Latest In Tech » Music

Move Podcast track from Podcast to Music in iTunes

sarvinc — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 21:33:54 +0000

Once in a while there’s a song in the Stereo gum mp3 feed that I actually want to keep. Here’s how I do it.

Select the podcasts you wish to convert to normal audio files.
Right click and select “Convert ID3 tags”.
Change the ID3 tags to version 1.0
Drag the podcast tracks out to your Desktop
Delete the originals from iTunes
Drag the files back in to iTunes
Change the ID3 tags back to the highest version available.
Fix any missing tags.

Works like a charm for me.

iPhone Ringtones

sarvinc — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 19:16:34 +0000

If you’re not up to making your own ringtones for the iPhone with Garageband you should try out Audiko. Audiko, has pre-made ringtones as mp3s, m4r (for the iPhone), and AMR-nb formatted are all available.

N.B. The file SentMessage.caf is used for the sent SMS tone.

iPhone Streaming with .htaccess

sarvinc — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 22:28:38 +0000

It appears that Safari on the iPhone does not like .htaccess. Your likely to receive an error message when you play anything password protected. The work around goes something like http://username:password@host.com/foo.mp3

Good luck with that. I’m thinking about writing a little javascript to work around this. I’ll update this post if I ever get to it.

The War on Music

sarvinc — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 21:03:20 +0000

Music labels regularly pump-up the volume at the expense of quality. You might not know it, but this affects most platforms; from satellite radio to mp3 players. The IEEE takes a crack at explaining this phenomenon, of course there is a bit of FUD involved; “But the loudness war could be doing more than simply pumping up the volume and angering aficionados—it could be responsible for halting technological advances in sound quality for years to come.” Let’s face it, while there are a few aficionados who still purchase vinyl, it’s hardly a large enough group to endanger progress.

The Future of Music

Kanye West

sarvinc — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 19:33:01 +0000

I’ve never been a huge fan of Kanye West, but that’s changing pretty quickly. Kanye’s Japanesy web site is hosting some pretty cool content. First up Zach Galifianakis’s version of, “Can’t tell me nothin’,” next up, “Stronger.”

Sounds of Vietnam

sarvinc — Sat, 12 May 2007 22:46:24 +0000

I know it’s a bit of a step backwards in time, but still worth it all the same. Radio, Aircraft, Chatter, sounds from the cities (U.S. and Vietnam), and even some Vietnam based movies. Go listen here.

iTunes, Make your audiobooks Audiobooks

sarvinc — Sun, 01 Apr 2007 17:49:05 +0000

There’s nothing more frustrating than not being able to organize your own music using the programs that already come on your computer. Hello, iTunes, iPhoto? I’ve managed to finagle a seriously complex way of fixing exif data and properly organizing my photos in iPhoto but until now haven’t found a way to properly organize my music using iTunes categories. What’s my problem with iTunes? Well, Audiobooks purchased from Audible.com and the iTunes Store are marked so that when moved to your iPod they, naturally, show up under the Audiobooks heading. If you rip your own audiobook from CD iTunes refuses to acknowledge these files as part of an audiobook. Dragging and dropping them into the Audiobooks would seem like the natural solution, unfortunately NO!

There is a solution; if you have the CD, select all the tracks on it, and choose Advanced -> Join CD Tracks. This ensures that all the entire CD is treated as one, long track. If you have already have the files as mp3s you can join them from the command line here. Once you have your single track you’ll need to convert the file to something iTunes as an Audiobook. iTunes Preferences -> Advanced -> Importing -> AAC Encoder. From the Setting menu choose Custom. In the AAC Encoder window choose 64 kbps from the Stereo Bit Rate pop-up menu. Leave the Sample Rate and Channels settings at 44.100kHz and Stereo respectively. Save your settings and close iTunes’ preferences. Convert your large file by choosing Advanced -> Convert Selection to AAC.

After iTunes is finished, select the converted file and choose (on the Mac) File -> Show in Finder or (Windows) File -> Show in Windows Explorer. Select the file and change its extension from .m4a to .m4b. Delete the original track from iTunes and import the new m4b track back into iTunes.

If you’d like an automated solution; Doug has two AppleScripts that work well. First is Make Bookmarkable, even better is the JoinTogether script

Mac/Linux Join Multiple mp3 Files

sarvinc — Sun, 01 Apr 2007 17:32:58 +0000

I’ve been looking for a quick and cheap way to join multiple mp3s together for an upcoming article. There are a few freeware or shareware applications, but I figured there’s something already on my computer I’m not using. Unfortunately this tip leaves Windows users out in the cold, I haven’t forgotten about you! For files 1.mp3 and 2.mp3 that you’d like to join into a single large file called 3.mp3 on a Mac open up the Terminal; Finder -> Applications -> Utilities -> Terminal, on Linux/Unix variants I’m just going to assume you know where to find a shell. In your open terminal or console type in cat 1.mp3 2.mp3 > 3.mp3. This of course doesn’t limit you to just two files, for joining all the files in a directory you could type cat *.mp3 > oneReallyLongUsherFile.mp3. You can even append to a currently existing file, continuing with our first example type cat 4.mp3 >> 3.mp3.

The Way the Music Died

sarvinc — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 21:58:01 +0000

Frontline provides a fascinating discussion of why the music industry is in such a bad way, and what it takes to “make it” in the business. The Way the Music Died is told through the eyes of four artists: veteran musician David Crosby, Mark Hudson; former member of the Hudson Brothers band; Hudson’s daughter, Sarah, a fledgling artist; and the rock band, Velvet Revolver.

DAVID CROSBY: I started singing in coffeehouses when I was still in high school. It was simply a need to sing. Of course, I didn’t get paid, but for me, it was the big time.

Link via linkfilter

DockArt: Make the iTunes Dock Icon show Album Art

sarvinc — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 18:22:01 +0000

DockArt is a free iTunes plug-in that displays the cover art for the current iTunes track in the dock.

Link via tuaw