I Pods

Joe Smith · From: Charlotte, NC, USA

Just wondering how many of you are using an I Pod to store and listen to music.

Chris Lucker · From: Los Angeles, California USA

I have a Mini -- 1047 songs, ten percent of which are Dale Watson. I have a pedal Steel playlist and a steel lessons play list that I play along with to learn. Not as useful as the Tascam trainer, but easier than the laptop.
For listening to music at home, I find I just use the laptop and the iPod files on my hard drive.
Easy Lovin' is not available on iTunes. Nor is Buck Owens.

Martin Abend · From: Berlin, Germany

I'm never without mine. Best purchase I did for years.

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martin abend Pedal-Steel in Germany
s-10 sierra crown gearless 3 x4 | GiMa squareneck

Tim Harr · From: Dunlap, Illinois

I have the 20gb iPOD. I, like Martin, am never without it. I have about 3000 tracks on mine...and it has room for tons more!!!

Working in downtown Chicago and living in the suburbs, I take the Metra train in/out of the city daily. I listen to the iPOD from the time I get on the train to the time I get off at Union Station.

I have everything in that iPOD. Real Country, Steel Guitar Music, Jazz Guitar, Other Jazz, Pop, Classic Rock, Comedy, Audio books, the entire spoken NIV Bible, and various "podcasts"

So, what's this podcasting thing all about?

Podcasts are audio programs of varying length, usually between 10 and 25 minutes long. They are designed to be played back whenever and wherever you choose. There are two ways to listen: listening using "podcatcher" software or a portable digital music player -or- listening online via the website.

Listening using "podcatcher" software or a portable digital music player: To listen to podcasts, you can use "podcatcher" software, such as iTunes or iPodder. Most such programs are free to download and install. Once the software is installed, you can subscribe to a podcast by visiting a subscription page (like ours!). You'll usually find an address for the specific podcast. Just copy that address (highlight it with your mouse and then, while holding down the CTRL key, hit C). Then, paste that address into the "add subscription" window of your podcatcher application (click your mouse into the window, hold down the CTRL key and hit V). All podcatcher applications are a little bit different, so you'll need to refer to your application's instructions or help feature for specific directions.

Once you've subscribed, your podcatcher software will automatically download new podcasts as they are released. Your software will usually allow you to select how often to check for new podcasts, and, depending on your application, you can also check for new podcasts at your convenience, usually by clicking an icon. Once the podcasts are downloaded, you can either listen to them on your computer or, if you have a portable digital music player such as an iPod, you can download the audio and listen to the podcasts whenever and wherever you want. This all may sound complicated at first, but once you get the hang of it, you'll be downloading podcasts like a pro in no time.

Listening online via the website: You don't necessarily need any additional software, however. If you prefer, just click any of the show graphics (or the link immediately below them). You will be taken to a page where you can click to listen to the most recent podcasts we've released for that particular feed. You will need speakers and software that will play back mp3 format audio files, but many computers today already are capable of playing this type of file.

By the way, podcasts are free. And, they're in stereo!

I subscribe to one called "No Idle Frets" every week or so there is a new mp3 or "show" it is like a radio show of jazz guitarists with a host that offers interesting behind the scenes information/facts on the artists, etc...

I also subcribe to the WGN Radio 720AM podcasts. Spike O'Dell (Morning guy), Steve Cochran (afternoon guy), John Williams (evening guy) these mp3s sre from the highlights of each daily program of talk and some interviews.

You should consider getting one....it is like taking your enttre CD collection with you. Oh yeah, I also have an attachment that allows you to listen to it in your car as it broadcasts it through an FM radio...too cool.

[This message was edited by Tim Harr on 16 December 2005 at 06:24 AM.]

Jerry Erickson · From: Atlanta,IL 61723

I've had a 15 gig iPod for...2 1/2 years. I'm like the rest. I always have it with me. I use it for break music with some bands I play with. They're usually going..who's that? make me a copy... go get your own..LOL. I do transfer lesson materials on them. they're great!

Joe Alterio · From: Irvington, Indiana

I bought a Creative Nomad Zen XTra a couple of years ago for HALF of what the overpriced ipod cost.....40MB and the thing is still working for me daily. I couldn't live without it.

Ben Slaughter · From: Madera, California

Do iPods use mp3s or a propritary format?

Brad Sarno · From: St. Louis, MO USA

Ben, the iPod will play all kinds of formats. Full CD quality 16bit/44.1kHz or various mp3's, AAC (which is very nice for compressed formats), and more.

Brad

Dyke Corson · From: Fairmount, IL USA

I use mine to listen to songs for gigs. I can put the songs in order of performance, practice with it, it's great. Jerry turned me on to it!

Joe Smith · From: Charlotte, NC, USA

Well, I don't have one yet, but I am planning on getting one in the very near future. It's pretty cool to be able store so much music on such a small device.

Chris Bauer · From: Nashville, TN USA

I would have never spent the money on myself but my wife and daughter got me one for my birthday and I love it. It sure makes the long travel days a lot better.

Wayne Carver · From: Martinez, Georgia, USA

I got a Sandisk a couple of months ago. I use it more plugged into the car stereo or my shop stereo more than with the headphones. You can buy an FM transmitter to use it in your car or the cassette adapter if you have a cassette player. Great for trips. The Samsung players get good reviews. I like the cheaper flash drive ones better than Ipods or the Ipod Shuffle. They have regular batteries verses rechargeable. They have built in FM tuners. The Samsung model says you can record directly from a turntable.
They are picked up by your pc as a basic drive just like your a or c drive when you plug it up to your USB port. Then you can just drag & drop your mp3 files into the Audio folder of your new drive e or f usually.With Ipods and some others you have to use Itunes or Windows Media Player to load music on your player. You can download a free program to change songs on your cd's to mp3's or might already have a program to do that. I've got a program that is suppose to make all your mp3's play at the same volume level but I haven't used it yet. That's one gripe I have about playing mp3's.

Jim Ives · From: Los Angeles, California, USA

I bought my wife one, but I use a CD/MP3 player at work and with my steel because I make my own MP3 discs. At about 40 cents per disc, I will have made many many discs before I have spent the amount for an IPOD.My commute to work is only 3.01 miles, so I don't listen much.
-Jim

John McClung · From: Olympia WA, USA

I just gave my old 10GB iPod to my son when I upgraded to a 30GB iPod video. Love it! Like others, I find it very useful for sequencing tunes in show order, just play it over and over in the car, burns the material into one's brain quite well.

The big, gorgeous color screen on the new models like mine is worth having just because everything is easier to read, and there's more info on the screen. Movies do look great, too, but tiny. I found a site just today where you can download music instruction for ipod videos, that's pretty cool and a promising new use for these gizmos.

You can also offload, with an additional cable, pix from your digital camera to the iPod, another great use.

Mine goes everywhere with me, once you have one of these, lugging around CD's seems like such a drag.

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E9 lessons
Mullen D-12/Carter SD-10/Webb amp/Profex II/Lexicon MPX-110

Bruce Meyer · From: Thompson's Station, TN

The conversion from CD to mp3 or the Apple AAC format decreases the quality of the sound slightly, although I hear the apple format is better at higer sampling rates. But even the difference from CD to mp3 is not perceptible to most people.

I have an older Rio player and occasionally notice the difference from the CD. Since this is a music crowd, I was wondering if the quality was noticeably different to any of you.

What seems like a pain to me is converting many CDs to mp3 or AAC and then two years from now having to do it all over again when some better format comes out.

Dan Tyack · From: Olympia, WA USA

I considered buying an iPod, but chose to look elsewhere, because the iPod doesn't support recording (either live of from analog sources), and it only supports paid downloads from the iTunes store (it only supports Apple proprietary formats for paid content) and it doesn't support WMA (the windows media forma), and theres a lot of free media out there in WMA.

I have a little 6Gig iRiver, which lets me record live (better sound than a minidisc), and lets me play any free content and any content from any store except iTunes (Apple has that stuff locked down). It also lets me play songs from the subscription services. I use the Yahoo service, very cool (unlimited use of millions of songs for less than $10/month)

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www.tyack.com

Gary Boyett · From: Colorado

Thanks Dan for the heads up on WMA. I was thinking about buying an ipod for some of my PowerTracks recordings and practice sessions. I would have to change all of the formats before using it I guess.

There sure are tons of options for those litle buggers. You would need a very large brief case just to carry everthing...

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JCFSGC,RMSGC,HSGA member
Do it with "Glass"
Boyett's Glass Bars

Greg Cutshaw · From: Corry, PA, USA

I have a ton of songs in .wma format. At 192 kbps the quality of these is as close to the source CD as my ears can hear. I have my WM Player set to record in unprotected format. IPOD iTunes will accept unprotected.wma files and convert them to .aac files for playing on the Ipod. There are many links to this, here is one from the Apple Ipod website: click here

Also the chip used to decode and play music in the IPOD supports .wma files but the IPOD microcode disables this function. See click here for one of many links that discuss this. Quote below is from that link.

"iPod can already play WMA, but...
it's locked.

Chip manufacture Portal Player in San Diego US build the embedded 8550 chip in Apple's IPod.
This is the chip that allows the playing of AAC and MP3 - However what is interesting is that the chip firmware by default also allows the playing of WMA.

It looks like for some reason this is locked by Apple. The Portal Player chip is used in other Mobile Media Players and by default allows all three formats. This is going to course some concern on the freedom of choice given to users of the Apple IPod. We're sure that at some point in the not too distant future the IPod will be cracked to allow Windows Media Audio played back on the IPod."

I have thought of buying an IPOD amny times but I too am dismayed by the direct of open native support for .wma and if in the future WM Player were to only allow protected conversiond, the IPOD would be less useful for me too.

Greg

Dan Tyack · From: Olympia, WA USA

This is kind of off topic, but this is an example of Apple going for the short term gain of hardware sales and opting for proprietary formats. It's a shame, the iPod is a great product, really easy to use, sounds great. I probably would have bought one even though it doesn't record, but I'm not going to buy a player for which you can only buy music from one store.

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www.tyack.com

Ed Byerly · Posted 11 Dec 2005 7:48 pm

I bought a Creative ZEN that has 5 gigs. It also allows me to sychronize with MicroSoft Outlook for my appointments, etc., & has an FM radio. Found it at Wal-Mart under $200 back in the summer. I can run it straight into my amp or the board at practice. Pretty handy & small. Ed

Joey Ace · From: Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

Dan,
You are wrong about that.
Any thing that can be played with iTunes will load into, and play, on an iPod.

I've had an iPod mini for almost a year. It has over a 1000 songs in it, and I never once made a purchase from the Apple Music Store.

Most of the songs on my iPod are from CDs, some are MP3s form various sources, some are original recordings that I am working on.

I like it a lot. I mostly use it in my car. My radio has an Aux In Jack, so it's connected via wire. I also plug it into the board at band practices to settle debates.

Dan Tyack · From: Olympia, WA USA

Joey,

I think you are misunderstanding what I am saying. Anything that can be played through iTunes might be able to be loaded on an iPod, but the only bought music that can be played on an iPod is from iTUnes. Not that there's anything wrong with iTunes, but there are dozens of stores out on the internet, but the iPod can only play purchased songs that were bought through iTUnes. Plus the iPod can't play any music that you downloaded through a subscription service.

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www.tyack.com

[This message was edited by Dan Tyack on 11 December 2005 at 10:03 PM.]

Bob Hoffnar · From: Austin, Tx

I use my Ipod all the time. I keep playlists of bands I play with archived.

I use all sorts of music files in my ipod. I download from a bunch of different places and also get all sorts of files sent to me for rehearsal from bands. So far they have all loaded into my ipod with no problems.

The thing is very well designed and super easy to use. I think they are great in so many ways.

Bob

Wayne Carver · From: Martinez, Georgia, USA

Is there a program that will change a batch of wave files to mp3's? I'm using CDex but it only does one song at a time. An example would be picking four songs from a cd and converting all four as a batch. It also seems slow to convert waves to mp3's.
I can't picture how a flash drive records. What medium is it using? I can understand recording to a tape, vinyl, floppy, or hard drive but is there nothing physical it is recording to? If not what about copywrite laws?

Greg Cutshaw · From: Corry, PA, USA

Wayne,

You can use WM Player to do what you are asking. Under the Tools, Options settings, you can set the RIP parameters to convert CD's to either MP3, .wma or .wma lossless. When you insert the CD you can RIP the whole CD or just selected songs to mp3. You can also set the mp3 rip quality.

Greg

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