Joe Tech » Music

How To Animate Christmas Lights To Music

Joe Tech — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 09:23:59 +0000

Every year, I love to check out all the Christmas light displays that every day people put their hearts into to display their Christmas spirit. In recent years, videos of Christmas lights animated to musical accompaniment have been popping up on YouTube. Some are fun and others can only be described as artistic genius. This year, my wife and I happened upon a house that featured, among other things, Christmas lights that jumped and danced in time with the music. While I had a general idea of how it was done, I decided to dig a little deeper and share some of what I learned with you. I also created a video containing a mix of these musical lights to give you a better idea of what I’m talking about. Watch the video below and then we’ll get into how it’s done.

How To Program Christmas Lights To Music

Getting your lights to dance to pre-determined music is pretty simple in concept, but will take some amount of learning for anyone new to it and a lot of time for just about anyone. That may sound discouraging, but the end result may well be worth all the trouble. Not only will you have the feeling of accomplishing something pretty cool, but you’ll have the coolest decorated house on the block and perhaps even a YouTube hit like the Skrillex Equinox display that was viewed over a million times in under three weeks.

Before you dive in and create your masterpiece, you’ll need a general idea of what’s involved. First, you’ll need to have some hardware and software to make the magic happen. The hardware (controller, etc.) will connect your lights to the computer that will run the show and the software will allow you to program the lights to react to music how you want them to. Software won’t be a problem for your budget, but hardware can cost anywhere from around $160 for 32 channels and more of a DIY, hands-on approach up to $1,200 or more for 64 channels and a lot less work. If you’re comfortable with soldering, you can spend less and do a lot of the work, but if you’re not, expect to pay a lot more for pre-built hardware. In addition to the hardware, you should be prepared to spend money on lights if you don’t have them already. The days right after Christmas usually reveal lots of great sales (that’s when I buy wrapping paper and accessories, too). And don’t forget your soon-to-be-bloated electric bill.

To get it all working, you just need to :
- Check with neighbors first
- Get your hardware and software (including lights)
- Design your display and plan what you want
- Program your show (get ready to spend a lot of time here)
- Test
- Let people know

Of course, there’s a lot more detail to these steps. Wikihow has a summary article, How To Make Your Christmas Lights Flash To Music, including a few software and hardware links, but a much more detailed resource can be found on the doityourselfchristmas.com forums.

Along with all the work involved, you’ll want to plan some things ahead. The last thing you want to do is spend months putting together the perfect Christmas light musical performance only to have something unforeseen prevent it from being displayed. Before you start, check with your neighbors and agree on reasonable start and stop times and dates. Check for any local laws, ordinances, or HOA rules that such a project my be in violation of. Plan your expenses before you buy anything and avoid fire and other hazards by talking to electricians or other experts. Planning ahead may save you a ton of headaches down the road.

When you’re all done, showcase your completed project in style. Collaborate with a local video company to create a professional-looking video and don’t stop at YouTube. Send it to local TV stations and related blogs. A viral video could help offset your December electrical bill.

As always, if you embark on this adventure, share your project here in the comments.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Google Music Beta – First Impressions

Joe Tech — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 15:03:45 +0000

Today, Google sent me an invitation to Google Music Beta. Until today, I was not a part of the limited number of users allowed in to play around. Launching quietly among all the buzz about Google+ and Google +1, Google Music is yet another attempt by Google to steal a huge user base. This time, Apple is the target.

What Is Google Music?

Google Music is a way to make your music collection available from anywhere you are. Because you upload your music collection to Google Music, it’s on the web for you to access from any computer or Android device. According to Google, it’s “A better way to play your music.”

How Do I Get A Google Music Invite?

When I first saw the Google Music Beta landing page, my first thought was that I wanted to dive in and play around. Of course, it’s in Beta, so they are limiting who can get in. I signed up to be on the list for an account and just a couple days later, I received my invitation email. Head to http://music.google.com and request an invite. If they open it up by time you read this, you should go right to your music collection to start adding. At the time of this writing, there are no invites being handed out to anyone other than via the invitation request system.

Google Music Features

In its infancy, Google Music Beta has one main feature: Play your music from anywhere. Beyond that, it doesn’t really have any ground-breaking features that are going to change your life. It has playlists, the ability to give a track a thumbs up or thumbs down, listings by song, artist, album or genre, and lots of information about the track. So, yeah. It’s like iTunes on the web.

In my quality time with Music Beta, I did find a few features that I thought stood out a little. While playing music, you can navigate to the next and previous tracks with the left and right arrow keys or use the space bar to play or pause. Additionally, the up and down arrow keys, home and end and even the page up and down help you navigate through the list while the backspace or delete keys will remove a track from your collection.

Google also added context menus to tracks to help you add songs to playlists, buy music, etc. My favorite part is the instant mix which just makes a quick mix playlist from the song you chose and other songs Google thinks compliment it. Finally, like in iTunes, you can select multiple tracks with SHIFT+click or CTRL+click and drag things around to make stuff happen. While testing, I dragged a whole album to a playlist to add it quickly.

To get your music into Google Music, you need to install the desktop application. It finds tracks from a selection of locations (I chose my iTunes library) and works like mad to upload them all. If you want to give it a test run, you can create a folder with a small selection of tracks and just import that or you can do like I did and go for broke. If you have a large collection, like me, you should be prepared to wait and keep in mind the 20,000 track limitation Google currently imposes. Seven hours after starting, only 3,400 tracks from my collection have uploaded. The upside is that it doesn’t choke up your computer’s bandwidth, processor, or memory as it quietly churns away in the background.

What’s Missing?

Social sharing : GrooveShark and Pandora set great examples for music sites with ample social sharing options. Google Music Beta doesn’t even integrate +1 or Google+ sharing, but I’d rather see Facebook and Twitter as a minimum. With the existing APIs, it should be really easy to build in.

International availability : At last check Google Music is available only in the United States. With a project like this, it’s probably just a matter of Google getting all the kinks worked out and then working through any legal barriers for offering a music service in other countries.

More keyboard controls : That there’s keyboard controls at all pleases me, but I kept looking for a way to fast forward or rewind with the keyboard. I’d also love to see shortcuts for common actions like SHIFT+Up Arrow to give a track a thumbs up or ways to add to playlists without the mouse.

While it’s not something I expect Google to take care of, I had a number of tracks that would not import because they had the old DRM ball-and-chain from iTunes. Actually, Music Beta intelligently recognized the DRM tracks, refused to import them, and provided a report about them in the desktop application. You can always burn those tracks to CD, rip them back to your computer, and re-import them without the DRM later.

Early Conclusions

The feature set is a little underwhelming, but the concept is exactly what I want from online music… MY music when and where I want it. Everything worked well, too, but I’ve heard others complain about the user interface. Google is touting it as “free for now”, but with an ad-supported option and some polishing, this will completely replace everything else I use to listen to music.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Iomoio : Cheap MP3s And Two Free MP3 Downloads For Signing Up

Joe Tech — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 14:02:29 +0000

I had the opportunity this week to check out another site where you can search for and buy mp3 songs on the cheap. At 16 cents a track, iomoio.com is a fraction of other sites, leaving you to ask, “What’s the catch?”

What’s The Catch

The first thing most people wonder about a site offering cheap mp3 music downloads is if it is legal. According to the site’s FAQ, it is. The reason they can offer these tracks for so cheap is because they’re outside the U.S. and have different licensing rules and agreements. Giving your credit card to a site outside the U.S. might make some people nervous, but I didn’t feel that way with iomoio.

Features, Selection, And Quality

Any time I visit a music site that I haven’t been to before, I look for three key components: site features/usability, music selection, and quality of the music being played. I give iomoio.com a 90/100 for features and usability. The site was very easy to sign up and navigate and finding tracks was easy with a comprehensive search that auto-completes for artist, album, and track. In my searches, I found most of what I searched for, and I have an interesting taste in music. Even though it didn’t find one of the tracks I was searching for, it did find a few artists I didn’t expect results for, like Faderhead and Stromkern. Of course, iomoio had plenty of the top artists like Rihanna and Lady Gaga too. I gave iomoio a 95/100 on selection. Out of the 10 tracks I searched for, it found nine, but the site had two out of three albums for the one it didn’t find.

When viewing a list of tracks, you are presented with a play button to preview the track, but the music preview plays about four different parts of the track rather than just the first 30 seconds, providing a better sample of what you’re buying. In addition, the preview lets you skip ahead by clicking the outer ring of the circle. When you purchase, you get to download mp3 songs without any DRM, so you can add them to any of your devices and listen wherever you want.

When a track or album is purchased, it’s placed in your Downloads page, where you can download a .ZIP archive including the song or album. Downloaded tracks included the important track information like album, artist, track number, etc. and are 256k, earning a 100/100 for quality. The tracks I listened to sounded perfect.

As a bonus, when you sign up, you get two free tracks. I give that 100/100.

Conclusions

Like a lot of people in the U.S., I’m a little sensitive about who I give my credit card information to. Being a site in a foreign land may turn people away, but the trade-off is really cheap tracks at great quality with fast downloads. Even if you’re not ready to make a purchase, just head over and pick up a couple free tracks.

Although the preceding was a sponsored review, as always I strive to provide an honest opinion of the product reviewed.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Finis XtreaMP3 – The Tough Waterproof MP3 Player

Joe Tech — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 13:37:42 +0000

A few weeks ago, I was busy trying to make an old iPod shuffle ready for dirt and water and whatever else might happen to it over the following seven days. As I was devising ways to make an iPod waterproof, the FINIS XtreaMP3 waterproof digital music player arrived for me to review. I dropped my special project to open up the box and see what it was all about.

XtreaMP3 Technical Specs

Often, when I find out something is made to be rugged or, in this case, waterproof, I fear for the loss of traditional features. The first thing I noticed with the XtreaMP3 was the lack of any digital screen to show me a playlist or even what song is playing. I may be a bit spoiled, but I wasn’t much surprised. This, after all, is meant to be waterproof and I guess no digital readout is the trade-off. Moving along, I found this player to have many of the standard features expected of an MP3 player, including:

• 1GB of storage
• MP3 and WMA Compatible, iTunes Convertible
• Playlists
• Rechargeable Lithium-Ion Battery
• Basic play controls

…and, of course, a couple unique to a sport or waterproof player:

• Air-tight, waterproof ear buds
• Neoprene arm strap

Like some car MP3 players, playlists on this device are created by just dropping music into a folder. This is a little less convenient than creating a playlist via software and it means you’ll have to be creative if you want to put the tracks in a specific order. The 1GB of storage seems a little low from the perspective of someone with a 64GB iPhone, but for its size and durability, it gets the job done.

The River Test

This product arrived with exceptional timing for a proper test. Why just play with it near water for a day when you can fully immerse it into the type of activity that its creators had in mind? After charging the XtreaMP3 up fully and squeezing as much music as possible onto it, I took it with me on a seven day hike. Starting in Utah, two friends and I followed the Paria River 53 miles into Arizona, enduring cold, heat, mud, water, climbing and a lot of dirt and sand throughout. For those seven days, the XtreamMP3 tagged along in my pocket, surviving the same elements, and occasionally making the trip easier with music.

The picture above is not just of me on the river. Below is a close-up where you can see a wet, dirty, mud-covered XtreaMP3. Towards the end of our hike, I stopped to relax in the river with the best of Johnny Cash.

Although the waterproofed controls of the XtreaMP3 took some getting used to, the waterproofed ear buds sounded much better than I had expected. The arm band (which I did not take with me) takes some practice the first time to get the music player to attach to it and stay attached. One of the more unique elements FINIS included was the way in which the XtreaMP3 is charged. There’s a small waterproof sleeve that covers the tiny USB connector to keep water out. I’m not sure if any water got through, but I never had a problem with it working, even submerged in the river.

Conclusions

At about $90, the XtreaMP3 is a little less than most iPods, but you’ll trade some features for the peace of mind that a little dirt and water is no match for your music. Even accidentally throwing this player around didn’t phase it. The XtreaMP3 is the easy choice for the outdoor adventurer, surfer, or swimmer.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

MP3-2000 Music Search Site Review

Joe Tech — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 08:29:19 +0000

Although the following is a sponsored review, as always I strive to provide an honest opinion of the product reviewed.

I’ve reviewed some sites in the past that allow you to search for all kinds of things, but what if you’re just looking to download mp3s? There’s a site for that, too, and it’s called MP3-2000.com.

Download Music For Free

The site works in a few ways. If you’re looking for free music downloads or just wanting to purchase tracks, you can browse music by the most popular downloads, newest added, or most recently searched. If you know the artist or song, you can click on a letter of the alphabet at the top of the screen to browse for it or you can search for it by name using the search box. I performed several searches with mixed results, starting with a few local bands. Having no luck with the local bands, I moved on to some just barely more known music like Bigod 20, which surprised me with a few results.

Once you’ve found the track you’re searching for, a few options are presented within a couple tabs. In the second tab, you can obtain a link to share the track’s page with others. In the first tab, you can play the song right in the page or download it right from the source. In addition, there are links to purchase the track or turn it into a ringtone and if there’s more tracks from the same artist, they’ll be listed below. As well as all the links, an area for comments is provided and even lyrics if they’re available.

Buy Music Cheap

For those wanting to purchase the music they find, a couple options exist. The first is the ability to buy the song or album from mp3sales.ru. I did a little searching on the safety recommendations for mp3sales.ru and didn’t find anything alarming. Curious, I also checked their Legal Info page to see how they’re handling licensing. It looks like they are fine according to Russian laws. You may have to check your local copyright laws if you’re outside of Russia, though. mp3sales.ru offered the Bigod 20 tracks at €0.10 per track or €0.80 for the whole album, which is great compared to the $0.99 I normally pay per track elsewhere. Some browsing around gave me the impression that this pricing was pretty standard for most of the music selling on that site.

The ringtone link took me to a page offering up to 15 ringtones per month, but it was at a cost of $9.99/month. I’d didn’t sign up to get a hands-on experience with it, but if you have, let me know your thoughts in the comments below.

Conclusions

MP3-2000.com is probably the easiest site to download music for free, with advanced searching, related tracks, and instant downloads in most cases. Functionally, my only complaint would be the suggestions of other music I might like because it was way off. If you’re concerned about the legality, you’ll want to remember that you’re bound to the laws in your own jurisdiction, so do your research.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

EKS Otus Is Full Featured DJ Fun

Joe Tech — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 15:30:16 +0000

Last summer, I reviewed the Tonium Pacemaker, which is a great little tool for a new DJ or hobbyist. Recently, I got my hands on some more serious hardware, the EKS Otus.

What Is EKS Otus?

The Otus is a way to get more hands on with your digital DJing. I see a lot of DJs with software and many with traditional decks, but how many mix the two? I don’t know, but that’s just what the Otus does. For DJs comfortable with their craft and who have good software to mix their music, the Otus gives them hands on control. For people like me, it makes DJing easier.

What It Does And How To Us It

EKS has some pretty user-friendly instructions on their web site to get everything set up, but I still had some problems getting it going, even after I realized that I needed to map all the channels per the instructions. Eventually, I found that I just needed to make sure I started the EKS Midi Agent first, then Deckadance, then plugged in the Otus via USB. The USB is also the power source, so my testing consisted of just my laptop with it’s power cable, headphones, USB to the Otus, and the Otus, itself. For such a device, it’s really portable for a DJ who travels. The Otus should fit nicely in a backpack with a laptop.

Some of it’s capabilities, it seems, are going to depend on the software you pair it up with. As long as you have the right software, however, it does just about anything I could imagine a DJ needing to do with music. The most prominent feature is the 7.5 inch jog wheel that lets you adjust pitch by touching on the outside or scratch by touching the surface while spinning. To the left of the jog wheel I found the master volume and cross-fade control knobs. Above those were the left track control knobs for bass, mid, treble, and headphone volume. The top right of this device has the same four knobs for the right track. Below the right track control knobs are seven loop control buttons to trap or release a loop and control how long or short it is. Below these knobs is a pitch ribbon with a button to adjust the scale. On the bottom left, opposite the pitch ribbon is a set of general playback control buttons, including three to remix on the spot. Dead center at the bottom is the layer control button and directly above it at bottom center is a touch pad with two mouse buttons and a set of six programmable action buttons. On the back is the USB connection, headphone jack, analog RCA outputs for both virtual decks, and S/PDIF outputs for both virtual decks, as well. The whole thing rests on four pointed rubber feet to minimize vibration interference.

For this review, I downloaded and installed something called Deckadance (per instruction from the EKS web site), which was only a time-limited demo. I’m not sure if it’s the Club or House version, but either way, the purchase price of $99 or $179, respectively, seemed worth it. It would be nice to see some basic free software packaged with the Otus, but I imagine this device’s target customer will already have something like Deckadance in use. A professional DJ might also have been able to do a lot more than I did with the Otus, but I still got plenty of action out of it.

Of course, there’s the basics, like messing with the EQ controls, cross-fade and cue points, but there’s also some pretty cool controls like the three buttons to the left of the play/pause button that accessed randomly configured reloopers which could also be mapped out very specifically if needed via the software. I was able to program each differently for varying effects. With Deckadance, I was able to have six different reloopers set up, three for each deck. The loop control buttons also made it very easy to set up a loop, and adjust the length as it loops. Between the reloopers, the jog wheel, and the loop controls, I was able to create some familiar effects that actually sounded decent, if I do say so myself.

Everything is lit up green or red, depending on what track you’re controlling, and looks pretty cool. It would also be very helpful in a dark club, especially since some of the control buttons are pretty small and close together. One of the more unique features of the Otus is the four control wheels placed handily at its corners. They can be programmed to meet your own needs such as rapid movement through a track, file and folder selection, pitch and volume. While I didn’t use these a lot in my testing, they came in handy when I did use them with one exception. I found myself turning to the track pad to mouse through my track lists rather than use one of these control wheels because it was faster and felt more natural.

Also programmable, as mentioned previously were the six action buttons. I used these for recalling cue points, but they had far more possibilities, many I didn’t even have time to touch on. These were actually touch pads rather than buttons, so you had to either hear what you expected or watch for it on your laptop. Similarly, the pitch ribbon was a touch sensitive pad, which made precision a little tricky.

Final Thoughts

Although I was able to keep the EKS Otus for a lot longer than expected, holidays and other circumstances prevented me from giving it the time it really deserved and after using it, I really wanted to hold on to it longer. What I did experience was nothing short of magical, even if it could use a couple minor adjustments like the placement of the headphone jack or the tiny loop control buttons. For the price, it’s worth it, but only if you’re going to put it to good use as a pro or just have the money to spend. Portable, powerful, and good looking, I’d say any professional DJ should add this to his or her arsenal.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Tiny Tonium Pacemaker Eats Music, Spits Out Mixes

Joe Tech — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 14:00:48 +0000

I’m no DJ, but I know cool tech when I see it, and when I was sent a Tonium Pacemaker to review, I had a good feeling I’d like it. The Pacemaker is essentially a music player with dual outputs, a large hard drive, and mixing capabilities crammed into a tiny package. It’s like a DJ’s travel kit. Having mostly no clue how to really DJ, I decided to enlist the help of local musician and club DJ, Brian Forge for this review.

(check out the full photo set here)

It’s got the look
Part of being a DJ is your image and who doesn’t want hardware that looks cool? From the pacemaker itself right down to every detail of the packaging, Tonium put out a great looking product. When you open the box, everything in it is in it’s own special place and in it’s own smaller black box, including the user manual which is also black and made to look cool. This thing oozes cool every step of the way. The Pacemaker is all black and it’s small… like, cell phone small. Well, maybe a little bigger than my iPhone, but for DJ equipment, that’s not much of a footprint.

Immediately noticeable are the two main components of the Pacemaker on its face: the display on top and the touch control on the bottom. The color display packs in a lot of information while you’re mixing, and looks pretty good. The touch interface is pretty smooth after you figure it out. Before you figure it out, it’s pretty frustrating trying to make anything happen, but it doesn’t take long to learn. Between the display and the touch pad is a touch slider to control the blending of the left and right tracks and with it are some more controls. On the side is a button that you can slide up for the headphone output. One end has the output and power jacks while the other end has the power button, a menu button, and the USB port. Inside this tiny package they’ve crammed a 60GB hard drive and I’ve seen other reviews with claims of 120GB drives.

The software and community
Speaking of the internal hard drive, that’s where the software for your laptop or desktop is kept. No CD needed. Just plug the Pacemaker in and it prompts you to install the mix software on your PC. Don’t try it on Windows 7 RC1, though, because Brian did and it did not play very nice. It’s not an official release of the OS, so I didn’t expect it to. On XP, however, the software installed and offered some pretty cool features. It did have some problems dealing with us loading up the same track multiple times and trying to overlap it, but it also smartly prevented us from adding conflicting affects to the same spot on the timeline. The software, like the Pacemaker, is well-designed and has a lot to offer the rising DJ.

Better still is the mix community. Tonium is plans for this device to not replace all the expensive pro equipment, but rather to provide an open doorway for amateur DJs and those of us who just want to play. One of the great things about the device is that, aside from the obvious loading of tracks onto the Pacemaker, you can import and export mixes, completely layered with the cue points and blends you or another mixer created. So let’s say you throw down an awesome mix and you’re proud of it and want to share. You can export the mix to your computer and upload it to the mix site where others can listen, download and rate it. How’s that for community interaction? If it’s good enough, your mix might get featured and linked to from the newsletter. The mix site is a great idea that will surely help some newbies feel more comfortable with the Pacemaker.

Forge to the rescue
When found this thing in my mail box, my first thought was of how cool it was and if I could keep it (sadly, no), and my second thought was, “I’m not a DJ. How am I going to really review the capabilities of this thing?” So I called in a DJ. Brian Forge has been DJing for a long time and has been asked to guest DJ in other cities and over the weekend, he was nice enough to drop by the office for a few hours and try out the Pacemaker.

The Pacemaker is a great little piece of equipment. It features many, if not more, features than you find with standard CDJ units. All the basics are covered and there are many other FX available to play with. The interface does take some time to get used to though. I only had a short time to familiarize myself with the features and functions but as I caught on, I was able to navigate rather well. I could easily see myself using this while traveling. Whether to practice certain mixes, experiment with ideas, or even practicing and keeping myself entertained, this would come in handy. I do feel there are certain limitations though. I was not impressed with the way their cue system is set up. It makes it difficult to properly set cue points. It is a bit cumbersome to navigate a track once you set a cue point and even more difficult to reset one once it is laid. As with CDJs, you can only lay down one cue point at a time. Because navigation is a bit tricky, controllerism is a moot point with the Pacemaker. You will not be able to scratch or bring in FX on the fly. You have to hit the switch, and perform the most accurate of finger movements to just bring up the right FX, let alone control them. However the touch interface does seem to work well for basic DJing. Especially the crossfader. With proper practice, the sensitivity allows for some clean and accurate cutting between tracks.

Overall, I think this is an amazing little device. The limitations I have seen I believe are purely because of how hard it is to pack everything in to such a small, sleek little package. I definitely see myself wanting to pick one up as a “toy” and as a backup device, should my primary decks fail. I could easily see this being used by DJs on the road, by rising DJs honing their skills on the fly, and even people that host parties who want a DJ without going through the effort of hiring a professional.

Thanks, again, to Brian for his insight.

Conclusions
The first thing I think about is the price. It’s not exactly cheap, but it’s not expensive by comparison, either. For an aspiring DJ, it’s a pretty good price and a nice portable device. For a pro, it’s a great travel companion, like Brian said. If nothing else, you could save a mix and DJ a party at the drop of a hat. The usefulness of it seems to stop just short of professional needs, but is pretty complete for a beginner and I really enjoyed the amount of attention Tonium payed to details ever step of the way. Definitely worth the money if you have it to spare.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Convert Video And Transfer Files From Your iPod Or iPhone

Joe Tech — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 21:33:07 +0000

I can be pretty picky about the sponsored posts I accept because I want to post about stuff I would actually use or buy myself. Today is no exception, because today’s post is about a product that I think is timely, useful, and reasonably priced. It’s iPod / iPhone to iTunes Transfer software called iPodRobot.

One of the things that I’ve heard people complain about with the iPhone is that you have to sync it with iTunes to get files on and off the device. I’ve personally felt that was annoying with my own iPhone. Almost every other smart phone on the planet lets you connect to it as a mass storage device and access your videos, photos, etc. This software works as a bridge between your computer and the data on your phone, eliminating the need for iTunes as part of the equation. It’s a great idea and I’m a little shocked that I haven’t seen it before.

When the software starts up, it looks for your phone and connects to it. Then you just select the folders or files on your phone to transfer and tell it to move them to your computer. After confirming (or changing) the local folder, the files are moved. There’s not much to it, really. The one thing I was unable to find (and isn’t listed as an option on the site) was uploading files to the phone from my computer. The lack of bi-directional transfer was a drawback to me. Looking at the glass as half full, you can download a free trial to try it out, and what it does do it does well and without needing any specialized knowledge. For $20, it’s a nice piece of software to have if you don’t want to (or can’t) sync with iTunes for some reason.

While I was on the site, I checked out their Free iPod / iPhone Video Converter software. It did what it promised and pretty quickly. I was able to convert an AVI Flip video from one of my previous reviews into an iPhone-friendly format and just like the transfer software, this had a simple interface and just worked fast and clean out of the box. Although the ipodrobot software lacks a valuable feature I was looking for, I gave the company extra points for delivering otherwise very solid, stable, and easy to use products.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Sansa slotMusic Player Rocks

Joe Tech — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 21:13:38 +0000

When I sat down to write this review, I wanted to come up with some witty title that described how I feel about the Sansa slotMusic Player. I tried, but I just kept coming back to one thought: As a portable music player, it’s pretty great, but as a portable player as cool as it is for only twenty bucks, this thing rocks.

The design
When I saw the slotMusic Player on the Sansa web site, it looked like a light-weight plastic and I was a little worried that it would feel that way, too. When I opened it up, though, it was a pleasant surprise. In the package was the player, some ear bud headphones, a single AAA battery to power it, and little booklet to help you use it. The booklet is a unique way to help people use the device and is a lot more inviting than the typical black and white all text instruction manual. Instead of lots of boring reading, you get seven cards bound together, each containing a mini quick guide.

The player, itself is small (1.45″ x 2.84″ x .6″) and weighs 1.7 ounces, so it’s a great size and weight for a portable player. It’s also very curvy and looks smooth. All this beauty comes at a price, however. The one thing I noticed right away when I started it playing music was that it doesn’t have a clip. Without any kind of belt or shirt clip, I ended up just throwing it in my back pocket, but a clip could have been very handy. I also would have loved to see a small digital display, but I don’t expect that to come bundled with the low price. If I had to pay another dollar for the clip, it would be worth it, though. The player uses a microSD card for storage, so you can have 512MB for a few dollars or as much as 8GB for about $38. I love a device I can upgrade, but I also love a device that comes with a standard power source. The face that it uses a single AAA battery means I can just buy a pair of rechargable batteries and swap them out as needed after about 15 hours of playback without worrying about having to buy an expensive proprietary battery. Next to the standard headphone jack are the volume + and – buttons and the play/pause, forward and back buttons are on the side, accompanied by a little blue LED.

Use your own music
One of the cool things about this is that you can just buy an album already loaded onto a slotMusic card for about $15, you can make your own mix, or both. Sansa was cool enough to send along the Weezer Red Album for me to test with, and I was able to add in some of my own MP3s. The album came with a little USB microSD card reader. I just slipped the card in, dragged some tracks over right from iTunes, and put the card back into the player. OK.. Truthfully, I had to convert the tracks to MP3 in iTunes first, but as long as you have MP3 or DRM-free WMA tracks, you can just drag them into the My Music folder on the slotMusic card and you’re ready to rock. The album also came with a little plastic protective case, and an insert booklet. Not bad for a digital album, but I think they’ll do much better if they make the digital version cheaper than the CD.

Playing music on the go
Navigating through and listening to the music on a slotMusic player is pretty simple. To get started, in needs power. With a little pressure, I slid off the outer shell of the player, inserted the battery, and slide the shell back on. To turn it on, just press the play button for a second and it’ll start playing right away. Everything else is intuitive. For example, if you press the forward or back buttons, it’ll go forward a track or to the beginning of the current track. Press the back button twice quickly to go back a track and hold the forward or back buttons to skip forward or back a little in the current track. Pressing the play/pause button will pause or unpause the playing and holding it for a second will turn the player off. You can use the included headphones or any other headphones with a standard plug. Better still, you can plug the player directly into the Aux port in a newer car to play music through your car’s system. That’ll require a basic cable you have to buy on your own from just about any electronics retailer.

The final thoughts
Sansa is making some good moves in a tough music player market. I initially drooled a bit over the Fuze, but I’m glad Sansa sent this player my way so I could really get an educated opinion of it. Having one in my hand sold me on it a lot more than seeing it online, and now that I’m sold I’m convinced that it’s the best $20 music player that I’ve had the fortune of playing with. The albums are a harder sell, but if you’re looking for a birthday gift for someone, find the right album and pair it with this player for a gift I’m sure they’ll like or just pick one up yourself.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Are We About to Witness a Digital Music Revolution

Joe Tech — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 12:28:47 +0000

Because I run a Gothic and Industrial internet radio station, I get regular mailings and promos from a variety of labels and other sources, including the artists, themselves. A few days ago, my inbox contained an email from beatwire.com with the subject, “Austin label announces “pay what you want” for Mp3s”. I figured I’d save it to read later and I tagged it “important” and moved on.

We all heard about when Radiohead decided to let fans pick their own price for their new album, In Rainbows. When that happened in October of last year, it created a huge buzz and shook the music industry. Many even speculated that this could be the shape of things to come. Those speculators may have been on to something.

Texas Music Forge makes their own rainbows
Today, I was reminded to look back at that email from BeatWire, a music industry press release distributor. The email was about Texas record label, Texas Music Forge‘s decision to allow the consumer to choose what to pay for an MP3 purchase from the relatively new label, and said, in part:

AUSTIN, TEXAS–March 12, 2008–Austin, Texas-based publisher and record label Texas Music Forge announced today that it has begun a pay what you want policy for its mp3 downloads. The concept of allowing customers to download music and set their own price for it has been a topic of intense controversy in the music industry.

TMF really just opened up their mp3s for download and threw a PayPal “donate” button on the page, but how they are doing it isn’t what’s important. The important part is that they decided to grab on with both hands to the concept of giving the consumer the power to decide how much to pay for music. They’re not the only ones putting music in our ipods while keeping cash in our wallets, either.

Trent toes the free music waters
Fellow blogger, Malin recently wrote about Industrial staple Nine Inch Nails‘ move to make their new album, Ghosts, available for only five bucks. With a huge following, NIN has no real need to lower album prices, but why not when you can afford to. Trent Reznor has always had his game face on when it comes to leading the industry and marketing himself and NIN, so this is really no surprise to me. I’m actually a little shocked that more artists haven’t leaned toward the consumer in an effort to attract more people back to actually BUYING music.

The future of music online
The before YouTube choked all the bandwidth out of the internet, there was mp3.com, which CNET bought and all but ruined (but that’s for another article). Mp3.com opened the flood gates for new and unknown artists to get a lot of exposure very easily by just producing good music. It also gave them a platform through which to sell digital copies of their music. Then we saw the birth of iTunes and the 400 companies that have tried to unseat it. I have a feeling that the next progression for music online is individual artists and labels all stepping up to the plate to offer very cheap or donation-based digital album downloads until such a practice becomes nearly mandatory to compete in the industry.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.