Published March 22, 2000
MP3 Music has rocketed to be the premier audio format of prominence on the Internet. Sound quality is excellent, file size is smaller for quick downloads, and the breadth of music variety is astonishing. The newcomer MP3 has outclassed the fierce competition of both RealAudio and Macromedia’s Shockwave.
MP3, a contraction of MPEG-1 Layer 3 (Moving Pictures Expert Group), is an advanced format for storing and transmitting digital audio. It is compressed, reducing the file size to less than 10% with nearly indiscernible bitrate-quality reduction. Part of this magic is eliminating unheard or displeasing overlapping waveforms. The file is decompressed automatically while being played.
Its improvement since 1988 has become the foremost topic on the Internet, yes arguably more popular than the sex-sites topic.
Downloading MP3 music files from the Internet is easy. Use the search engines and stand back with a big basket to catch all the addresses. Dig in. Or extract music from Compact Disk audio files, Gershwin to R&B.
Besides downloading music files, you can also rip them directly from a CD. XingMP3 or MusicMatch Jukebox are popular. These are digital-to-digital capable, avoiding the subsequent extra step of needing an analog converter in-between.
a CD Ripper software is used to convert your CD audio into WAV files. WAV files are then converted into MP3 format files using an encoder program. Then the stored MP3 music on hard disk is heard using a player.
Of the hundreds of software MP3 Players, the contested best, or at least most popular, are MacAMP and Winamp. For UNIX users, X11AMP is one of the best. The information on each track for artist, album, year, title is collected in the CD Data Base (CDDB) collection. The album Play list is automatically recorded for you, or type it manually. Other commands like graphic equalizer are included.
Additional features can be added by installing a plug-in. Such software can play the file before it’s fully received (streaming) from the Net.
These programs are available from many software sites for MP3 music and from download.com or shareware.com. Use Shareware for a while until you decide to keep it, then pay a small fee. Freeware is totally free.
To understand analog and digital better, listen at your extension telephone while your computer is connected to the Internet through your modem. [Warning: this could corrupt your data flow.] That whooshing sound is digital switching, a white noise. And analog is the compressional vibrations of speech through air or recorded and amplified. If you are old enough to remember listening up close to the powerless piezo--electric sounds of a record needle tracking in the grooves of a LP phonograph, then you know another form of analog sound.
To throttle the size of information being recorded, in thousand of bits per seconds, choose 68-680Kbps. 128Kbps is about CD quality. Pick any song in any order and watch the status bar progress until done. It’s recorded; just playback and enjoy.
Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is contesting MP3 uses. Streaming and Shout Casts are new ways of delivering music in this and other formats. So, is it legal to copy?
The key here is for profit or personal use. If the music captured from the Net is resold or published online without permission and/or fees paid, then you are in big trouble, no doubt. The artists, technicians, producers, distributors of music are entitled to their full compensation. However, if it’s for your own use and enjoyments, that’s cool.
The promoters of MP3 would like the artist to receive a full and fair share of the profits from the sale of MP3 music, bypassing the powerful music distribution industry. In this way, lesser known artists could also have an equitable opportunities competing in this market. Recording companies are opposed.
A CD-Recordable or Rewritable burner is a somewhat new device that plays CDs as wells as records to them. A program is necessary for recording and converting the MP3 type of file to a different format, called WAV.
With the files readied on the hard drive, launch the CD-burner program, such as Toast, or Easy CD-Pro. Follow the instructions. Immediately thereafter, play the new CD in your home entertainment system. The obvious advantage to this, besides the low cost of the music (albeit the higher cost of the equipment, time and software) is that only the songs you like to hear are present.
In the future box, a hard drive attached to your home stereo system will be a kind-of jukebox. Purchase song from your favorite record shop in the format of a tiny flash-memory card which is transferred into your stereo storage unit. Sounds too good to be true?
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Personal Note: Many thanks for the many telephone calls of concern regarding Cheryl DePuy Murray’s 31 year old son diagnosed with cancer. He’s doing well, and spirits are up.