.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 10 Aug 1999 18:51:22 -0700 From: Neile Graham Subject: Innocence Mission--cracked discs warning Hey, all-- Just wanted to warn you that we ran across two copies of Innocence Mission's new disc that had cracks in the center ring--they would probably have played but we didn't want to chance the cracks worsening. Anyway, when you're buying the disc it might be an idea to open the packaging and check the disc before you get home. You'll save yourself a second trip to the cd store (luckily Jim checked the replacement disc). Just listening to it now--it sounds pretty wonderful. But then I was one of the people who loved _Glow_. - --Neile N.p. _Birds of my Neighborhood_ (first listen!) P.S. If people are wondering why they don't hear from us for a while--we're at Jim's father's surprise 80th birthday party in North Carolina. Back in a week. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Neile Graham ...... http://www.sff.net/people/neile ....... neile@sff.net Les Semaines: A Weekly Journal . http://www.sff.net/people/neile/semaines The Ectophiles' Guide to Good Music ....... http://www.smoe.org/ectoguide ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 10 Aug 1999 18:54:54 -0700 From: "Kat" Subject: Re: MIDI-to-MP3 For wav to mp3 or cd audio to mp3, I downloaded a program called = Cannamp3. It was free and pretty easy to use. =20 =20 Well, again I'd recommend Xing's encoder. 20 bucks. They were the = first and probably still the best. I get good MP3 encodes from WAVs using it = myself. =20 Not sure what a "SoundCrapper" is but if its your euphemism for SoundBlaster, they have pretty reputable D/A & A/D converters. I = have a real cheapo Ensoniq card that to my surprise is rated pretty highly on = newsgroups that discuss this sort of thing. SoundBlaster rates high too. =20 If you're going to record thru the card's audio in, I strongly = recommend a good digital editor. I use Cool Edit 96 from www.syntrillium.com. = It's shareware and can be made fully functional for $50 registration. = Even in demo mode it will probably do enough to do what you want. I use it = all the time for recording vinyl/cassetes from my stereo to WAVs then burn = CDs with it. Can do noise reduction and effects too. The best thing about it = in my opinion is that its recording function is rock solid, never had it = skip or miss a bit in recording. =20 I get good results with this combination, and I think you'd get what = you want. And for $70 you'll have software you can use for other things, = too. Not too shabby. =20 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 10 Aug 1999 23:05:58 EDT From: "JoAnn Whetsell" Subject: desert island I haven't posted in a while, and I've been continuously thinking about this task for days now, so here goes (INPO): 1. Tori-- Little Earthquakes 2. Tori-- Choirgirl Hotel 3. Veda-- Path of a Body 4. Cocteau Twins-- Treasure 5. Sarah-- Fumbling Towards Ecstasy 6. Jane-- When I Was a Boy 7. Capercaillie-- Beautiful Wasteland 8. Angelique Kidjo-- Fifa 9. Susan McKeown-- Bones 10. Patty Griffin-- Living With Ghosts Bonus double disc: Paul Simon Live Central Park album I'm sure this will change in 20 seconds or less Songs: Very difficult, but would have to include Cornflake Girl (Tori) Mimi on the Beach (Jane) Tiger (Paula Cole) 26 Years (Veda) Some funny Ani songs, like Pick Yer Nose or Blood in the Boardroom or something something by the Nields too difficult. i'm getting stressed! JoAnn np: _Illinois_ Mila Drumke nr: In between _My Michael_ by Amos Oz and Jeannete Winterson's new one, a book of 17 short stories, _The World and Other Places_ _______________________________________________________________ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 10 Aug 1999 23:20:28 EDT From: Reneecamp@aol.com Subject: New E mail!!! Hey everybody!!!! I just wanted to say, that starting AUGUST 28th my e mail will change!! This is because I will be at school. my new address is... idobadthingz@hotmail.com Please use this after Aug. 28th and until I get a school address!! thanx Peace, Love, and Stevie Nicks!!! ~Renee ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 10 Aug 1999 23:26:36 -0400 From: Michael Curry Subject: desert island discs Rather than just picking some sort of "best CDs ever" list I've gone with a combination of what I'm listening to a lot of late and things I know I can listen to over and over again and never grow tired of. In no particular order... Tori Amos -- Little Earthquakes Susan McKeown -- Bones Sarge -- The Glass Intact Sleater-Kinney -- The Hot Rock Kristeen Young -- Enemy Throwing Muses -- University Throwing Muses -- In A Doghouse Altan -- The Red Crow Solas -- Sunny Spells and Scattered Showers Lunasa -- Lunasa As for the ten songs... well, I'm not even going to torture myself by trying to come up with that list. Mike np: Kym Brown -- Pygmalion ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Aug 1999 03:30:01 -0400 From: Joseph Zitt Subject: Re: desert island discs A thought: has anyone here been a-r^H^H^Henterprising enough to be collecting these lists? There's enough of a sampling building for a merged result to be of interest... n.p. Rebbe Soul: Fringe of Blue n.r. Tony Levin: Beyond the Bass Clef - -- | jzitt@metatronpress.com http://www.metatronpress.com/jzitt | | Latest CD: Shekhinah: The Presence http://www.mp3.com/josephzitt | | Comma: Voices of New Music Silence: the John Cage Discussion List | ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Aug 1999 00:24:27 -0400 From: neal copperman Subject: bliss? Someone posted a few days ago about a band called Bliss. I noted that they were coming to DC on Thursday, but didn't save the message to check up on the band. I can't find a suitably matching Bliss in a quick check of Yahoo music stuff, so i thought I'd just ask. Has anyone actually heard this band? Or did anyone save the URL? (Something about a Madonna backup singer and a cello are all I can remember.) BTW, Aimee Mann was quite wonderful at the Birchmere tonight. Not as giddy as when I saw her a year or so ago, but still in a pretty good mood. She was accompanied by a keyboardist and percussionist (and more). The latter, Buddy, was with her on the final 'Til Tuesday tour. She played stuff from all solo albums, plus Other End of the Telescope from Everything's Different Now. She made up a few songs to fill tuning time and as a birthday ditty for someone, and invited up an audience member to play bass on Stupid Thing (I think that's the right song). She also played a lot of songs from her forthcoming album (forthcoming as in almost done - how it will be available is still completely nebulous), and had cool 7-song promo discs with many of the songs that will be on it. This is called Bachelor No. 2 (or the last remains of the dodo). They used their own sound guy, which I think was a bad idea, since he managed to put a buzz in the Birchmere sound system that has never been there for anyone else. It was good to see local ectophiles Doug Mayo-Wells, Jeff Burka and Joe Zitt too. Doug and I bought tix to next week's Don Dixon/Marti Jones show in case any other locals want to show up. A bit lax on the details there, but I'm tired ... neal np: weird nightmare - meditations on mingus (hal willner) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Aug 1999 00:25:48 -0400 From: Paul Kim Subject: re : bliss? here you go neal. I saw them perform last spring and enjoyed them quite muchly. Cameron Stone is one mean cellist (but a hell of a nice guy) and he uses lots of effects for the cello. Go neal go! :) paul "4 exams tomorrow" Kim >Donna De Lory & Bliss >with Cameron Stone, Jay Bellerose & Mark Gorman > August 12 Wash, DC Metro >Cafe > August 13 Boston >Lizard Lounge > August 14 Boston Toad > August 15 Commack, NY Borders Books >& Music >Go to MP3.com - >Donna De Lory > for a free download >Check out http://donnadeloryfanclub.com the Donna De Lory Fan Club ------------------------------ End of ecto-digest V5 #271 **************************