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Have you ever wanted to edit your MP3 files? Say, cut out an intro to a song, or do a fade-in or fade-out? MP3DirectCut will do that for you, and without having to re-compress the file, which can reduce fidelity. 1by1 is a simple MP3 player that will play a full directory of songs without having to create a playlist. The best part: both programs are free -- "no nags, no ads, no spyware". From This is True for 22 February 2004 Suggestions for further reading:
 By: Jude BiersdorferDavid Pogue List Price: $19.99 Amazon Price: $13.59 Editorial Review: Product Description With iPod touch, Apple's sleek little entertainment center has entered a whole new realm, and the ultimate iPod book is ready to take you on a complete guided tour. As breathtaking and satisfying as its subject, iPod: The Missing Manual gives you a no-nonsense view of everything in the "sixth generation" iPod line. Learn what you can do with iPod Touch and its multi-touch interface, 3.5-inch widescreen display and Wi-Fi browsing capabilities. Get to know the redesigned iPod Nano with its larger display and video storage capacity. It's all right here. The 6th edition sports easy-to-follow color graphics, crystal-clear explanations, and guidance on the most useful things your iPod can do. Topics include: Out of the box and into your ears. Learn how to install iTunes, load music on your iPod, and get rid of that dang flashing "Do not disconnect" message. Bopping around the iPod. Whether you've got a tiny Shuffle, a Nano, the Classic, or the new Touch, you'll learn everything from turning your iPod off and on to charging your iPod without a computer. Special coverage for iPod owners with trickster friends: How to reset the iPod's menus to English if they've been changed to, say, Korean. In tune with iTunes. iTunes can do far more than your father's jukebox. Learn how to pick and choose which parts of your iTunes library loads onto your iPod, how to move your sacred iTunes Folder to a bigger hard drive, and how to add album covers to your growing collection. The power of the 'Pod. Download movies and TV shows, play photo slideshows, find cool podcasts, and more: this book shows you how to unleash all your iPod's power. iPod is simply the best music player available, and this is the manualthat should have come with it. Amazon Exclusive: VIP Tips and Tricks for iPod Users iTunes Store Tip: Future Shopping Many people use Amazon's Wish List feature for tagging items they want to remember to buy at a later date--and you can do the same thing with music and videos for sale in the iTunes Store. To get started, make a new playlist in iTunes by pressing Control-N on Windows or Command-N on a Mac. Name the new playlist "Wish List" or something memorable like "My Next Paycheck." If you want to keep it extra handy (and on top of all your other playlists), add an "@" symbol to the beginning of the name so the wish list stays on top of the alphabetical pile of playlists in your iTunes window. When you browse the Store later and find a song or video you want to eventually buy, drag its 30-second preview snippet right out of the iTunes Store window and onto the new wish-list playlist you made. Those 30-second snippets will hang out there as a reminder that you want to buy the song or video; if you change your mind, select the track and hit the Delete key to remove it. But if you do want to follow through and make the purchase, you just have to click that big BUY SONG or BUY EPISODE button next to the title to get transported back into the Store to seal the deal. iPod Audio Book Tip: Adjusting the Speed of the Read The iPod is great for listening to audio books, and both Audible.com and the iTunes Store offer thousands of them for sale. But if you find a particular book's narrator is talking too slow or too fast for your personal liking, you can adjust the pace of the reading. Just go to the Settings menu on the main iPod menu screen and select Audiobooks. On the next screen, you can opt to make the playback speed slower or faster than normal. And you can do this without affecting the pitch of the voice and making it sound either like the book is being read underwater or recited by a chipmunk. If you want to adjust the playback speed while you're listening to the audio book file itself, press the iPod's center button a few times. On most models, the audio book speed controls will appear on screen after a few taps and you can change your reading speed on the fly. iTunes Tip: Grooving Out with the Visualizer If you've been working hard all day and want to take a little music break at your desk, give your eyeballs and treat and let your mind wander with the iTunes Visualizer. This swirling laser-light show is built right into iTunes itself and you can turn it on by going to the View menu and choosing "Turn On Visualizer" (or by pressing Control-T in Windows or Command-T on a Mac keyboard). With the Visualizer turned on, choreographed bursts of color accompany your music as it plays. If you want to adjust the size of the Visualizer window — or even make it take over your full computer screen — pop into the iTunes preferences box by pressing Control-comma (Windows) or Command-comma (Mac). In the Preferences box, click the Advanced tab and choose the size of your visuals from the options at the bottom of the box, then click OK. And if you want to get even deeper into the Visualizer, press the question mark keys on the computer keyboard next time you're chilling out to the light show. A hidden menu of other Visualizer configurations and commands appears on screen for you to play with.  By: David Pogue List Price: $24.95 Amazon Price: $16.47 Editorial Review: Whether you're a professional musician or a mere novice, Apple's GarageBand software has everything you need to produce commercial-quality recordings entirely on your own. Just imagine how many thousands of singers and instrumentalists remain undiscovered because they lack the capability to produce viable demos. Well, no more. Now there's no need to assemble a backup band or book time at a professional studio--GarageBand has it covered. And GarageBand 2: The Missing Manual gives you the know-how you need to make it all happen. It's an authoritative, witty guide to constructing digital recordings with GarageBand. Written by the master of the Missing Manual series, and a musician himself, David Pogue, this top-selling book shows you how to maximize the program's entire set of tools. Pre-recorded loops, sampled sounds, live recordings--they're all explained in easy-to-understand language. It also shows you how to apply professional-sounding effects like reverb or chorusing, and then export the finished product to iTunes, where you can download your work to an iPod, export it as an MP3, or burn it onto CDs. Now revised to reflect GarageBand's latest features, this book's second edition also addresses how to: use GarageBand's eight-track capabilities display music notation in real time enhance timing and pitch for better quality recordings change the tempo and key of recorded instruments tune guitars with GarageBand before recording So if you're chasing a dream or just having fun, GarageBand 2: The Missing Manual is the only resource you need to make the finest musical recordings possible.  By: Russell Dean Vines List Price: $24.99 Amazon Price: $16.49 Editorial Review: Pump up your tunes with beats, lyrics, and harmonies This book and a computer — all you need to start composing& your own digital music Want to write your own digital music? This friendly guide explains the basics of composing great tunes with the hottest digital tools. You'll see how to work with the latest hardware and software, build your first tune and saveit in different formats, and add instruments to your score. With the included templates, you'll be making music in no time! Discover how to: Write and arrange digital music Determine what — if any — equipment you need Compose your ownringtones and MP3s Compose with the MIDI controller Publish your creations on the Internet  By: Larry StarrChristopher Waterman List Price: $74.95 Amazon Price: $67.46 Editorial Review: In American Popular Music: From Minstrelsy to MP3, Second Edition, Larry Starr and Christopher Waterman examine popular music in the United States from its beginnings into the 21st century, offering a comprehensive look at the music, the cultural history of the times, and the connections between them. Using well-chosen examples, insightful commentaries, and an engaging writing style, this text traces the development of jazz, blues, country, rock, Motown, hip-hop, and other popular styles, highlighting the contributions of diverse groups to the creation of distinctly American styles. It combines an in-depth treatment of the music itself--including discussions of stylistic elements and analyses of musical examples--with solid coverage of the music's attendant historical, social, and cultural circumstances. The authors incorporate strong pedagogy including numerous boxed inserts on significant individuals, recordings, and intriguing topics; coverage of early American popular music; and a rich illustration program. Detailed listening charts explain the most important elements of recordings discussed at length in the text. The charts are complemented by two in-text audio CDs and--new to this edition--an iMix published at iTunes, which makes most of the songs immediately available to students and instructors. Features of the Second Edition * Integrates full color throughout * Provides more coverage of women artists, with new material on women in rock 'n' roll in Chapter 8 and a box on Queen Latifah in Chapter 14 * Reorganizes the discussion of post-1970s music: disco is now included with mainstream 70s pop, while hip-hop is treated in two chapters (12 and 14) in order to emphasize its significance and diversity * Adds new material on the recent alternative country music explosion * Includes new developments in music technology in the thoroughly revised concluding chapter * Offers revised and more vivid visual elements, including more than 100 new photos (most in full color) and an illustrated timeline * Provides redesigned listening guides, enhanced by an iMix published at iTunes (accessible at www.oup.com/us/popmusic) * Supplemented by a Companion Website at www.oup.com/us/popmusic (containing both student and instructor resources) and an Instructor's Manual and a Computerized Test Bank on CD * FREE with the purchase of this book: a 6-month subscription to Grove Music Online (www.grovemusic.com)--a $180 value Remarkably accessible, American Popular Music, Second Edition, is ideal for courses in American Popular Music, the History of Popular Music, Popular Music in American Culture, and the History of Rock 'n' Roll. Its welcoming style and warm tone will captivate readers, encouraging them to become more critically aware listeners of popular music.  By: Marc Fisher List Price: $27.95 Amazon Price: $18.45 Editorial Review: A sweeping, anecdotal account of the great sounds and voices of radio–and how it became a bonding agent for a generation of American youth When television became the next big thing in broadcast entertainment, everyone figured video would kill the radio star–and radio, period. But radio came roaring back with a whole new concept. The war was over, the baby boom was on, the country was in clover, and a bold new beat was giving the syrupy songs of yesteryear a run for their money. Add transistors, 45 rpm records, and a young man named Elvis to the mix, and the result was the perfect storm that rocked, rolled, and reinvented radio. Visionary entrepreneurs like Todd Storz pioneered the Top 40 concept, which united a generation. But it took trendsetting “disc jockeys” like Alan Freed, Murray the K, Wolfman Jack, Cousin Brucie, and their fast-talking, too-cool-for-school counterparts across the land to turn time, temperature, and the same irresistible hit tunes played again and again into the ubiquitous sound track of the fifties and sixties. The Top 40 sound broke through racial barriers, galvanized coming-of-age kids (and scandalized their perplexed parents), and provided the insistent, inescapable backbeat for times that were a-changin’. Along with rock-and-roll music came the attitude that would literally change the “voice” of radio forever, via the likes of raconteur Jean Shepherd, who captivated his loyal following of “Night People”; the inimitable Bob Fass, whose groundbreaking Radio Unnameable inaugurated the anything-goes free-form style that would come to define the alternative frontier of FM; and a small-time Top 40 deejay who would ultimately find national fame as a political talk-show host named Rush Limbaugh. From Hunter Hancock, who pushed beyond the limits of 1950s racial segregation with rhythm and blues and hepcat patter, to Howard Stern, who blew through all the limits with a blue streak of outrageous on-air antics; from the heyday of summer songs that united carefree listeners to the latter days of political talk that divides contentious callers; from the haze of classic rock to the latest craze in hip-hop, Something in the Air chronicles the extraordinary evolution of the unique and timeless medium that captured our hearts and minds, shook up our souls, tuned in–and turned on–our consciousness, and went from being written off to rewriting the rules of pop culture. |
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