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Author Topic: Crash course in MUSIC: mp3/meta_Data/compilations/download_sites  (Read 18722 times)

tomos

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okay I'm asking a lot here - I'm a modern music virgin - I got as far as cd's and stopped evolving
If there's any sites out the that might help do let me know :)
Over the last couple years I've saved stuff on the topic from the web in Surfulater but it's more about ripping music - which I havent quite gotten around to yet ...

I've been downloading music from a site where people share music copied from old 78's (or even earlier stuff)
The download is usually a mp3 file of some sort, then they have a metadata xml file

1)  Question: If I save both mp3 and meta.xml file, I presume I need some programme (player/organiser/both?) which also reads the xml file (hints/recommendations?)
Sometimes they offer Flac / Ogg Vorbis / Wave files e.g.

2)  General question: I want to know - if I wanted to produce a cd compilation that could be played on pretty much any cd player which format (if any of the above) would be the best to use ? - This may be too difficult for me in the sense if it's too much work I'll probably say feck it and use mp3s.
(I'll ask at a later stage how to make the compilation :) - for starters I have the thread about how to standardise mp3 sound levels currently open)
I wanted to buy some music online
came across two sites
First,
Amazon.com sounds good and reasonable - for albums at any rate, certainly a lot better than iTunes
unfortunately the beggars only sell to the US
Can international customers buy MP3 Music from Amazon.com?

At this time music downloads are only available to customers using a credit or debit card issued by a U.S bank with a U.S. billing address. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you. We're working to build a successful store on Amazon.com and hope to adapt it to our other Web sites in the future. Please continue to check back for additional information on supported locations.
That credit cards are so international I didnt think it would be such a problem but maybe there's more to it than that ..

Another site I came across which has a lot of interesting music (not so much top 40 I think) is Ligamusic.com
I get the impression from the second link below that they actually make agreements with the labels they work with but this could very well be untrue (they apparently dont have some major labels but that could be just cause they're scared of them) - tracks I looked at were  $0.15 each ...
Couple of reviews of sorts:
http://www.mouthshut...ic.com-146008-1.html   - says music is reasonable quality "192Kbps+ VBR, LAME -alt-preset-standard"
http://trig.com/kage...2008/6/20/post/49396
This the scary one - says it's a spam referrer:
http://www.utahpictu...mp;ip=91.149.183.235
-
3) Any opinions/ other recommendations ?
-
thanks for any help,
Tom
Tom

Lashiec

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Re: Crash course in MUSIC: mp3/meta_Data/compilations/download_sites
« Reply #1 on: September 08, 2008, 04:27 PM »
1) By the looks of it, you're probably downloading music from Archive.org. I'm unaware of players recognizing .xml files with metadata, mostly because it's unnecessary as most file formats have their own tagging system, so in theory those MP3s should be correctly tagged. If not, either someone comes up with a recommendation, or you have to do it by hand.

2) If possible, get FLAC, it's smaller than WAVE, it has support for tags, so when burning the files the program will recognize them, and label the CD correctly (for CD-TEXT, although it's not that important), and they're easier to work with as well.

Between Vorbis and WAVE, which to choose as a second option is difficult. Vorbis is far smaller due to being lossy, but burning it to a CD will yield a negligible loss in quality (it depends on how good it's the decoder), and uses tags. WAVE, on the other hand, is lossless, but it's bigger and does not have support for tags, so it's not really an option if you intend to do something else with the file after burning it.

MP3 is a choice similar to Vorbis, except that is practically ubiquitous, and it's practically impossible to find a player that does not support it, which is not always the same with FLAC and Vorbis (WMP, QuickTime, iTunes and similar apps do not play them out of the box). Vorbis used to be of higher quality than MP3, but the LAME encoder quickly closed the gap, although no one assures you if the MP3s you download were encoded with LAME.

3) Duh, difficult question. The real reason why Amazon can't sell you music is because they also have to renegotiate the rights for the European market. While the credit card restriction is probably true (although I can buy other items from Amazon without problem), even if it wasn't, Amazon would get in trouble if they sold music to markets outside its agreement with labels and music copyright associations.

It's the first time I hear about Ligamusic, but a quick gaze over the Terms and Conditions page mentions something about the Russian Multimedia and Internet Society, which leads me to think this is something similar to AllOfMP3, which also claimed it was legal because they paid royalties to this copyright association. While this seems to make the business legal in Russia, I'm unaware if they also makes it legal outside it. The RIAA and other associations claims that it does, but the company that started AllOfMP3 opened new sites after the others were taking down, and they continue to operate normally under the Russian law, so at least they're quasi-legal.

In any case, I would be wary of putting my credit card details in a site that does have so little references on the net.

Personally, my recommendation is to continue to buy good old-fashioned CDs. Or LPs if you fancy :)
« Last Edit: September 08, 2008, 04:30 PM by Lashiec »

tomos

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Re: Crash course in MUSIC: mp3/meta_Data/compilations/download_sites
« Reply #2 on: December 10, 2008, 06:42 AM »
3) Duh, difficult question. The real reason why Amazon can't sell you music is because they also have to renegotiate the rights for the European market. While the credit card restriction is probably true (although I can buy other items from Amazon without problem), even if it wasn't, Amazon would get in trouble if they sold music to markets outside its agreement with labels and music copyright associations.

Amazon now selling mp3s in UK
http://www.amazon.co...pe_09/?node=77197031

mp3-nonUK-alert._V240075186_.gif

dont know does that include rest of Europe - I presume, as I got a mail from them & I not in UK
[but maybe not - that looks pretty definite]
Tom

Lashiec

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Re: Crash course in MUSIC: mp3/meta_Data/compilations/download_sites
« Reply #3 on: December 10, 2008, 06:48 AM »
That's pretty cool! I hope they continue to expand the catalog (to satisfy some of my niche preferences :P), and the buying options in a near future.

app103

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Re: Crash course in MUSIC: mp3/meta_Data/compilations/download_sites
« Reply #4 on: December 16, 2008, 01:48 AM »
Well, here is a great way to easily fill up your hard drive full of music, discover tons of great stuff you would probably never know about any other way, and do it all legally...for free:

  • Download and install Juice (or a really good podcast downloading client of your choice)
  • Do a tag search on last.fm for the type of music you are interested in. (I provided you with one seasonally appropriate)
  • Select a tag from the list and click to go to that tag's page.
  • On the right side, there will be a list of free downloads (if you don't see this, pick another tag)
  • Beneath the list is a podcast RSS icon.
  • Right click the icon and copy the target URL.
  • Subscribe to that RSS url in your podcast client.
  • Enjoy tons of new music.


Music_Guy

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Re: Crash course in MUSIC: mp3/meta_Data/compilations/download_sites
« Reply #5 on: December 19, 2008, 03:17 PM »
For music format for a compilation, just know that in .WAV, you won't loose any sound quality from the original music files. MP3's won't sound as good however if you convert to MP3 files and set them for 192 kbps or higher, you won't hear too much of a difference compared to a wave on regular everyday speakers. 128 kbps or lower though and you'll hear a big chunk of 'meat' missing on the overall sound.

For downloading music legally, you should first decide whether you want a pay-per-song / album site, or a music subsciption service where you usually pay a monthly fee (roughly $12-$15) and have unlimited access in most cases to the site's complete library of music of millions of songs. You might want to think of how many songs a month you download, figure $1 a song at a pay site, and see which would save you money in the long run.

If you are seriously interested in a download site or service, feel free to check out my site where I compare legal music download sites with complete reviews (including Amazon which was mentioned above), a comparison chart, you name it:

www.comparemusicdownloadsites.com

To save you time though, if a music subscription srvice interests you, you can check out Rhapsody. These guys are at the top of our list, followed by eMusic and then Napster which took a huge turn since the Metallica days and really have a great service going right now.

All the best!
Compare Music Download Sites - Compare the top music download sites and find the right legal site to [url http://www.comparemusicdownloadsites.com]download music[/url] according to your downloading habits.

roduke41

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Re: Crash course in MUSIC: mp3/meta_Data/compilations/download_sites
« Reply #6 on: December 22, 2008, 05:56 AM »
 :( Hi you all & Happy Holidays!

I have bveen gifted a miniatrure sized MP3 which I suppose is usual. Have no idea how to record (classical) music, nor are there any instructions.

Will be obliged if you can direct me to a site that will explain the process of copying from my desktop to it.  Thank you.  RO

tomos

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Re: Crash course in MUSIC: mp3/meta_Data/compilations/download_sites
« Reply #7 on: February 07, 2009, 02:59 PM »
going back to basics

how do you all tend to name music files - I mean the file itself -
I can see that this could depend on how you're going to organise them -
so far I have a bunch of single (individual) tracks but I want to start ripping albums
Albums organisation and file naming I guess could be:-
Artist / Album / # TrackName.mp3

but I can see advantages to naming files:-
Artist - Album - # TrackName.mp3
e.g.
Bob Dylan - The Bootleg Series Vol. 7 - 2-11 Ballad of a Thin Man.mp3
(which makes for a very long file name - I'd probably remove the period too)

I realise that tagging is probably more important but thought I'd ask in case and "before it's too late" ...
Had a look at this thread but got a headache lol
http://forums.whirlp...hive.cfm/919861.html  *

and then to complicate things there's Armando's thread about File Names : what should be avoided but I wouldnt lose any sleep about having spaces or hyphens in names


* [edit] from there, this sound good:
where possible, I use this

E:\Artist\yyyy - Album\Artist - Album - ## - Title.mp3

bootlegs, where possible
E:\Artist\yyyy-mm-dd - Venue\Artist - yyyy-mm-dd - Venue - ## - Title.mp3
-
a follow on question would be:
if I organise / correct the tags first is there a renamer (preferably free/donation-ware) that could rename using the tags info ? (Curt mentions File Renamer Turbo here Why was I recommended Screamer Radio? but that's about 20$)
Tom
« Last Edit: February 07, 2009, 04:18 PM by tomos »

roduke41

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Re: Crash course in MUSIC: mp3/meta_Data/compilations/download_sites
« Reply #8 on: February 08, 2009, 09:50 AM »
Gosh, Tomos, your "Going Back to Basics" as relates to NAMING MUSIC FILES & follow-on question all very interesting (and far beyond my competence), but what does it have to do with my posting?

I'm simply trying to move some hopefully-free classsical music from a website to the USB-connected MP3. With your expertise I'm sure you can tell me exactly what to do, but your Reply 7 certainly doesn't do it!


tomos

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Re: Crash course in MUSIC: mp3/meta_Data/compilations/download_sites
« Reply #9 on: February 08, 2009, 11:25 AM »
Gosh, Tomos, your "Going Back to Basics" as relates to NAMING MUSIC FILES & follow-on question all very interesting (and far beyond my competence), but what does it have to do with my posting?

LOL, Roduke, answer is "nothing"
I'm about as knowledgeable as you - as the original poster in this thread I was following up on my earlier questions.

you say
> I'm simply trying to move some hopefully-free classsical music from a website to the USB-connected MP3.
-
well first you'll have to save the music to your harddrive - if you have trouble doing that you could name the website and I (or someone else) could have a look.
In order to get more of a response, I reckon you will need to give more details as to what exactly you want to do, maybe what mp3 player you got (I'm presuming it's an mp3 player you mean), - did your player come with software - have you installed that or any other music related software, and anything else you might think relevant.
Tom

xtabber

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Re: Crash course in MUSIC: mp3/meta_Data/compilations/download_sites
« Reply #10 on: February 08, 2009, 12:17 PM »
Regardless of the format you download, if you want to play your compilation in most CD players (that is, not computer CD drives or MP3 players) you will need to burn audio CDs in CD-Digital Audio format (CD-DA).

MP3 (or Apple's AAC equivalent) files are great for listening from appropriate devices but they are not as good for burning CDs. MP3 is a lossy format which tries to adapt to the way the human ear hears sounds when compressing music, but you make the perceived sound worse when converting from a lossy format to CD audio because the information restored is not identical to what was removed originally.

What this means is that for archival purposes and for burning CDs you should use a lossless format such as flac, which is smaller than uncompressed WAVE files and allows you to attach metadata as tags.  Of course, if your original source is MP3, you are stuck with what you've got and won't be able to get any better quality from it anyhow.

There are a wide variety of free programs out there that will let you rip and burn CDs and convert between different audio formats, but for nearly all of this kind of thing, I use Easy CD-DA Extractor from Poikosoft  (http://www.poikosoft.com/ - 25 euros) which puts all the tools you need in one extremely convenient package and does it all as well as the best of the individual programs.

Lashiec

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Re: Crash course in MUSIC: mp3/meta_Data/compilations/download_sites
« Reply #11 on: February 09, 2009, 07:28 AM »
[Original post]

I use the following scheme:
 <Artist>\(<Year>) <Album>\<Disc Number>.<Track Number>. Track Title

Some renamers should be able to rename and even organize the files in directory trees (the one I use, ReNamer, surely does), but there's the problem of format support, and that you need another program to edit the tags, which most of the time also has the ability to rename the files according to the tags and the scheme you prefer. For options, refer to this thread

tomos

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Re: Crash course in MUSIC: mp3/meta_Data/compilations/download_sites
« Reply #12 on: February 09, 2009, 09:02 AM »
I use the following scheme:
 <Artist>\(<Year>) <Album>\<Disc Number>.<Track Number>. Track Title

Some renamers should be able to rename and even organize the files in directory trees (the one I use, ReNamer, surely does), but there's the problem of format support, and that you need another program to edit the tags, which most of the time also has the ability to rename the files according to the tags and the scheme you prefer. For options, refer to this thread

thanks Lashiec,
I've properly tagged what files I have (well reasonably..) using mp3tag as recommended by that thread.
I'm not going to bother renaming the mixed bag of tracks that I have - so long as they're properly tagged I'll survive. (But I will give that thread a closer look and I can always rename them again)

But for any new ripped tracks I'll try and set some nmaing standard along those lines
cheers, Tom
Tom

roduke41

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Re: Crash course in MUSIC: mp3/meta_Data/compilations/download_sites
« Reply #13 on: February 09, 2009, 12:57 PM »
Thanks, Tomas.
What I have is a tiny gizmo little more than one inch square which with USB connection plays music already installed -- but using only a fraction of its 512mb.

The instructions consist of a diagram of the unit with its off-on/volume/pause/play/previous track/next track/ buttons.

I expected to be able to copy/transfer/move from a website with classical music to the mp3. From what you say I'd best forget it as being beyond my competence.

tomos

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Re: Crash course in MUSIC: mp3/meta_Data/compilations/download_sites
« Reply #14 on: February 09, 2009, 03:17 PM »
I expected to be able to copy/transfer/move from a website with classical music to the mp3. From what you say I'd best forget it as being beyond my competence.
well,
if you're willing to say what the website is someone could tell you step by step -
if it's reasonably basic stuff I could help - I know very little about this stuff (music in particular) but I reckon I could figure it out.

With classical music I would imagine there are safe sites with free music out there (ANYone got any ideas on that one there?)
Tom

roduke41

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Re: Crash course in MUSIC: mp3/meta_Data/compilations/download_sites
« Reply #15 on: February 09, 2009, 04:49 PM »
Thanks for the encouragement, Tomas.
If colleague comes up with needed website we can go from there.

Lashiec

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Re: Crash course in MUSIC: mp3/meta_Data/compilations/download_sites
« Reply #16 on: February 10, 2009, 06:55 AM »
With classical music I would imagine there are safe sites with free music out there (ANYone got any ideas on that one there?)

Deutsche Grammophon. On classical music, it does not get better than that, I think :). Plenty of shopping options as well, including FLAC (w00t!)

app103

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Re: Crash course in MUSIC: mp3/meta_Data/compilations/download_sites
« Reply #17 on: February 13, 2009, 11:17 AM »
a follow on question would be[/u]:
if I organise / correct the tags first is there a renamer (preferably free/donation-ware) that could rename using the tags info ?

Yup: mp3tag  :D

Mp3tag is a powerful and yet easy-to-use tool to edit metadata (ID3, Vorbis Comments and APE) of common audio formats. It can rename files based on the tag information, replace characters or words from tags and filenames, import/export tag information, create playlists and more. The program supports online freedb database lookups for selected files, allowing you to automatically gather proper tag information for select files or CDs.

tomos

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Re: Crash course in MUSIC: mp3/meta_Data/compilations/download_sites
« Reply #18 on: November 30, 2009, 04:08 AM »
I prefer mp3Tag Pro. I like that this application can read and write OGG tags, WMA tags, M4a/MP4 tags, AAC tags, APE tags, FLAC tags, MPC tags, WV tags, WAV tags.

mp3Tag Pro seems to get a lot of first time posters recommending it...

I actually tried MP3 Tag Pro a month or two ago & I didn't think it was all that impressive from what I recall. There are much better solutions available.
Tom

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Re: Crash course in MUSIC: mp3/meta_Data/compilations/download_sites
« Reply #19 on: November 30, 2009, 10:03 AM »
Ack! Peek my head in here & it looks like Tomos has already posted for me. ;)

In my opinion, a tagging program should make one's life easier by being able to reach out over the internet & grab metadata from services such as Discogs, Amazon, FreeDB, MusicBrainz, MusicIP, and others. The 'problem' with these services is that they aren't all-knowing. A lot of times you will search their databases & find that your preferred service does not have the album you are looking for.

The good tagging programs will allow you to use data from 3, 4, or more services. Unfortunately, a lot of tagging programs will only contact Amazon or FreeDB for info.

At one time I was going to post a crash course like tomos was requesting, but abandoned the effort when I realized that it was going to be longer than this thread already is.