Adam says not too much grease ...

[GO-NAD!]

Why not just load your songs to the cloud and then pull whatever you need down to your iphone? Seriously people it's time to join the new decade.

Relax, Dude! First of all, you assume that I have an iphone, or plan to get one. Highly unlikely. What I have works perfectly fine for me. Some people think that when there's a new way of doing things, that it's faster, better and worth the expense. Meh...

 

[Adam]

Why not just load your songs to the cloud and then pull whatever you need down to your iphone?

That might work really well for some, but most of the time here it's sunny.

 

[GO-NAD!]

Jeff gave me a keyboard just for that but I didn't bother reading the manual and figuring out how to do that. Crap, now I can't remember where I put the keyboard. I keep a hand written list but I need to reorganize all that because the alphabetical order took a hit after the initial installment of CD's. I actually don't have a good way of doing that either ... Wordpad? I'd like to somehow organize a folder on the computer with album info but I don't know of an efficient way to do so. Any ideas?

Well, since I have 2 of these changers and 500+ CDs, I figured right from the get-go that I'd need to have some sort of index. I just made tables in Word, with the following column headings: Disc #, Artist and Album Title. I subdivided the index into genres to simplify searching for a particular CD. It took a bit of time at the beginning, but keeping it up to date is no big deal. I get the feeling that time is an asset you are well-blessed with (or cursed, depending on your perspective). I just leave some blank spots at the bottom of the table and enter new albums by hand and every blue moon, update and reprint the index. I keep the index in an Acco binder. That may be a bit too primitive for Isiberian, but it works perfectly well for me.

I started out putting them in alphabetical order also, but that quickly fell by the wayside. You can put them in alphabetical order in your index, with the disc number beside it. As you add new albums to your index, you can just insert a new row in the table right where it needs to go.

Entering the CD info on the CD player is pretty simple. When you plug in the keyboard, the display goes "active", if memory serves. If not, just hit enter and the display goes active. You just type in the info and hit "enter" again, which will save what you typed. Rotate to the next slot and continue. Of course, you don't get many characters on the display, so you have to employ some shorthand that you'll recognize later. In fact, if you create the index, you don't really need to enter any info on the CD player. It was just a preference of mine.

 

[Alex2507]

Why not just load your songs to the cloud and then pull whatever you need down to your iphone? Seriously people it's time to join the new decade.

Just because you've only lived a couple of decades doesn't make the latest the greatest. The decade of the iPhone? The iGeneration? I don't have an iPhone and I don't know what loading songs to a cloud means but since I don't have an iPhone I guess I don't have to worry about that.

Try Songbird:

Songbird - Welcome

Also, why are you using the 300 disc when you can just use the PC????

Can Songbird write CD Text? I really can't afford the time it takes to 'try' it. I'm well into my 40's and my time is running out. I want to know that the approach I take is going to do what I want it to do. The 300 CD changer is a great way to store the CD's. I hate the mess of duct collecting cases and the PC won't play in the car. I don't have an MP3 player yet.

I think using the PC for all that might fill it up pretty quick. I've been primarily concerned with my desktop which has a 160 GB hard drive but my laptop has a 300 GB hard drive and on it I have 155 Bach CD's ripped and some other stuff I picked up. I need to get that off my computer as it overfilled one side of the hard drive or maybe it has a partition or two drives, whatever. It completely choked my laptop until I moved some of the music to another drive. I installed iTunes on that and it put the songs in alphabetical order instead of putting the albums in alphabetical order and now I can't unscramble it. I might try reinstalling iTunes to see if I can organize that a bit better or maybe just going with a different media player.

Before I invest the time in going with any plan I want to sort of mull over my options.

 

[JohnA]

Alex,

Any music program, i.e. songbird, WMP, iTunes will let you add metadata to the CD file. You can edit/add info to the file.

External hard drives are cheap you can get a 2TB external drive for under $150. It should take you a while to fill up 2TB

 

[MDS]

It just occurred to me that my car probably doesn't play CD-R's so that's another strike taken away from iTunes. Let me get something else asked while I'm here. My rips are WMA Lossless. Would there be an advantage to having them as WAV? When I burn them to a disc any player that can read a CD-R will be capable of playing them back? WMA and WAV are ways of 'encoding' the music to be stored on a computer? I'll likely Google that stuff to but the short sweet answers are why I'm here.

EDIT: I just realized I had Nero. Is anybody familiar with that for making burns with CD Text?

If the car cd player can read an audio CD-R it doesn't necessarily mean it can read and play a data CD-R. Most newer ones can read MP3 and WMA (lossy).

An audio CD does not contain 'files'. It is PCM samples arranged in spirals and interleaved with error checking codes (CIRC this time). This is the so called 'redbook' format (because the spec is defined in a book with a red cover - clever isn't it?)

Now when you 'rip' a CD (technical term 'digital audio extraction') the ripper is following the spirals and collecting the data into individual tracks and it makes a file to save on the computer. What type of file is dependent on what the ripper is capable of and what you told it to do. You can save the raw PCM samples as a WAV file and it will be lossless because it is the exact data that was read from the CD plus a header preceding that data with information such as bit depth, sample rate, number of channels, etc.

If you burn a CD-R with 'files' it is not an audio CD, it is a data CD and will not play in a regular CD player. The players that can 'play' MP3 or WMA do so by reading the files, decoding them, and playing them.

So you have to choose a format your player knows how to read and decode. Burning MP3 or WMA files to a data CD for playback in a car or elsewhere is convenient because you can get hundreds of songs on one disc, rather than ~15 were it an audio CD.

I haven't used Nero in a long while (nor burned any CDs for that matter) but it can burn nearly all known formats.

 

[Alex2507]

Speaking of data CD's, I burned one of those with WMP and it would not play in anything but the computer. Is that what metadata is? I quickly Googled that and thought it was the same thing as CD Text which will play and be read by the Sony. I have to go but thanks and I'll be back with better questions.

You guys check your User CP. That's where the thank-yous are.

 

[MDS]

Speaking of data CD's, I burned one of those with WMP and it would not play in anything but the computer. Is that what metadata is? I quickly Googled that and thought it was the same thing as CD Text which will play and be read by the Sony.

Metadata is 'data about data'; in other words, it's information describing what some other information means. ID3 tags you find in MP3 files are metadata - they describe what type of information is in the file, namely a song by this artist, from that album, released in some year, etc.

A data CD is just a CD that contains files. Just like a hard drive or a USB flash drive. If the file types support some kind of embedded metadata then you can know what is in the file; if it does not then you need some other (external) way to know what the file contains.

 

[Alex2507]

Okay, an update about the car ... it can play the CD-R's I burned with WMP from the desktop without any issue. It can not play the CD-R that was burned with iTunes containing CD-Text from my laptop.

Oooh-Ooooh ... look what I just found !!!

http://www.ehow.com/how_7206210_burn-cd_text-windows-media-player.html

I think it's there !!! I can't look at it right now but I can't wait until I can !!!

Google is awesome.

 

[Alex2507]

That was a dead end. After snooping some more I found this and downloaded it before fully understanding that it didn't burn CD Text but only allowed WMP to read CD Text. Okay back to square one. I guess I should check out Nero ... maybe Songbird and maybe figure out how to make iTunes behave with the way it has organized my music on the laptop ... too many options, too much to learn ... but at least I can rip and burn CD's that play in the car. Glad about that.

 

[Adam]

Hmmm. I've used iTunes on PCs for years and never had an issue playing a disc in my car (Prelude for years, then the Fusion). How are you making the discs using iTunes?

Does your car system have a way to plug in an auxilary source?

 

[Alex2507]

Hmmm. I've used iTunes on PCs for years and never had an issue playing a disc in my car (Prelude for years, then the Fusion). How are you making the discs using iTunes?

Does your car system have a way to plug in an auxilary source?

I need to say that I've had my head up my a$$ regarding the iTunes recorded CD Text containing CD-R not playing in my car. I just took it out of my 300 CD Changer and walked outside to retest this after examining the 'Properties' of the original and burned version. Anyway it played in the car no sweat. I could have sworn that it didn't work before.

I had a Mac owning iTunes loving buddy come over and try to reach me how to do this. That one disc was the lesson. We ripped and burned it from the original. iTunes is my answer for that. I made that one and am pretty confident that I can make that happen again with ripped CD's. Please excuse all this jabber about something I was completely wrong about.

The fofo doesn't have an auxiliary input. The newer Malibu might. Why do you ask?

Now to shift gears I need to figure out how to get iTunes to do something better with like 3800 songs stored on my laptop that I don't know how to organize by album as opposed to having them organized by song. I'll have a look to see if I can do stuff with them from the music folders I have on 2 separate drives as opposed to from the iTunes list. I'll ask smarter questions after I've spent more time toying with that. Right now I feel chagrined.

Off to watch Grimm w/ the girl. Back later.

 

[Adam]

Off to watch Grimm w/ the girl. Back later.

Enjoy! I'll be watching that in about 25 minutes.

 

[Alex2507]

Okay, everybody can go to sleep now. I got my desktop to let me stay logged onto AH by unchecking 'private browsing mode' in FF and I got iTunes burning CD's w/Text from my laptop. This music was all stored as WAV ... a couple of years ago.

What.

It just occurred to me that I could be using those Moshi earbuds with my laptop like the other cool kids.

GN, it's happening! The iForce is with me !!!

Oh, I should have thought of this before. I tested it out with some Janis Joplin but I didn't have the jack pushed in all the way so I thought I was going deaf in my right ear. Then I must have hit something by accident because this German lady with the voice of an angel sang something into my ear that makes me say Janis who ??? Bach it seems knew that one day I would be sitting here with some won Moshi ear buds putting it all together in the middle of the night. Then some organ music, now harpsichord ... yeah, this is working for me. Hey GN! Move to America like I did so you can enter these contests ... or just buy some. These Vortex ones have a Mic Button that's supported by Apple iOS devices.

Oh Fraulein ...

 

[GO-NAD!]

It just occurred to me that I could be using those Moshi earbuds with my laptop like the other cool kids.

I can picture it now: Alex hangin' out with his skateboarding buddies, bobbing his head (leave it alone, Adam) to the tunes with his Moshi earbuds....and his laptop stuck under his arm.

GN, it's happening! The iForce is with me !!!

Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.

Hey GN! Move to America like I did so you can enter these contests ... or just buy some. These Vortex ones have a Mic Button that's supported by Apple iOS devices.

I gripe about the contests, but not in a serious way. I realize that shipping to Canada would incur additional costs. I'm sure we'd all be willing to pay those extra charges, if we were allowed to enter. There may some legality issues that precludes us from entering. Dunno...

I recently bought some Klipsch S4 buds that I'm pretty happy with. I say pretty happy, not ecstatic, because out of the 3 pairs of ear inserts that come with them, none are a perfect fit. The mediums are a tad loose, so I have to wind the wires around my ears to keep them in. It looks really cool. The large ones are just too big.

Another issue, that I can't really blame the earbuds for, but you might find amusing, is that when I wear them on my treadmill, the static build-up from running on the rubber surface gives me tiny shocks in my ears unless I hold the treadmill rail to give me a good ground. After I run for a few minutes and generate enough sweat to ground the earbuds to my ears, the shocks subside. I just look at it as free therapy. I might try to gear up a grounding strap...

Bach it seems knew that one day I would be sitting here with some won Moshi ear buds putting it all together in the middle of the night.

I'm getting the distinct impression that you are Bach aficionado. I have a limited number of Bach CDs:

The Brandenburg Concertos from The Baroque Experience: C/Hogwood;C-Academy of Hogwood: Amazon.ca: Music

The Goldberg Variations: Johann Sebastian Bach: Amazon.ca: Music

and

Bach Organ Blaster: Johann Sebastian Bach: Amazon.ca: Music

Anything else that you could recommend? Sorry for derailing your thread.

 

[Alex2507]

I'm getting the distinct impression that you are Bach aficionado.
Anything else that you could recommend? Sorry for derailing your thread.

The only reason these posts aren't scattered throughout TBT is because ... wait, I'm not sure why but now that my desktop is working and I can burn CD's a couple of different ways I'm happy to talk about music or whatever else.

The reason I have so much Bach is because way back Jostenmeat had said that this Complete Works of Bach compilation was a great value (it was cheaper then) for 155 CD's. The deal is that the performances and recording qualities are unknowns but they're all here. I'm hearing the vast majority of these works for the first time and my level of appreciation is largely mood dependent ... that is to say that I don't know my @ss from my elbow.

As an example one of the CD's is this recording. I can listen and enjoy or not but I don't have anything to compare it to.

 

[GO-NAD!]

The only reason these posts aren't scattered throughout TBT is because ... wait, I'm not sure why but now that my desktop is working and I can burn CD's a couple of different ways I'm happy to talk about music or whatever else.

The reason I have so much Bach is because way back Jostenmeat had said that this Complete Works of Bach compilation was a great value (it was cheaper then) for 155 CD's. The deal is that the performances and recording qualities are unknowns but they're all here. I'm hearing the vast majority of these works for the first time and my level of appreciation is largely mood dependent ... that is to say that I don't know my @ss from my elbow.

As an example one of the CD's is this recording. I can listen and enjoy or not but I don't have anything to compare it to.

I was looking at that very same collection yesterday @ amazon.ca. And guess what - it's only $5 more than @ amazon.com! They're obviously not paying attention and should be gouging us more. But, it really doesn't matter, because I don't think I want that much Bach.

 

[Alex2507]

I don't think I want that much Bach.

Read: I'm tighter than a bull's @ss in gnat season.

It's a great collection and it's broken up in different categories of works. I'll never get all that figured out but this is different than owning the complete works of Emerson, Lake and Palmer.

Hearing everything Bach ever wrote at least once in my life ... what could be wrong with that?

 

[Adam]

These Vortex ones have a Mic Button that's supported by Apple iOS devices.

FYI - works on my non-Apple phone, too.

I can picture it now: Alex hangin' out with his skateboarding buddies, bobbing his head (leave it alone, Adam)...

Anything for you, man.

The mediums are a tad loose...The large ones are just too big.

Ahhh, come on! Leaving...it...alone...

 

[GO-NAD!]

Anything for you, man.

Anything?