From: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org (ecto-digest) To: ecto-digest@smoe.org Subject: ecto-digest V9 #126 Reply-To: ecto@smoe.org Sender: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk ecto-digest Tuesday, May 6 2003 Volume 09 : Number 126 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: Toris Taxivision Contest ["Anthony Horan" ] mp3 players [JoAnn Whetsell ] Re: mp3 players [Jeffrey Burka ] Re: mp3 players [Birdie ] lori amey [JoAnn Whetsell ] Re: mp3 players [Nadyne Mielke ] Living room concerts [Runly ] Re: Living room concerts ["neal copperman" ] Fwd: new David Sylvian website [Neb Rodgers ] Re: mp3 players [dmw ] Beck at the Iron Horse [Michael Curry ] new cds from Goldfrapp and Ashley Macisaac [Jeff Wasilko ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 5 May 2003 18:55:32 +1000 From: "Anthony Horan" Subject: Re: Toris Taxivision Contest > From Rolling Stone and Sony- > ---------------------------- > > Create Tori Amos' next video! They've been sending out emails about that on the official Tori spam list the last couple of weeks. My first thought was "hey, I know Sony's cutting costs, but getting desperate enough to canvas fans for video clip ideas in an attempt to save cash is a little tacky" :-) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 5 May 2003 09:57:32 -0400 From: JoAnn Whetsell Subject: mp3 players Thanks to everyone who weighed in on the subject of mp3 players. I appreciate all your comments. I probably should have been a little more clear, but I think also your comments helped me clarify what I'm looking for. I'm definitely looking for something under $200, and preferably $150 or less; if there's nothing decent for that price, I probably won't buy anything at all. I just really don't have the money to spend. (I know Birdie mentioned the Rio Sport in this price range) Also, I asked about cd burners because I would probably use the player to reduce my cd collection by transferring albums I can't seem to sell back yet hardly listen to, or albums that only have a couple of songs I like. So I assume you have to burn the cd, or convert it in some way to mp3 files, then transfer the files to the player. I'm pretty old-fashioned for a 26 year old, so I don't really know how this works. I've never burned a cd, and I don't download files from the internet. I don't even keep an internet connection at home. (Really old fashioned 26 year old). Thanks again for all the advice. JoAnn np: Veda Hille: You do not live in this world alone (Every time I listen to this I chastise myself for not listening to it more often) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 05 May 2003 10:22:06 -0400 From: Jeffrey Burka Subject: Re: mp3 players joann sez: > Also, I asked about cd burners because I would probably use > the player to reduce my cd collection by transferring albums > I can't seem to sell back yet hardly listen to, or albums > that only have a couple of songs I like. So I assume you > have to burn the cd, or convert it in some way to mp3 files, > then transfer the files to the player. I'm pretty old- > fashioned for a 26 year old, so I don't really know how this > works. I've never burned a cd, and I don't download files > from the internet. I don't even keep an internet connection > at home. (Really old fashioned 26 year old). Oh, so *that's* what you wanted to know! Why didn't you just say so! Okay. Let's see. a) the process of turning CDs into collections of MP3s is called "ripping" (you might recall Apples Rip.Mix.Burn campaign of a while back; some folks thought that meant that Apple was condoning piracy, when a very clear case could be made that they were suggesting you use your own CDs as a source of files to mix and burn...). When you rip your CDs, you have options as to what format the music will be saved in (OGG Vorbis, MP3, Windows Media, ACC, etc.). These formats have different settings which will effect the quality of the audio file. As always with this wacky digital stuff, there's a trade-off between size and quality. However, more modern CODECs (enCODer/DECoder) achieve better quality in less space than older CODECs. b) When you rip something, the files typically end up on your hard drive. You can either keep them there, or you can write them to a different storage medium. That could be CD-R, CD/RW, DVD-R, Zip disk, LS-120, whatever you desire. Of course, for this sort of operation, Cheap Is Good, so you're not likely to want to put, say 30 songs on a $10 zip disc when you could burn 200 songs onto a 25-cent CD-R. You might have read (or you might have zoned out on!) the recent discussion on ecto about different CD-R types and their likely lifespan. Many folks seem to be storing digital files on hard disk (if they're doing this in place of CD-R, I hope they've got the hard drive turned off and safely stored, otherwise it's likely to fail in far less than 25 or whatever years is predicted for CD media). c) To play back your audio files, have you 3 basic choices for types of player. The first is solid state. these use flash memory chips to store data. there are no moving parts. flash memory chips are relatively small (8mb to 512mb or so) and have become relatively cheap. I picked up a 128mb memory stick for my sony clie (with mp3 player) for about $60. 128mb is enough for about 2 albums of music at the quality I use to rip my CDs. This is fine for me, as I primarily listen to MP3s while commuting. Some solid state players have removable media (you can pull out one memory chip and stick in another, so you could conceivably carry around 2x as much music by just buying a spare chip). Other solid state players have internal memory chips built in and while they might have a slot for a second chip (i.e. be expandable), some are not expandable -- however much memory comes with the machine is what you're stuck with. Solid state machines are the best option if you plan to use the player while exercising or otherwise moving around a lot; with no moving parts, it's impossible for the music to skip. The second is hard-drive based. These are probably out of your price range. Typical sizes these days are 10-30 gigabytes of music. Many ectophiles could store their entire music collection on one player. Many couldn't...myself included. Both the first and second type allow you to transfer music directly from your PC to your music player with a cable included with the product. The third is non-solid state removable media. The main example of this are discman-type CD players which can also play discs which MP3s (and occasionally other formats) saved on them. The best-known example of this is probably the Rio Volt. These can be surprisingly cheap ($100 and up). In order to use one of these, you need to have a CD-burner that will allow you to write your music files on to blank discs. CD burners have become surprisingly cheap if you're not looking for a high-end or external machine. And blank media is also quite cheap. Personally, I use both the first and third sorts. I have a Rio Volt which I use at my office for both CDs and for CD-Rs which I have burned with music ripped from my CD collection. For convenience, I have burned much of my most oft-listened to stuff to disc to keep at work -- I have CDs that contain my full Happy Rhodes, Kate Bush, Sarah McLachlan, Suzanne Vega, Peter Himmelman, and others which sit patiently by my desk so I'm not constantly lugging my actual CDs in and out of work all the time. As I said earlier, I also use the MP3 player built into my PDA. This is solid state, and thus very well suited for commuting, talking walks, flying kites, and so forth. jeff N.P. _Between the Purple and Pink_, Area ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 05 May 2003 07:44:14 -0700 From: Birdie Subject: Re: mp3 players SonicBlue has ones that are cheaper than their sport models. Sport models are more expensive. The Rio's have always gotten very good reviews. You can find them on EBay, too. Just make sure whatever is you get, it works on both a Mac and PC. That way, you can get music off of other peoples computers and so on. Cheers Birdie ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 5 May 2003 11:29:30 -0400 From: JoAnn Whetsell Subject: lori amey I thought I'd take a minute to plug Lori Amey, a singer-songwriter from MI. She was recently one of the finalists in the Soul City Cafi search for Jewel's opening act, so I hope some people discovered her there. I discovered her several years ago when I was lucky enough to review her first 2 albums (Nothing to Say and Resignation) for the Ectoguide. I was listening to them the other day (okay, 2 months ago) and checked her website to see if she had anything new since Resignation came out in 1999. Indeed, there was an ep, called Always, released in 2001. It features Lori's beautiful soprano voice (she's another classically-trained singer), 4 new songs which are as strong in songwriting as anything she's done in the past, and seem even stronger in her voice and the instrumentation (I think they seem more percussive), and 2 remixes of old songs which incorporate world music styles and drumming and make the songs really quite different and new from their original versions. I'm never sure how to describe Lori's music except to say that I think it's really good (which is not really saying anything at all) and it's folk, but not straight folk. Maybe it's her voice that is less folky while the music is more so. Maybe it's that her music is more atmospheric than the word "folk" conjures. Again, I think that's largely a vocal thing. So maybe she's a folk singer who doesn't sing in a folk way? Or maybe Mark or someone else who's familiar with her music can get at what I'm trying to say better than I can. I can say that I really do adore all three of her discs, even if I can't properly explain why. Check her out at the ectoguide http://www.smoe.org/ectoguide/guide.cgi?search/amey.lori &source=quick&for=lori&pw=yes or her own website http://www.loriamey.com/ JoAnn ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 5 May 2003 09:06:52 -0700 (PDT) From: Nadyne Mielke Subject: Re: mp3 players JoAnn Whetsell wrote: > Thanks to everyone who weighed in on the subject of mp3 players. I > appreciate all your comments. I probably should have been a little > more clear, but I think also your comments helped me clarify what I'm > looking for. I'm definitely looking for something under $200, and > preferably $150 or less; if there's nothing decent for that price, I > probably won't buy anything at all. I just really don't have the > money to spend. (I know Birdie mentioned the Rio Sport in this price > range) I did a quick search on eBay for 'iPod'. Several 5-GB iPods are going for under $200. That will hold approximately 1000 songs. > Also, I asked about cd burners because I would probably use the > player to reduce my cd collection by transferring albums I can't seem > to sell back yet hardly listen to, or albums that only have a couple > of songs I like. So I assume you have to burn the cd, or convert it > in some way to mp3 files, then transfer the files to the player. I'm > pretty old-fashioned for a 26 year old, so I don't really know how > this works. I've never burned a cd, and I don't download files from > the internet. I don't even keep an internet connection at home. > (Really old fashioned 26 year old). Ahh, okay. I need to clarify some terminology for you, then. :) 'Burning a CD' refers to the process of putting data or audio onto a CD-R. 'Ripping a CD' refers to the process of getting audio off of a music CD, converting it to MP3, and saving it to the hard drive. In short, for putting your music onto an MP3 player, you don't need a CD burner. You simply need a CD player in the computer. You also need some software. On my Mac, I simply use iTunes; on my PC, I use Exact Audio Copy. I wouldn't recommend the latter if you're not willing to fiddle with stuff on your computer, since it's not necessarily the easiest thing in the world to set up. HTH. :) /nm ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 05 May 2003 12:27:46 -0400 From: Runly Subject: Living room concerts Is there some sort of network or website through which artists can hook up with living rooms across the country? Please email me privately with info. Thanks, Sharon ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 5 May 2003 17:07:51 -0000 From: "neal copperman" Subject: Re: Living room concerts Check out http://www.houseconcerts.com There is also a yahoogroups mailing list called houseconcerts. People have mixed feelings about artists using the list to find shows. It's supposedly for talking about all aspects of putting on house concerts, and many believe that being exposed to new artists is a reasonable part of that. neal Runly said: > Is there some sort of network or website through which artists can hook > up with living rooms across the country? Please email me privately with > info. > Thanks, > Sharon > - -- ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 5 May 2003 11:39:47 -0700 (PDT) From: Neb Rodgers Subject: Fwd: new David Sylvian website Haven't heard much from David Sylvian lately, but this is good news. - -Neb > ----- Original Message ----- > Hello, > > We wanted to let you know that David's site is now online. > > http://www.davidsylvian.com > > We hope that you enjoy it. Additions to the site, such as free > downloads, will be made in the coming months and we will keep you > informed. > > It is now possible for you to pre-order David's new solo album > 'blemish', by clicking on the link below. > > http://www.nexternal.com/sylvian/?Target=products.asp&CategoryID=4 > > Thankyou > > davidsylvian.com > > -- __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? The New Yahoo! Search - Faster. Easier. Bingo. http://search.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 5 May 2003 16:41:57 -0400 (EDT) From: dmw Subject: Re: mp3 players On 4 May 2003 dsr@lns598.lns.cornell.edu wrote: > My Dad is an old school acoustic music audio snob. He also did some > work for HP Labs on MP3 encoders, and found that he couldn't tell the > difference with a high enough bit rate and a decent encoder. I've > been convinced that the artifacts from high quality mp3 encoding are > small compared to the typical microphone and tape non-linearities; mp3 > is pretty well designed for what it does, without all those annoying > physical limitaions microphone designers have to deal with. Even with > a DDD recording of digital electronic instruments, I'll bet the > difference in response between the monitors/headphones you use, and > the ones used to mix/monitor the recording, is more audible than the > mp3 encoding artifacts. what's high enough, in this case? not 128K (the internet defacto standard) this isn't meant as a personal dig either, just more perspective, and an attempt to control the spread of misinformation. the fixed-rate mp3 codecs maintain their bit rates by making dynamic allocations of how much of the signal is devoted to different parts of the signal, based on how fast the signal is changing (along the axes of pitch, dynamics, and stereo sepearation) . i won't quibble with the statement that that "mp3 is well designed for what it does" but the statement about artifacts being less than the difference in response between the mix/monitor gear is not likely to be supported by many audio professionals. (i have studio-quality headphones on right now). in particular, mp3 is severely challenged by content which has rapid changes in all three areas -- this is actually fairly uncommon in classical music, but unfortunately, a typical drum fill on a trap kit in a jazz or rock song DOES exhibit rapid changes in all three areas, and it's a pretty untrained ear that can't tell the difference at a 128K bit rate, even on cheap equipment. VBR (variable bit rate) encoding is much better, since it can allocate more data to program content that needs it. newer encoders are often better than the first two or three generations, since they make different, and psychoacoustically more sound decisions about what data to throw away when the bit rate crunch hits. many peoples' ears aren't trained to notice the difference; other people may hear it without being unduly bothered. higher bit rates are also much better, personally, i think 256K is acceptable for virtually any use (i CAN hear the difference, but only on good equipment, and it doesn't bother me unless i do a close A-B comparison.) at 384K, i can't tell the difference between the compressed copy and the original -- but the file size at that point is more than half of the original, uncompressed digitized file, and at that point you can seriously talk about the artificats of 16-bit digitization being audible. (they are, but imho, they're pretty subtle) - -- d. np kills _keep on your mean side_ ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 05 May 2003 19:18:30 -0400 From: Michael Curry Subject: Beck at the Iron Horse For those ectos who are Beck fans, and live somewhere near Northampton, MA: ===== BECK Iron Horse Music Hall Thursday, May 22 7:00 pm Tickets on Sale Tuesday May 6th, 10 am at the Northampton Box Office or to charge by phone call 413.586.8686 or 1.800.THE.TICK ===== Michael ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 5 May 2003 22:08:18 -0400 From: Jeff Wasilko Subject: new cds from Goldfrapp and Ashley Macisaac Couple of new ectophillic CDs out tomorrow: Goldfrapp "Black Cherry" Macisaac, Ashley "Ashley Macisaac" ------------------------------ End of ecto-digest V9 #126 **************************