Music-Part 2 (Burning/Ripping music)

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<u>MUSIC-also contains Burning/Ripping music</u>

Broadcasting with SHOUTcast

Nullsoft's SHOUTcast is a streaming audio system designed to work across all platforms.
At the heart of SHOUTcast is the DNAS (the distributed network audio server). When you setup a SHOUTcast server, the DNAS accepts the audio stream from Winamp and the SHOUTcast DSP plug-in. It then delivers it to listeners who are connected to this DNAS. In this setup, you could either be a listener, source provider, or a server.

Listening to streaming radio
Start an instance of Winamp. Visit www.shoutcast.com, www.live365.com, or www.icecast.org. Select your music category from the choices available. Click on the Tune icon and the stream automatically starts with your MP3 player (usually Winamp). No special installations are required.
Source provider
You can be a music source provider and any DNAS could listen to you. You could use Winamp as your music player. A SHOUTcast source plug-in-this can be downloaded from www.shoutcast.com-needs to be installed for your Winamp. This plug-in provides Winamp with broadcasting abilities, and you are now ready to stream your music. Remember, to enable others to listen to what you play, you need to have a DNAS.
Time to server
Download the SHOUTcast server software from the site (what site?) and install it. Start the DNAS GUI. Open the configuration file by clicking on the Edit Config option from the menu bar. This opens the configuration script in a default viewer (usually Notepad). Every entry has an easy-to-follow remark along side. Set the maximum user limit taking your bandwidth into account.
If you know a little about IP and networks, you can mess around with the SrcIP and DestIP (source and destination IP). If not, leave them at their defaults. Now you are ready to listen from a source and stream it across to users connected to your DNAS.
SHOUTcast server
You can be both, the service provider and the server. You can set up both the services in the same computer or, depending upon your resource availability, you can set a couple of computers as servers and a single computer as a server listening from all the service providers.

What is better?MIDI or MP3?

An MP3 file is just an audio file that has been compressed (made smaller) so that it can be sent easily over the Net. An uncompressed music file, like that found on a CD, can be 30 or 40 megabytes or much larger. MP3s are typically one-tenth this size, with only a slight loss in quality.MIDI files, on the other hand, do not contain actual audio. Instead, the music sequence is recorded as a series of numbers that explain how the music is to be played back. The advantage is that MIDI files are very small, but the sound is totally dependent on the output device. MIDI files are very small, and therefore excellent for use in Web pages and other applications. Just a few seconds of download time, even on a slow connection; can yield several minutes of listening pleasure.

Burning music files on to CDs

Got a collection of your favourite Transglobal Underground numbers? You can burn custom compilations like these, and with the right tools and directions, it's child's play. The tools required are a CD-writer, CD-burning software and the songs of your choice in WAV or MP3 format. You could use the demo version of the Nero CD burning software to burn your CDs. This allows you to record your own custom audio CDs that can be played in any standard home or car stereo. Download the demo version of the burning software from www.ahead.de. Install the application and launch it. The software prompts you with a registration screen. Click the Demo button. The software throws open an option to create a new CD or to duplicate another CD. (If it doesn't, click on File > New). Choose the Create New CD option and click on Next. Choose Audio CD from the options listed and proceed to the next screen to finalise.
There will be two panes visible in the main Nero window. On the left, you have the explorer that you can use to locate the tracks you will record. On the right is the compilation explorer, which lists the contents of the CD. Drag and drop the files of your choice from the left pane to the right. A status bar below indicates the maximum minutes you could record. You can record 72 to 80 minutes of music depending upon the capacity of the CD.
Once the files are chosen and you are ready to burn, choose Write from the File menu.
This opens a window seeking your confirmation to burn the CD. Click on the Burn button.
As soon as the process begins, you will notice a progress bar while each track is being burnt on the CD. Once the burning is done, the red light near the progress bar turns green indicating successful completion.
There are, of course, many ways to do this. MusicMatch Jukebox is a freeware that does the same. Another popular alternative is Easy CD Creator. The program accepts popular audio formats such as MP3 and WAV as input. Easy CD Creator supports BURN-Proof (Buffer Under RuN error Proof) technology.

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Stream ripping

If you would like to make a live recording of all the tunes on the Web, a straightforward approach to this is the disk writer plug-in of Winamp. It writes a WAV file at the time of capture from the relay. This direct approach requires more work and disk space, and some editing with a wave editor such as SoundForge or CoolEdit. A faster way to do this is StreamRipper, which creates MP3s out of streaming radio. You can obtain StreamRipper32 from www.oddsock.org/tools/sripper.
StreamRipper32 does not create any desktop icons or start menu items. So go to the folder and run an instance of the program. On the top left, under Broadcast Parameters, you will need to enter the full URL of the stream.
Under the Output Section, you need to select a Destination Directory. StreamRipper32 will create a number of sub-directories, and delete and move files on its own. It will be limited by the permissions you have on the parent directory. You can enter a number in the Max Bytes to Rip field to control when to stop recording, but the default value of zero will allow it to run until you either run out of disk space, or click the Stop Rip button. Click the Start Rip button and let StreamRipper do its thing.
Converting for the PC: Ripping using MusicMatch
Open MusicMatch. Insert a CD into your CD-ROM. If you're not connected to the Internet, connect now. The program will automatically search the online CDDB. If it finds a match for your CD, all the artist and album information will be filled in for you. If it doesn't return a match, you may need to type in the track listings.
After the CDDB returns a match, or when you've completed entering artist and album names and all the track titles, hit the record button on the recorder. Depending on the speed of your PC, you should have the CD completely ripped in less than 10 minutes.

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Converting for the PC: Ripping using MusicMatch

Open MusicMatch. Insert a CD into your CD-ROM. If you're not connected to the Internet, connect now. The program will automatically search the online CDDB. If it finds a match for your CD, all the artist and album information will be filled in for you. If it doesn't return a match, you may need to type in the track listings.
After the CDDB returns a match, or when you've completed entering artist and album names and all the track titles, hit the record button on the recorder. Depending on the speed of your PC, you should have the CD completely ripped in less than 10 minutes.