Music-Part 1

(1022 total words in this text)
(1164 Reads)  

<u>MUSIC</u>

1.Playback

Winamp plug-ins

4Front EQ10 is a popular plug-in that can selectively boost some of the frequencies. Right-click on the Winamp player and then go to Options > Preferences, and select 4FrontEQ10. The plug-in allows you more flexibility for adjusting your frequency settings. It is quite effective and the pre-amplifier volume control is very sensitive.

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Winamp plug-ins

DFX 6.3 is an audio DSP effect component that offers decent sound enhancement, though at a price. However, you can get a preview if you install the setup file available on the Winamp Web site. When you restart Winamp after the installation is complete, the plug-in opens in another window. Click the Options tab and Skin Browser to choose from one of the three cool-looking skins. The bass gets a boost with the help of Hyperbass that enhances your low frequency output. The Fidelity, Ambience, Dynamic boost and Hyperbass settings can be adjusted. A number of preset ambience settings and headphone customisation settings are not available in the shareware version. You can download the plug-in from www.winamp.com/components3

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Winamp plug-ins

The iMusicSoft visualizer plug-in is a 205 KB file, which once installed, gives you access to a variety of visualisation options. Right-click anywhere in the Winamp window, then go to Windows and select iMusicSoftVisualizer. Right-click on the window that opens up to select from a list of 60 animations and about 40 effects, giving a total 2,400 different combinations. The animations are not very interesting but will just suffice.

You can also select a video resolution and extend the window to the full-screen while listening to music.

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2.Organizing music

Organizing music with MusicMatch Jukebox

MusicMatch Jukebox is a digital music management software tool that includes a multiformat media player, an MP3 encoder, a CD ripper and burner, and an integrated online music service. MusicMatch Jukebox also features a Portable Device Manager, which offers an easy solution for transferring music from the PC to most portable MP3 players. Other 7.5 improvements include increased drag-and-drop functionality, CD burning and printing enhancements, and optimised SuperTagging performance, which makes it even simpler to add track information to your digital music library. This is a 9.92 MB file, downloadable free from www.download.com.
Editing the ID3 tag with MusicMatch Jukebox
Click the My Library tab. Right-click on a track and select Edit Track Tag. Select information from drop-down menus or specify your own information. You can even put URLs and e-mail addresses in the Notes and Bios section.

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Winamp plug-ins

Tired of the old, beat-up visualisation options? Give yourself a visual treat with WildTangent's Valentine Dancer. The dancer swings to the beat of the music you are playing in Winamp 2, Windows Media Player, or Real Player. If you have Winamp 3, you have more options that you can avail of from www.wildtangent.com.

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Shortcuts in Winamp

Right-click the Winamp title bar and choose About Winamp, or press [Alt] + [F] + [W] to bring up a list of more than 50 keyboard shortcuts.

Creating your own Skins for Winamp

One of the winning points of Winamp is its customisability. A vast community of users has created numerous input, output and visualisation plug-ins that enrich your musical experience.
Tools for some Winamp skinning
Making your own skin for Winamp is pretty easy. But before you get down and stick your elbows in the dirt, here's a list of programs you need:
· A paint program such as Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro or MS Paint.
· Winamp's base skin to use as a template.
· A text editor to configure the fonts and colours of the browser and playlist editor-Notepad will work just fine.
· An icon editor such as Icon Edit Pro or Microangelo if you want to edit the cursors and pointers for your skin.
· A compression tool to browse through skins, and zip it all up when it's done- WinZip, for instance.
Start at the base
Every skin that's made is open source. The .wsz base skin is a Zip file designed to keep all the pieces of the skin organised. You can browse through it to look for design tips. The best way to get started is to extract a base skin and modify it. Create a new directory in your Winamp\Skins directory. Create a new folder in your Skins directory, and unzip the Winamp base skin with an unzip utility. Once you've installed the base skin, you can look at the files in that directory. There should be a whole bunch of .cur (cursor) and .bmp files, and a few .txt files. All of these files are optional. Any missing files will use Winamp's defaults.
Editing the skin
Editing the BMP files is a bit complex. Here's what each file can do:
· Pledit.bmp changes the look of the playlist editor
· Eqmain.bmp changes the look of the graphical equalizer
· Main.bmp changes the look of the main window

All the other .bmp files change the look of individual controls of the main interface. Once you've made changes to the different BMP files, zip them up and hit [F5] when in Winamp to reload the images.
Editing the text files
You can change other aspects of Winamp using the three .txt files included in the skin.
Pledit.txt changes the font and colour of the playlist text. Viscolor.txt has 24 lines, with each line consisting of a RGB triplet and a comment that says '24, 33, 41, // comment'. These 24 lines define the colours used in Winamp's built-in visualisation. Region.txt lets you specify a sub-region of Winamp's main and equaliser windows to show. This lets you carve out the parts you want to show, and keep the rest transparent.
Editing cursors
The filenames for the cursor files are also pretty self-explanatory.
EQTitle.cur is for the EQ's title bar.
Normal.cur is the cursor to be used in the main window.
PWSSize.cur is for the playlist editor.
You can test these cursors by making a change. Cursor changes happen immediately; there's no need to reload the current skin in Winamp to see them.

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