via amazon.co.uk
Found this, its a free e-book today on Amazon with a radio presenter murder flavour! (in their Top 100 Best Sellers)
What You Said: How You Organize a Messy Music Collection - How-To Geek
Earlier this week we asked you to share your tips, tricks, and tools, for managing a messy music collection. Now we’re back to share so great reader tips; read on to find ways to tame your mountain of music.
Several readers were, despite having tried various techniques over the years, fans of doing things largely the manual way. Aurora900 explains:
I spent a weekend sorting everything myself once. Took a while, but now I have folders sorted by artist, and within the artist folders are folders for their albums. With my collection at about 260gb, it can be a daunting task, but it’s well worth it in the end. I don’t have the tagging issue as I make sure anything I have is properly tagged to begin with… If I’m ripping a CD I use Easy CD-DA Extractor, which automatically searches a database on the internet for the tags. If I’m downloading something, if its from a reputable source its going to be properly tagged already.
Bilbo Baggins would love to automate, but eclectic music tastes make it hard:
I once spent days tagging each individual song with MP3tag so they all had the correct artist, album, album art work. MusicBrainz Picard and WinAmp autotagging wouldn’t work for me because of the “obscure” music I have. Then I just plug it into MediaMonkey, organize by Artist/Album/TrackNumber – SongTitle.mp3. And whenever I download new music, I just add it in by hand like that.
Lenny shares his manual sorting method:
My system is to change the tags and filenames by hand, using online album track listings as a reference.
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Long description:
Using album pages on Wikipedia (or sites like Amazon, when the Wiki page isn’t available), I rename every track with number and title (e.g. “10. NASA is On Your Side”), and if needed, manually change the track number and title in the tags. I then select everything and blanket-change the Artist, Album Artist, Album and Year (in this example, “Everything Everything”, “Man Alive” and “2010″ – great album, by the way).
These tracks go in a folder named first with the year, then the album title (“[2010] Man Alive”), which itself is in the artist folder (“Everything Everything”). I have the added bonus of albums being listed in release order within the artist folder. These artist folders go into a folder for my music library, whilst everything I am yet to organize is in a general “!SORT” folder.
Every time I find myself wanting to add music to my library, I go through the above steps. It works well, but it can be time consuming – I’ve only done 8gb of a 120gb library in the six months since getting annoyed with, and wiping, my terribly organized iTunes library. However, it does mean I’m not regularly skipping songs when they come on because I don’t actually like that album (and wondering why it’s still in my library).
Other readers sang praise for automation tools like Music Brainz Picard. Kerenksy97 writes:
MusicBrainz Picard. I have OCD for the tracks being right, Free-DB is a mess, and Amazon doesn’t have consistent syntax. MB is like the wikipedia of album databases with set rules, open source programming, and user input corrections and voting.
As for actually listening I use MusicBee but by time they get there the tracks have been tagged by Picard, cleaned by MP3tag, and normalized with mp3gain.
Another popular tool is Media Monkey; Wander writes:
MediaMonkey definitely, I simply move any new audio files in a specific folder, and they instantly get renamed to a nice filename (Artist – Year. Album – Track. Title.ext) and moved to a nicely organized directory (/music/artist/year. album/), and all mp3 tags are set correctly as well
One click of a button and all songs have their volumes the same, another click and all songs have album art, another click and all songs have lyrics, and so onMM is also fast as hell, got about 10 000 songs and it loads the whole list in about 2 seconds.
For more music cleaning tips and tricks, hit up the full comment thread here.
via howtogeek.com
BFBS links up with Smooth for Easter : Radio Today
BFBS links up with Smooth for Easter
Forces broadcaster BFBS is to simulcast a 2-hour show with Smooth Radio this weekend to allow family and friends of serving troops to connect with their loved ones.
BFBS presenter Rachel Cochrane and Smooth breakfast’s Simon Bates will co-host the special ‘Access all Areas’ slot 12-2pm on Easter Sunday.
Rachel will be at the BFBS studios in Camp Bastion, with Simon in GMG Radio’s London studios.
Simon Bates said: “BFBS hosted us when my producer, Seb Sears, and I broadcast for a week from Afghanistan in December, and were terrific hosts technically and professionally. They couldn’t have been more helpful,
particularly under the stressful day-to-day conditions in which they work. So, we’re doubly delighted to be joining them for this simulcast on Easter Sunday.”People can get messages on the show for family, friends and loved ones who are serving in the British forces by visiting the Smooth Radio or BFBS websites.
Published on Wednesday, April 4th, 2012 at 5:10 pm
Tags: bfbs, gmg radio, simon bates, smooth radio
Category: Radio, Station News
via radiotoday.co.uk
Steven's history of headphones (or what he remembers!)
First of all I need to say that this isn’t an accurate history of headphones, these are my memories, simply!
According to Wikipedia:
Headphones are a pair of small loudspeakers which are designed to be held in place close to a user’s ears. Headphones have wires which allow them to be connected to a signal source such as an audio amplifier, radio, CD player, or portable media player. They are also known as stereophones or, colloquially, cans. The in-ear versions are known as earphones or earbuds.
Headphones or Earphones have come a long way since I was a young lad! Earbuds are only a recent phenomenon. In the old days over ear phones were the accepted style. They were big because magnets that produced great sound were large, this is not a lecture on magnet technology so I will stop there! Does anyone remember these Realistic Nova 16 set from the 1970’s from Tandy or Radio Shack?
Then with the coming of the Walkman Cassette over ear models became smaller with little foam pads, bright and cool to go with the fuzzy 80’s hair. Magnet technology improved, reducing the size of the units. The sound wasn’t that great but portable, light and relatively inexpensive.
I don’t remember ear buds appearing, but my earliest memories were the black, hard plastic Sennheiser versions, quite uncomfortable but what a revelation, sound actually in your ears, loud and clear but I could never, ever keep them in my ears. The supplied foam pads were a complete waste of time. The big issue with these and others was the sound leakage, the curse begins, buses, trains, planes etc….nightmare. I was thinking about leading a campaign to cut all teenager’s headphones that are too loud - saving my sanity and their hearing! The next ones I remember were the Apple white ones, dreadful things.
During this period I was using studio headphones on the radio which I loved to bits, big, heavy and sound insulated - Beyer DT100. Couldn’t afford my own though.
Then the in ear buds appeared, a sound revelation, with superb bass with mostly a lack of external sound leakage. I was reluctant at first about trying these because of the fear of jamming the units into my ears, not now, love them.
At present I am using a pair of inexpensive Skull Candy Ink’d with Comply tips which make all the difference.
All of a sudden headphones and earphones became trendy and something to show off and not to hide, a symbol of enjoying music. Beats by Dr Dre headphones appeared with large unmissable over ear versions and now in ear phones. All with the distinctive logo. I am not sure if I would go for the big bright ones, perhaps a sedate black version.
My next earphone / headphone purchase may well be a pair of Beats Headphones - watch this space!
Samsung announces mobile device with DAB : Radio Today
Samsung are to release a new device which has a built-in DAB+ receiver.
The Galaxy S Wifi 5.0 also has a TV receiver and will use the Android platform when it’s released in April.
Samsung have teamed up with the International DMB Advancement Group (IDAG) to work on the device, which will go on sale in the UK as well as Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Norway and South Africa.
Byung Joon Jang, Director of MID Sales & Marketing at Samsung Electronics, said: “Samsung believes that such functionalities will take GALAXY S WiFi 5.0 to a new level. Built-in DMB/DAB+ provides excellent radio and TV experiences on the go.”
Gunnar Garfors, President of IDAG, added: “The functionalities of the Samsung GALAXY S WiFi 5.0 stand out. We expect that Samsung’s entry into this area will inspire new fans of digital radio and mobile TV.”
This unit, despite our earlier report does not include the facilities of a mobile phone.
Published on Wednesday, February 22nd, 2012 at 10:19 am
Tags: dab
Category: Digital Radio, Radio
