The joy of free software
In the new issue (out later this week) there's a Best and Worst of the Internet. It puts things like You Tube, "LOL", spam and Wikipedia in their proper place. One thing we could add to the credit column is Free Software. Anyone as old as me will remember when downloading a little gizmo to help manage your iTunes or crop your photographs involved staying up all night and repeatedly tapping in 12-digit passwords.
Not any more. You can probably download and install most things in seconds. The latest to come my way is The Levelator. Tired of having to adjust his levels every time Mark Ellen machine guns a seal, a Word podcast listener got in touch to tell us to try this piece of software. It adjusts the level in your audio recording for variations from one speaker to the next. All you have to do is drop the recording on to the Levelator icon and it reads the finished thing, works out the peaks and troughs and levels them out.
Seems to work like a dream. Presumably it'll do the same job on your mixes so you don't have to leap for the volume every time some over-engineered hip hop record comes up. Thanks for the tip. This joins Audio Hijack with Dupin and other bits of free audio help I couldn't do without. Anything else I should be trying?
jumping the gun
This may be on the list but can I just say that when the media make jokes about the lack of hover cars and pills for breakfast in modern life they never mention the "you tube widget" as a wonder of today's world.
I'm still impressed that a few lines of text can copy and pasted from one page to another and magically Arethan franklin or the fast show appears. It really is a marvel.
Google earth is also great not a immediate day to thing but being to zoom in and out at will on views anywhere in world is also a marvel.
Radio, live...
Transmission, not something for playing internet radio but a very nifty bittorrent client.
http://www.transmissionbt.com/
Technology rocks
Audacity. Very impressive audio editor. And free. And then there's Open Office (not audio, but very cool Office alternative. And free). Then you get Linux.
When I think about it, I get the hairs up on the back of my neck just by considering the technology I'm using to type this comment.The E6600 processor in my PC has got 291 million transistors! This really is the age of miracle and wonder. And yes, I'm a geek.
On the podcast front: huzzah! Having invested in some good ear buds, I can now hear Matt on the Metro. However, Mr Ellen has led to me having to request my eardrums back from other passengers on occasion, so my joy is unconfined.
MonkeyMedia
Am in the process of shifting away from iTunes to this as it appears to be much easier to manage the files for the bigger music collection. I have around 12,000 tracks from a variety of sources (ripped, emusic, a few bought from itunes) and itunes seems to be inconsistent with how it stores files. This is particularly the case when you change pc it seems.
MM has great tools for downloading sleeves and tracks (much better than itunes), allows you to see and sort by file path and has some good tools for making your tag information standard (really useful if you get music from different sources). It also works well on windows whereas itunes is a lumpy beast.
No all I have to do is get it to sync with my ipod and I'm sorted.
Audacity
Audacity is genius, an excellent entry level sound recorder package, which Gary & I use for the Classic Albums Podcast www.classicalbums.libsyn.com
you can get it at sourceforge.net
what I really really want
is something that will convert itunes purchases to mp3 without having to burn to and audio disc and then re-rip.
You could try Tunebite
It's not free but a friend recommended it. Had anyone use it? It allows you to remove drm etc.
Tunebite
I've used Tunebite & the results are good. Its only drawbacks are that it records in real-time ( you have to play the songs you want to convert in iTunes and Tunebite picks up the audio stream) & has a lowly native 128Kbit rate. But for 14 quid it's a real bargain.
Have any geek readers used Ubuntu, the Linux-does-Windows operating system? If it's any good & remains free then it could bring PC prices (which are already incredibly low - my first cost £3000 20 years ago) to around the £150 mark when bundled with it.
Linux and Google
I bought a little £190 Asus Eee laptop for my daughter earlier this year (basically because I wanted one and she's only two and a bit). It uses a Pentium M at 900MHz, 512MB of RAM, 802.11b/g Wi-Fi, a 4GB memory, 10/100MB Ethernet, three USB ports.
It has a Linux-variant operating system that boots in 15 sec. It basically does everything you need and the applications are all compatible with MS Office. It's great I use it all the time...
Now you can do all your word processing and office stuff for free in Google Docs in theory you only really need a browser for day to day stuff.
These are the ones I like
Switch allows you to convert between sound file formats - most things you would want to do are covered by the free version
Exact Audio Copy is a CD ripper but allows you to use any codec and ensures you have an accurate rip of your CD with improved error correction.
Reget allows you to download multiple mp3 files from a web page, making life a lot easier..the junior version can be used without paying
Messageboards
I noticed the Guardian got a mention on the 'Worst things' side. I discovered Guardian Talk about five years ago. The paper seems to want to hide it away nowadays, preferring the trendy blogs of 'Comment is Free' (referred to as 'Opinions Are Like Arseholes' on Talk).
However, I never seem to get tired of Talk. It contributors are mainly bored office workers finding ever more creative ways to insult eachother, but they're mostly witty and can all spell. It's a bit like a hidden pub that you have to be in the know to find. However, it could do with some new blood, so have a look at the list on the right hand side of the Guardian front page, just below Sudoko. If you get through the initiation, we'll be pleased to see you.
I am not employed by The Guardian in any capacity.
MusciIP
This little doohickey:
http://www.musicip.com/
will scan your music collection and profile every song you have. You can then select a song and create a mix based on the characteristics of that song. If you have such a large music collection that you can't easily remember everything that you have, this is an easy way of giving your whole collection a chance of you attention. It also spots similarities without prejudice. ABBA's 'Dancing Queen' alongside 'Something So String' by Crowded House perhaps, or 'Break on Through (to the Other Side)' alongside 'Mr Blue Sky' by ELO? It is the profiling that is my favourite feature, but it will also fix your track tags and spot duplicate tracks.
Free software
In the excellent June issue Andrew Harrison mentioned that he'd got Volume Logic to work on his Apple Leopard X ... whilst not exactly free software it was cheap and really great at making mp3s sound better. Can someone in The Word office get him to tell us how he got it to work...for non-users the original developers couldn't be arsed to re-code/upgrade for Leopard and it will load but not run. Sorry if it sounds a bit geeky...
Volume Logic for Leopard - hello Stubbo
I can't quite remember but I'll have a nose round at home tonight.
If you're impatient you could try this update: http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/13252 or
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/13252/volume-logic
However I should warn you I tried a few updates which claimed they were Leopard-friendly, only to learn that they were just the same old program with an L appended to the filename. Give it a go anyway and let us know how you get on.
Volume Logic
I was discussing with a mate last night how the life (work life balance thingy) of a music journalist must have changed over the past years... old days: write your allotted stuff for your staff job, bit of other mag/The Idler freelance, occasional article for the FT when they need a bit on pop culture and that's it. New world: all those things PLUS keep your blog up to date, think about and appear on podcasts, write content for the websites of each of your various staff jobs AND reply to all sorts of 'strangers' like me on the website.... and all for the same money. PHEW
Long way round of saying thanks for replying to my Volume Logic question. I tried the Macupdate route (I wasn't being entirely idle by writing in...it was frustration) and it downloads but is the original version which gives me a VL window when iTunes is launched but does't run. I'll persevere.
Finally... thanks to you all for still - by a counry mile - the most intelligent and readable 'music/entertainment' mag. I've been reader from Issue 1 and I can't recall an issue I haven't read cover to cover.
It's very kind of you to be so appreciative....
...but it's not like working.
iPodadiatry
I still don't find a need for one and I find this 'random' affair frightening!
What are you people on?
MP3 editing software
MPTrim (http://www.mptrim.com/) and MP3 Direct Cut (http://mpesch3.de1.cc/) for editing MP3 files. Good for removing long silences and increasing the volume on older CDs etc. Both are free, although the free MPTrim version has limitations to the file sizes it will handle.
Also MP3 Tag for cleaning up tag information (http://www.mpex.net/en/).
Ah, yes, the "LOL"..
A friend of mine thought that meant "Lots of Love".
He was on a message board, when someone announced they were off for a few days because their mum had died.
He replied with (what he thought) was a commiserating "LOL".
The reaction he got was not what he had been anticipating.
True story.