Music on the road

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John and Sandy,
I record my original sequenced keyboard music down to a mp3 on the computer and play it through Bose Companion III sub and speakers. Then, rehearse the vocals and guitar with it. It beats draging out the keyboard and PA.
Cliff
http://home.earthlink.net/~rvparkmusic/
 
:) WOW. That's pretty good Cliff. I used to have Rock & Roll Bands when I was in the Army back in 1962-1970. Started off as Rythm player then Lead in an Intrumental group. Then I turned it over to singing. I have never lost the need to make music one way or another. That's why we did some Karaoke for a few years before we retired. I took up the guitar again once we went Full-Timing 5 years ago. It's surprising just how much you forget. But when you start it gradually comes back again. The only trouble is the fingers aren't as fast as they used to be.  :D
 
John,
Music kinda gets in your blood. Keep on pickin and grinnin... maybe we will meet out here somewhere.....
Cliff
 
Anyone do anything Slick with the stereo in their rigs (dash).  i have 3 of them in my bigfoot and I am in the process of popping out the crappy stereo they put in the unit and add this pioneer double din unit. pioneer has a great technology like Icelink that uses firewire technology (proprietary version) that you can add different components. i already have one that will lijnk in the ipod and control it from the dash. the other connection is for sat radio or whatever else i want (Sirius).  They put 6 speakers in this rig, but nothing to control where the music goes to, so it drives all 6 at the same time, which is not my preference, plus they dont sound that good.  I am cutting a hole (eeks) behind the drivers seat into one of the storage boxes and mounting a 10" subwoofer with a 200 watt amp. 

New speakers in the doors and tweeters in the pillars.  3 point switch to manage the back speakers (off and on).  the head unit has a remote control, so it can be used anywhere in the rig.

The surround sound system is good as it is, so i am not going to play with that and it is totally separate from the cab stereo.

IPOD is the best thing ever.  don't be afraid to get one.  buy the protection plan (70 bucks or something) and then you get free batteries or if anything dies on it they fix it for 2 years.  I have 4 ipods: 30 gig, 15 gig, 5 gig mini and the new 2 gig nano.  so cool!  i have used them on a PC and a Mac and they work great.  Itunes is the largest online music store and they are doing well. 

it doesnt work with many subscription based sites like napster, so if you care, the ipod is not for you.

sorry for the long post.

bk
 
Russ,

What do you think?  How many CD songs WAV format (not MP3) can I copy to a DVD?  I know it's a guess because each song might vary between 3 to 5 megabytes, but just guess.  BTW, this is NOT a test.  I just want a guess from someone who knows a lot more about this than I do.

If Ardra will let me use the DVD burner on her new LapTop I could burn a DVD of my music and play it on the surround system in our MH.

JerryF
 
JerryF: "What do you think?  How many CD songs WAV format (not MP3) can I copy to a DVD?"

Can't tell you that as I use 192 kbps MP3 as my standard.

In iTunes I ran a test to see what would fit on a DVD and ran into a minor irritation...I can only select whole intergers in the pref field for Gb, So you get the answer as 2 numbers: 4G/5G.

As Jazz, you get 748/939 songs.
As classical, you get 550/685 songs.

A 3:12 min song is 4.5MB as a MP3.

I have made MP3 CDs to play through the RV dash radio, works fine. Using 640 MB as the CD capacity, you would get:
clssical tracks-80
Jazz tracks-120
easy listening tracks-151
baroque tracks-127
 
JerArdra said:
How many CD songs WAV format (not MP3) can I copy to a DVD?

WAV ~ 10M/minute.  2.7G/10M = 2700M/10M = 270 minutes; /3 = 90 songs.

Another way: CD = 700M, DVD = 2.7G.  2.7G/.7G = almost 4 CDs x 22 songs/full CD = 88 songs
 
Music is very soothing to the soul, so naturally I rely on my stereo system in the entertainment center that plays CDs, cassettes, and naturally AM/FM radio. Also have XM Radio on the satellite, which is very nice too, and my own little personal player w/headphones that I can listen too while lazily spending an afternoon lounging in the hammock!? ;D? Don't know what I'll do when all my low-tech stuff becomes obsolete!? :-\
 
Russ and Joel,

We were gone this week (Thanksgiving) so I'm late in responding but a big thanks for the input and thoughts re how many songs per DVD.  I was kind of hoping it would be more songs using WAV not MP3 format.  I guess I'll have to do them in MP3 format and see if both the DVD in the MH and the DVD in the house will play them.  I like the idea of a thousand or so per DVD.

JerryF
 
JerryF: "If Ardra will let me use the DVD burner on her new LapTop I could burn a DVD of my music and play it on the surround system in our MH...I like the idea of a thousand or so per DVD."

Jerry, you're mired in the last century! Skip the transfer to DVD procedure as you will be left with a humongous "album" that will be hard to shuffle about in.

Instead get iTunes on the computer, load all the music into that, copy to the RV laptop (or an external HD), mount an Airport Express near the RV stereo system and then play the music on the computer and WiFi it to the stereo.

Now you can devise interesting playlists to suit your mood of the moment and play them effortlessly, or change your mind and do the entire Messiah, or explore how many versions of Pachelbel's canon are in your library (38 in my case).
 
We use a lap top that has all of our music files as well as a "Roady" both of which plug into our motor home receiver and a similar setup when we are at home.  We also get books on CD form library before we go on the road and use these in the lap top while traveling...tim
 
rhmahoney said:
I have made MP3 CDs to play through the RV dash radio, works fine. Using 640 MB as the CD capacity, you would get:
clssical tracks-80
Jazz tracks-120
easy listening tracks-151
baroque tracks-127

Hi Russ:

When you say that you make MP3's -- does that mean that your source of music is not MP3? That's one of the issues I'm trying to understand in trying to decide between an iPod and a Dell JukeBox. I get conflicting stories as to whether it will load and/or play an MP3. How does that work?

Do you still take the time to prepare CD's to play through your dash system - or was that before using your iPod? The only time I put music on CD's is if I want to give that music to someone else. If someone loans me a CD, I move it to my main PC library and return it. Same with Video on DVD's. With TiVo, I can store most all the stuff I would want to watch down the line anymore. Other movies are rebroadcast anyway. If I want to see Alan Ladd shoot Jack Palance again -- I just program the TiVo to find Shane.? :)

But with music and CD's, as with most others now, I begin with my main PC in terms of building a library -- then go to my player with artists, albums, playlists, etc. From there, the player becomes the source to most everywhere else. Even tho my current player is a little guy, I can play several days worth of music through my rig or Jeep dash FM using a transmitter ($27. at Fry's) plugged into the headset jack on the player -- in my case, I have cassette players on both my Jeep and Rig so will also use one of those RS cassette plug in interfaces to get from player to FM.

However, the transmitter works fine most of the time. I sometimes have to change the station if the one I'm using becomes within range of a local station. I keep a small inverter close to the dash so as to keep the transmitter and player at full charge on a long day trip. Otherwise, the rechargeable batteries on both are fine. Bottom line, it sure beats screwing around with a pile of CD's. Music CD's are on their way to the same bone yard that contains 8 tracks, cassettes and LP's.

BTW, Russ, my ieSpell spell checker suggests "romaine" as a replacement for rhmahoney.? :)
 
Bob

I believe most of Russ' music is "ripped" from CD to MP3 format using desktop software such as iTunes. Similar software is supplied by other MP3 player manufacturers such as Creative who makes my Jukebox3. iTunes is available for running on either Mac or PC and the resulting MP3 files can be transferred (using appropriate software) to any MP3 player, so that shouldn't be the deciding factor in choice of player.

If the Dell Jukebox plays MP3 and has software for loading MP3 files, it should read/play the MP3 files created/ripped by iTunes. I suspect that the Dell Jukebox comes with its own software for creating/ripping from CDs, so you shouldn't need iTunes. But I must admit that iTunes is a nice application, faster and easier to use than the software that came with my Creative Jukebox3.
 
Bob Buchanan:
"When you say that you make MP3's -- does that mean that your source of music is not MP3? That's one of the issues I'm trying to understand in trying to decide between an iPod and a Dell JukeBox. I get conflicting stories as to whether it will load and/or play an MP3. How does that work?

Do you still take the time to prepare CD's to play through your dash system - or was that before using your iPod?

Bottom line, it sure beats screwing around with a pile of CD's. Music CD's are on their way to the same bone yard that contains 8 tracks, cassettes and LP's.

BTW, Russ, my ieSpell spell checker suggests "romaine" as a replacement for rhmahoney. "

When I started the project of ripping my library, I decided that 192kbps was better than my ears could detect, so that is my standard for all music brought into my computer. The iPod can accept AAC and MP3, so I'm fine there. My 20 Gig 2nd generation iPod autosynchs with iTunes and keeps the iPod updated with new books, new podcasts, and the music rarely changes.

I made one test CD of MP3 tracks, patterning it after a 10 CD cartridge full of all time favorites. That turned out to be a great idea. As I prefer to diddle with the iPod settings while parked, I welcome the presence of the CD to switch to when I can't find anything on radio or Sirius.

My music server computer is hardwired to the Bose stereo system. I like the fine grain control this allows. There are basement speakers for annoying the neighbors.

The 2001 Jeep has a primitive radio that can't play MP3s, the cassette player is too smart...it wont run with the fake cassette, and I don't like the hiss from the FM transmitter. So I do without music from the computer while in the car.


"romaine" eh! Sounds like an opportunity for me it insert a Microsoft putdown. =devilish grin=  It doesn't understand email address conventions.

 
Tom said:
Bob

I believe most of Russ' music is "ripped" from CD to MP3 format using desktop software such as iTunes. Similar software is supplied by other MP3 player manufacturers such as Creative who makes my Jukebox3. iTunes is available for running on either Mac or PC and the resulting MP3 files can be transferred (using appropriate software) to any MP3 player, so that shouldn't be the deciding factor in choice of player.

If the Dell Jukebox plays MP3 and has software for loading MP3 files, it should read/play the MP3 files created/ripped by iTunes. I suspect that the Dell Jukebox comes with its own software for creating/ripping from CDs, so you shouldn't need iTunes. But I must admit that iTunes is a nice application, faster and easier to use than the software that came with my Creative Jukebox3.

Thanks, Tom. Yes, the farther I get into this, the more I see that the MP3 format at 192kbps is the best trade off format for a player. The WMA is not supported in iTunes and AAC is not supported in Windows Media Player or MusicMatch -- so if all of ones library is in MP3, they can go in either direction down the line. Having to re-rip is one of the things I would want to avoid -- tho I don't work much from CD's -- mostly downloaded stuff.

The Dell Jukeboxes use MusicMatch and their download store. One of things I am told about MusicMatch is that it will rip to WAV and then to MP3 in one pass so that is a nice feature. I downloaded a free copy from musicmatch.com and have been looking at it and also did the same with iTunes. In the meantime, I use Window Media Player as my music SW of choice. That has lead me to lean toward the Dell as it works well with both MM and WMP.

BOTOH, about 3 weeks ago, I chatted with a Dell sales person at the Galleria mall in Roseville. He demoed a smaller Jukebox than the 30g for me. He was a hacker sorta guy and shared w/me that he had both Dell computers and Apple computers and owned a Dell Jukebox AND an iPod. He confided that he liked the iPod better and suggested I go to Best Buys across the street and check out the new 60g Video model. My problem tho w/this young fellow was that it became obvious that he was an Apple geek -- and found a job of convenience with Dell. Once Apple snows someone, they become mesmerized against basic logic.

I "did" go to Best Buys and looked at the 60g unit and now understand your thoughts on the look and feel thing. The Dell "is" a bit larger. I found the rolling wheel a little more confusing than the separate controls on the Dell -- and looking at 2 inch TV does very little for me. ?:) ?However, the color display is otherwise very impressive and a tad bigger than the Dell display.

If I wound up getting an iPod -- you must promise not to tell anyone ?:-X ?

BTW, here's an interesting article on bit rates as compared to the original CD. Looks like required reading to those using lesser bit rates to get more on a player.

http://www.fliptech.net/bitrate.shtml
 
Bob Buchanan said:
I "did" go to Best Buys and looked at the 60g unit and now understand your thoughts on the look and feel thing.

I didn't (and still don't) know how to describe it, but it sure feels nice. The rotating wheel vs multiple buttons is a perosnal preference thing. Chris isn't a button person, so she won't use my Creative Jukebox3. I previously bought her another brand which has an on and off button, but little else. It also has no hard drive and a small memory, just right for when she goes to the gym. But she'll need one that can hold more songs for other uses and I thought she might use an iPod.

If I wound up getting an iPod -- you must promise not to tell anyone

LOL I won't tell anyone, but you might get called a born again Apple guy.

BTW if you haven't already seen it, check out Russ' very impressive music collection when you're at QZ. It has to be the biggest and most organized collection I've seen. But, of course, it's on his computer. I wish I had Russ' patience to rip that many tracks.

BTW I'm not into the iPod video thing and I'm only interested in transferring/storing music, although I might copy some books on tape one of these days.
 
Bob;
worrying about music format is not as much an issue as it used to be.  you can convert from AAC and WMA to MP3 or visa versa with many of the music products out there (like Itunes, converts WMA to AAC now).

as all others 192k is a good bit rate to record at.

 
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