MP3 is changing the face of music. And now you, too, can get a piece of the action. Our MP3 package covers pretty much all you need to get started.
When I was younger (we're talking 1991), I used to get really into making mix tapes. I made tapes for my girlfriend, family, friends, car, whatever. I'd make 'em for different moods, different weather patterns, different days of the week. It was a great way to hear what I wanted, when I wanted: no commercials, no Bel Biv Devoe, no obnoxious DJs, just me and my favorite G 'n' f'n' R songs.
But as time went by, I outgrew my heavy metal collection, and making analog mix tapes became too much of a hassle. Then about six months ago, I blindly stumbled onto this crazy MP3 thing and haven't stopped preaching about it since. It's an incredible format that allows you to put together a limitless collection of your favorite music, categorize it, and bring it up in whatever order you want. MP3s sound great and don't take up your entire hard drive. It's almost like creating mix tapes on the fly! So here in 1999, I find myself making mixes all over again.
If you've read the first two articles in this series, then you know all about MP3s and the potential devastation they could cause to the music industry. You've also heard all about the Diamond Rio's and the Recording Industry Association of America's (RIAA) ongoing war against the development of MP3s and similar formats. You also may have read about Public Enemy's forthcoming MP3 album release or about streaming MP3s and Shoutcast. You may have even heard that there's an MP3 car stereo in the works.
"All the cool kids are into this MP3 thing," you say to yourself. "I'd better get on this bandwagon and quick." Well, this is your lucky day. By the time you're through reading this little tutorial, you'll have your own MP3 collection and will be in with the hipsters again.
But before you become a super-duper MP3 DJ, there are two things you're going to need: an MP3 player and an MP3 ripper. I'm going to show you how to use the player, ripper, and database that I like best, but I'll list some of the more popular ones when we're all done so you can decide for yourself.
Another thing I should mention is that copying music for your own private use is cool, but posting that music to a Web site or distributing it in any way is not. By doing this you are robbing people who worked very hard to create the music you like. Be cool: Don't rip off artists. That being said, let's go to work
The first thing you need is an MP3 player. There are literally hundreds of them out there, but by far the most popular (and the best) players are Winamp and MacAMP for the Mac. So go ahead and download the program, install it, and launch it. Here's what you should be looking at:
Before you go out and start ripping off the music industry, take a few minutes to check out your new toy. Pressing Alt+3 will bring up the ID3 information. This is where you input the track information (title, artist, album, year, etc.). Pressing Ctrl+Shift+K brings up a snazzy little plug-in, which you can customize to feature all of your favorite colors. Pressing Alt+E will bring up your play list editor. Play lists can be edited and saved (hold down the Load List button in the lower right-hand corner to do this) as .m3u files. Pressing Alt+G will bring up your graphic equalizer. You can also use the right mouse button to bring up a menu for these and other commands.
Winamp has many different faces or "skins" that you can download and change on your player. Right now my Winamp player has a big ol' picture of Jennifer Love Hewitt on it. You can even create your own skins.
There are also several nifty plug-ins out there, allowing you to customize your player and have your very own rave right on your desktop. Version 2.05 supports streaming MP3s, so be sure you get the latest version. Winamp is well worth the US$10 registration fee, so be sure to give the good people at Nullsoft their due. MacAMP is currently freeware, but it probably won't be for long.
Got it? OK, now we need to get you a ripper.
There are two ways to get MP3 files. You can either download them or "rip" them straight from a CD. To use this second method, you need to get yourself a ripper. Again, there are hundreds of them, but my ripper of choice is the MusicMatch Jukebox 3.0 (currently available for PCs only - Mac users should check out the XingMP3 encoder). The shareware version of Jukebox will allow you to record up to five songs at a time, but if you pay the company the $29.95 it deserves, you'll have unlimited recording ability. It's all a matter of preference, but if you want to be hip like me, download Jukebox and install it. Jukebox also will play your MP3s, but it's all about preference. You can designate your MP3 player under the Options menu.
Another thing you should know is that Jukebox supports digital recording. Digital recording is the process of recording digital-to-digital instead of having the file pass through an analog soundcard. Digital-digital recording sounds a lot cleaner than digital-analog-digital, but you need a newer CD-ROM drive to do this. If you're not sure if your CD-ROM supports digital audio extraction, don't trip: Jukebox will let you know when it tries to configure your CD-ROM. If it can't do it, Jukebox will default to analog recording. After launching Jukebox, the following will appear:
Now pop a CD into your CD-ROM drive and click on the Record button. It should ask you if you want to be connected to the CDDB (CD Data Base). The CDDB is a large, online collection of album information, and if it has an entry for the CD you're ripping, it can automatically transmit the artist, album, and song names to Jukebox. Pretty cool, eh? If you don't want to connect to the CDDB, you can always type in the titles yourself the old-fashioned way. OK, your recorder should be up and running and look like this:
This is where the magic happens. Clicking on the Opt button on the recorder's will bring up your recording options. Here you can set the compression mode (128 Kbps is just about CD quality) and recording mode and select what directory you want to stash your MP3s in. Now check off which songs you'd like to record by clicking the white box next to each song name that you want. Jukebox will give you a little blue status bar for each song as it records. When each song is done, the light gray box to the right of the status bar will turn green.
It's as easy as that. Now let's take a look at how the ripper's database can make your life even easier.
After you've recorded a few songs, click on the Music Library button (the little music note in the lower left corner of the player). The Jukebox Database is a handy way to manage your MP3 collection. As you open it, you'll see a list of the songs you just recorded as well as the album title and artist name. There are also several columns where you can designate genre, tempo, mood, situation, and preference. In each column there are a few default categories to choose from (such as "Situation/Drunken Brawl"), but you can also make up your own. This allows you to find and categorize individual songs quickly and easily.
Let's quickly go over the menu options here. Options is where you load, clear, and save individual databases. Here you can slao convert MP3s to WAVs (for CD burning) and vice versa. The Add button is where you add songs to your database. Delete obviously removes songs from the database. The Tag button allows you to add text, lyrics, and album cover art to each song.
So I guess you'd actually like to hear your new MP3s. No sweat - simply click down on a song title and drag it over to the Play List Control console. Pull the songs over in whatever order you'd like to hear them and hit Play. Hear that? Good. To set your default player to Winamp, go to the Player's Options menu/Player Controls/Use Winamp Player. You will have to designate a path to your Winamp player.
If you have a play list that you think rules, you can save it and load it up whenever you want. This is convenient because sometimes you'll want to fire up your favorite REO Speedwagon tunes, and it's nice to have them right at your fingertips. Create different play lists for different moods - just like making mix tapes back in '91.
I currently have an RCA cable connecting my home computer to my home stereo. Why? Because home stereos do not support any type of MP3 format yet, and it's an easy way to merge my computer and my stereo into a kick-ass MP3 database/player.
But imagine a home stereo that can record songs straight from your favorite CDs onto some kind of internal hard drive that stores something like 10,000 songs, all instantly accessible. Now imagine being able to walk into your favorite record shop (or going to your favorite music website) and pay a dollar or two to download a couple of your favorite songs onto a tiny flash memory card. Then you can take card home and copy it onto your home or car system to use whenever you want. Sound too good to be true?
It's this scenario that's scaring suits in the music industry. When you buy a $15 CD, the artist probably makes about $1.50 (if she's lucky). The other $13.50 goes toward the production, marketing, and distribution of that CD - and into the music company's bank account. But what if you could bypass all that other stuff and directly pay the artist who created the music? What if the artist made $1 per song you download? What if everybody could create, market, and distribute their own music and make money doing it? It would pretty much revolutionize the way you listen to music, huh? And that's exactly what the record companies are afraid of.
The future of MP3 audio still remains to be seen. Will the good guys revolutionize the music world? Or will the bad guys clamp down and take charge? Well, dear consumer, that's all up to you.
There are thousands of MP3 resources out there, and thousands more will undoubtably appear as the scene grows. These are some of the best I've run across so far:
Web Sites
MP3.com Download licensed MP3s at this great MP3 resource.
Wired News Wired's ongoing take on all this MP3 business.
MP3 Package - Parte 3
