My little application is coming along. Slowly though. I found an mp3 library which utilizes the LAME mp3 library called Tritonus. We’ll see if I can get that to work. The example I have does. :-)
I also found a recursive directory structuring routine. Coupled with looking at my previous source code… I have working… PIECES! Now it’s time for it all to come together.
Alright, back to coding… kind of.
My little application is coming along. Slowly though. I found an mp3 library which utilizes the LAME mp3 library called Tritonus. We’ll see if I can get that to work. The example I have does. :-)
I also found a recursive directory structuring routine. Coupled with looking at my previous source code… I have working… PIECES! Now it’s time for it all to come together.
Alright, back to coding… kind of.
I made a small application (more like a quick script) in PHP-GTK and am now trying to port it to Java using Netbeans. We’ll see how it goes. I have several times attempted to look at Java… but it seems like a huge insurmountable beast.
What the PHP-GTK app was run through a directory structure, dump it into an array, and then convert wav files to mp3s using LAME. I wonder if this is easy in Java. It should take me a long time to figure out! :-)
I’ll keep you updated!
In the midst of my quest to find music in the mp3 format, I have stumbled on (well, I remembered it actually) Mp3.com. (update 6-3-2004: Mp3.com does not exist as it did when this article was written, it was bought out awhile back). Some of their advertisements are without good taste, but ignoring those and paying attention to the music you can find some -really- good Christian Music there. Both for streaming and download… for free. I saw Phil Joel on the list and remembered he is with the Newsboys, so I downloaded his one and only song for free download on there, “The Man You Want Me To Be”, and it is awesome… in particular this line is pretty cool…
“I have swallowed lies that tasted true,
the plans I thought were sent from you,
but all you wanted was for me to be still.
Jesus, make me the man that you want me to be”
Another good artist is Shawn McDonald.
Well, I downloaded the song FFH – So Is His Love from the MusicMatch service. However I was a little dissappointed. It wasn’t until after I had paid for the song, that the message appeared in the software, that it was Windows Media Audio with Digital Rights Management.
TOTAL BUMMER!
It just so happens my portable MP3 player also supports WMA, however not with DRM. The only way I was able to listen to the song on my portable (and for that matter my Linux computer) was to loop the output on my soundcard into the input (mic) and record it while playing it in MusicMatch. Of course all of you in the digital sound arena would know that if I did what I just described… you get quality loss. It irritated me that something I payed for wouldn’t allow me to use it how how I wanted. I suppose there will need to be huge changes in the legal music download services before old-school digital media users like me want to actually use them. Needless to say, I complained to MusicMatch about my troubles in the Non-Windows world, and they refunded my 99 cents… and I deleted the music file. I guess I’ll have to buy the FFH CD.
However, if you are a Windows user, there is not a better service than MusicMatch… yet.
I broke down and bought an MP3 player. It was a little expensive, but I thought I would thoroughly enjoy it with all of the added perks. It has a line in jack, fm tuner, mp3 player, and voice recorder. I suppose the only downside is that it was quite difficult to get it working with Linux. But after a day of messing around, deciding what was okay, and eventually settling on an opensource “ifp” browser… I am happy. I want to use it to record messages at Church also. I took it in, and tested it out. Now I just have to teach the audio dudes how to get it to work.
Yeah, BestBuy wanted me to buy “insurance” for around $20.00. For two years I could bring it in and just get it replaced if it messed up. Well, I hope this baby lasts at least 2 years. It’s only 128mb, but I suppose that will be enough for a few songs, some voice recordings, and maybe even some FM recordings. The 256mb model was too expensive.
Oh… it’s an iRiver ifp-380t. Check it out!