Music

Music / Web — No Comments
9
Feb 12

Fickle Pop

I’m not cool. Never have been. Don’t care to be. However, I do like music and try to branch out into new things. I recently caught wind of Lana Del Rey and enjoyed the album Born to Die. This New Yorker article discusses an unsavory side of Pop Music criticism and expectations.1 It also frames just how powerful and fickle the Internet is. It’s possible to go from prodigy to bum in just one performance.2 The Internet is not just a star maker.

  1. None of this is new. This kind of stuff has gone on for centuries. Onre of my favorite examples is the 1965 Bob Dylan performance at the Newport Folk Festival. ↩
  2. For what it’s worth, I still really like the Lana Del Rey album. It’s fine pop-music that has a nice haunting undertone to the music and lyrics. ↩
Mac / Music — No Comments
4
Jan 12

Owning My Music But Using Pandora

I haven’t made the leap to the Spotify or Rdio train yet. I’ve watched as a lot of people have made that transition but I’m not ready to get onboard. I still buy at least one album a week from Amazon or iTunes.[1]

Someone might think that I’m an old man scared by new technologies, but I love my Pandora subscription too. So what’s my deal? Here’s my deal:

  1. Curation
  2. Persistence
  3. Recommendations

Curated Content

My iTunes music has been curated and rated over many years. I’m pretty good about poping open my player to add or modify a star rating as my tastes evolves. Curation in iTunes provides real benefits to a Smart Playlist, of which, I have many. I have a playlist of just my favorites. I also have a playlist of 3-star songs. This is the purgatory list. Usually songs on this list get promoted or demoted within a year of ocassional re-listens. Of course, I never listen to one star songs. That’s mostly my wifes collection.

My Smart Playlists go beyond just star-ratings. Up until iCloud ruined my playlist party[2], I had playlists for songs added within the past week, month, year. A playlist for songs with +3 stars that have been added within the last six months (New Favorites). A nice one for commutting[3] is the “+3-stars but not played in the past 9 months”

iTunes meta-data is pretty extensive and Smart Playlists provide a number of boolean combinations to provide highly tailored content of music that fits my tastes.

Sure I can rate music on a streaming service too. But then there’s bullet point number two.


Smart Playlist

Reliable Sources

Start-ups come and go all of the time. What’s more, their business models change overnight either by a pivot or acquisition. I just don’t trust them with the effort I put into curating their music. What happens if Rdio can’t renew their terms with music labels? What if their acquired by a dead-end like Yahoo? I’ve spent years of collecting and tagging my music collection and I can not bear to start over from the beginning.[4]

But Rdio, Spotify and Pandora provide something I can never achieve with Smart Playlists: music discovery

Discovery

Since I listen to my iTunes collection, podcasts, and Audible books exclusively, I get very few inputs for new music. Despite than the copious “recommendations” from Kung fu grippe there are not a lot of sources of new music I have time for. That’s why I love Pandora.

Pandora lets me create a station from a song or band that I know I already like and get an endless stream of new but related music. By occasionally tapping a thumbs up or down button, I can customize the experience. I can also tag music I want to buy and add it to my iTunes collection. I’d love to see Apple provide more integration[5] with Pandora so that I can seamlessly create new stations from iTunes but I’m pretty happy with the service.

So, I’ll let the cool kids have their fun with Rdio and Spotify. I’ll stand over here clutching my music collection and digging into Pandora. Just stay the hell off of my lawn!

  1. By “albums” I mean at least 9–10 songs. I do buy entire albums, but only if I think they are worth their price.  ↩
  2. iCloud has screwed with all of my date-added smart lists on iOS devices. Everything received a new date when iCloud pushed out the 256-bit version of a matched song, according to iOS. It’s a good problem to have, but I miss my old smart lists when on the go.  ↩
  3. That is when I’m not listening to Audible.  ↩
  4. That sounds like paranoia to some people but I’ve already been there with movies (Netflix) and photos (Flickr)  ↩
  5. Let’s face it, Ping and iTunes recommendations should have died on the side of Mt. Taygetus shortly after birth. Instead they seem content to slowly and painfully slide into dementia.  ↩
iOS / iPhone / iTunes / Music — No Comments
17
Nov 11

iTunes Match and Playlists

iTunes Match is nice but it has not altered my enjoyment of iTunes. However, one thing has been a bit of a surprise. All music really means all music on my iPhone.

Because I use my iPhone as a music device, I’m a smart list maniac. I have far more music than space (even on a 64GB iPhone 4S). I keep these lists on my phone:

  1. Best Songs smartlist (four or more stars)
  2. New 2 months smartlist (added within the last 2 months)
  3. Push to iPhone (manually curated list of songs/albums I want to always have available)
  4. Coding (manually curated list of music without lyrics. Predominately movie and game soundtracks)
  5. Random 2 GB smartlist (random selection of songs that are greater or less than 1 star)

I’m not going to get into the details of how these are built (maybe later) but the smart lists are actually subsets of other smart lists. Smartlists all the way down. They help limit my mobile music collection to just things I like or want to explore. However, iTunes Match has really thrown me for a loop.

If I choose to randomly play from my entire library, I now get music that does not exist in my carefully curated playlists. That means the random-play is choosing music that exists in the cloud but not downloaded. That’s pretty cool but it messes with my playlists and expectations. Now all playlists are available on my iPhone. Even my “Undesired” or my wife’s music collection (also undesired). Without specifically selecting a playlist, randomly playing a track is risky business. I might be exposed to Enya or Indigo Girls, and ruin an otherwise pleasant little moment.

Hardware / iOS / Music / Review — No Comments
21
Apr 11

A Use Case For Bluetooth: The Sony DRCBT30 Review

I purchased the Sony DRC-BT30 Bluetooth Headphone Adapter about a month ago from Amazon. After a month of heavy use I thought I’d share my experience with it. Be warned, it’s an unsatisfactory ending.

BT30

Why?

I listen to podcasts and music all day. My sole music player is my iPhone 4. I generally switch between a couple different headphones based on the working conditions. If I am stationary for awhile and need to concentrate, I will wear my Beyerdynamic DT 770 headphones. These are closed cup headphones that provide fantastic sound isolation and superb audio quality. They are also pretty large. The rest of the time, I use the apple headphones that came with the iPhone. Well, actually, I am on my third pair since I seem to destroy these things in the most bizarre ways. I also use my iPhone for occasional phone calls. Crazy, right?

The problem with both of these headphones is that they are tethered to an expensive piece of glass encased circuit boards. Several times a week the headphone cord will catch on something and violently rip the headphones off my ears or drop the iPhone to the floor. So I did the math and it seemed worth a modest expense to purchase a bluetooth transmitter for my headphones.

What?

I have not been a fan of Sony products for quite some time. The last high quality Sony product I owned was a Discman 350 from the 1990’s. Since then, Sony devices have not held much allure for me. After reading numerous reviews it became obvious that the options for good Bluetooth adapters would lead down the Sony path. I eventually settled on the Sony BT30 Bluetooth adapter.

Quality

As I anticipated, the build quality of the BT30 is less than impressive. It is entirely plastic. The prototypical shiny black plastic. The buttons are mushy and feel fragile. Accessing the mini USB connection requires a finger nail and a fair amount of force.

Usage

This is where I make all of my complaints moot. The BT30 changes my usage of my iPhone. For example, I would rarely listen to music while I worked around the house. This was learned behavior from accidentally yanking my iPhone out of my pocket after catching the headphone cord on a bush or some other nefarious environmental hazard. The difference in sound quality for MP3 or AAC files is imperceptible to me. I have not experienced interference or random un-pairing that I have with other unnamed bluetooth audio connectors.

Phone calls are as clear as with the Apple iPhone headphones. I have no complaints from the other end of the call either. The mic seems to be a bit more sensitive to wind or external noise. Perhaps this is a result of the greater microphone distance from the mouth. After all, the Apple mic is typically just an inch or two from the mouth.

Controlling the audio playback can be a little hit-and-miss. Since the buttons are imprecise, several times a week I will inadvertently forward tracks when I intended to pause playback. However, the buttons are responsive. I have had problems with other Bluetooth devices not immediately responding to button presses. This is not a problem with the BT30

Finally, the battery life is not impressive, but usable. I typically get about 8 hours of continuous use over a day. I have not done exhaustive battery life testing but I can say that I have not been limited in my use of the device. Fortunately, recharging is very fast. Typically, a recharge for an hour or two gets me through the rest of a long day.

Conclusion

Sadly, Sony has discontinued this product as well as the slightly cheaper BT15. They do not list a replacement product but the BT30 and BT15 are still available through Amazon (see links above). I highly recommend grabbing one while they are still shipping. It’s unfortunate that this is the end of the product line because this is one area where Sony is over achieving and filling a need.

Notes

While I have an Amazon associates account, I chose not to include those links in the body of the review. I do not want to give the impression that the review was written to generate revenue. If I ever decide I need the additional support, it will be done outside of a review post.

Apple / Music / Review — No Comments
26
Sep 07

There's a new Sheriff in town

I tried out the new Amazon music service. I have to say watch out Apple! It is just about as easy to use as iTunes, although finding music isn’t as straight forward. The albums are a couple of bucks cheaper (for select titles) and the download process couldn’t be any easier. Once you are logged in on their website and have installed the Amazon Downloader, you just purchase the album and away it goes. It loads straight into iTunes with high quality art work included. One minor benefit is that you don’t have to stop watching your video in iTunes just to download some music.

If Amazon is being truly honest about the “No DRM” claim for the music, then this will definitely give Apple some much needed competition. I am positive that this early pricing scheme will change after an introductory period. Kind of like free crack to get you hooked. I’m very skeptical of the major record labels. They have been throwing tantrums over Apple’s instance on $0.99 per track. I find it hard to believe they want to sell the music for less.
200709252034

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Apple / Mac / Music / Software / Tips — No Comments
19
Oct 06

Let the covers flow again

When Apple bought Coverflow to include in iTunes 7, I was both happy and sad. At first I was happy that iTunes finally had a nice interface for my album art. Sadly, Coverflow was no longer available (or so I thought). Coverflow downloaded album art from Amazon while iTunes uses the iTunes store (makes sense). I have some unusual CD’s which iTunes just ignores the cover art for while Coverflow happily found.

Fret not art lovers! Coverflow can still be found at MacUpdate. Just a quick download and your back to the good old days of August 2006.

Temp

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Mac / Music — 2 Comments
15
Sep 06

Where has all the art gone

Now that iTunes 7 has incorporated the snazzy Coverflow album visualizer, your probablly wishing all those P2P files came with art work. Well, look no further than Art Collector by Specere software. Specere is the same company that put out Menuet which can also download artwork. However, Art Collector allows you more direct approach and is not a system control panel (I hate mucking up my mac with more control panels). After you launch Art Collector, you are presented with an alphabetical list of your artists in iTunes. Select the album and you get to see the tracks, current art work and artwork that Art Collector has found. There is a bit of a delay, and really no batch processing, but what do you want for $8.95? Check out the demo, which as far as I can tell is fully functioning.

Picture 2

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