OK, ipodistas I have a couple of questions about ipods and their functionality. Can you store groups of songs as an album? How easy/difficult is it to quickly flip to the group/category/album of songs you would like to hear?

Ok class, iPod 101 is beginning. Let's take our seats please.

"Where should we take 'em?"

Anyway. When you power up you have a menu. The menu lets you scroll through the artists according to categories.

If you click 'artist' you can see the artist in alpha order. You click on the particular artist "Barry White" and you have the option of listening to 'All'- all his albums you have stored in a row- if its 2 or 7 will play. Or you can pick one of the albums you see listed.

You can choose "genre" and then blues, rock, techno, alternative and it will play all of the music that is listed as blues. The computer decides what genre it is when you load it- it is encoded somehow in a data base. I have PJ Harvey Cds that are alternative and some are rock. Country and rock are a fine line these days as well.

I think what you mean as groups of songs as an album would be a playlist. You can make a playlist 'on the go' or with iTunes. On the go means you are choosing songs to make a playlist with the iPod in your hand. You scroll through to find a song to add to your playlist and hold the button down until it flashes. It is then in your playlist and you move on to the next song. Or you use iTunes on your computer and download it to your iPod. My DH loves Pearl Jam and has every album they have ever produced. That is a lot of songs. So he made a favorite playlist of a few good songs on each album. I made a fast & heavy playlist for going to the gym. Both playlists can also be burned to a CD if we wanted.

How easy is it? We got one for my dad for Christmas. His motto is "I have people for that." He was so impressed when one of his friends had an iPod and was playing Frank Sinatra. The guy says name a song and I can play it. Any Frank song you can think of, I have in my hand.

When we have a party we hook it up to the stereo and just let it play. No changing Cds, no radio station junk with commercials. Let's say She works Hard For Her Money is playing and my buddy wants to hear Slayer next. I can scroll over to Slayer while Donna Summer is still playing and hit play when her song is over- the song won't stop playing if you are browsing for songs.

Any more questions? :)

Thanks for the lesson! It sounds like it actually would have the functionality a "I have people for that" kind of guy like me would like. Much like the desktop application I use sometimes.

Mark
(Who rationalizes having "people for that" by being other people's "people for that" by day)

Uh-oh my gray (I mean platinum blonde) hair is showing ;-)
Yes, my daughter want an iPod, and we even had one inthe house when her friend visited....

But.... I want to get my very old vinyls onto CDs or ...an iPod if you all insist! I have a bunch that are out-of-print. The cuts will not be found on any on-line music site to download. I even have an old (inherited) original 78 of Cab Calloway singing Mini the Moocher :-D

I heard there is some gadget (sorry, I have to use this word) that will accomplish the transfer, but I have not seen one. Duh!

Also, we have Garageband on our Mac at home. Still cannot find someone who can prescribe the correct widget to put between the Mac and the microphone and guitar so my daughter can record herself. Doh! We looked at the on-line support, but no definite answer.

OK, maybe my daughter will finally srping for an iPod and I can borrow it ;-)

Thanks for all the technical assistance!

Cheers
Maryanne in WMass, no cable, no iPod, no cell phone, no electric can opener, no pierced ears; but plenty of orchids

alright, I have another question. You know sometimes on a cd, one track flows into the next with no break in sound? Let's say tracks 2 and 3 are seamless. If I cue up 2 and 3 on an ipod, how will it play back? On the computer, there will be a split second silence inbetween and it drives me nuts.

This is probably the single most critical reason why I still don't have an ipod.....

Komi are you listening to trance? :) I think if its supposed to be seamless, but it is technically two tracks it my have that pause. But I can't think of any music I own like that right now for reference. I might just be used to the pause.

lounge, dj and classical..... as well as the "one notch above ambient" stuff (equivalent of chamomile "tea") that I have for certain days in the office. I don't think I have any trance left....

Hm, you say ipods, but what about irivers, archos etc? Still seems ipods are pretty far behind what archos were putting out years ago.

Maybe it's just me who has a thing against the whole apple ideology of you use their standard or nothing at all and you have to buy their products at their prices. Didn't like the headphone out socket either, sound was pretty tinny(was a standard ipod v2).

Yup seeing monster magnet in concert put me off them a bit, especially since it was in a tiny hall and the amps were far too loud for that hall, you couldn't discern one note from another. First time I haven't been able to hear much for 24 hours.

RP1

lounge, dj. They certainly speak in foreign tongues. What is lounge? All this proves is that i'm a musical dummy.

Getting back to old fogie type music. There, another label.

My most pathetic award to a performer still goes to Michael Crawford. Talk about doing the most minimal. and surprise, surprise, my best concert ever award goes to Michael Ball. Dragged there by the Dragon Woman to the Basketball stadium at of all places Wollongong. The stadium was full and included an army of his fans from GB. Sorry, RPI I think he is a bit above the class of Monster Magnet.

I agree--but who is he?

Best concert in my book was the first time I saw KoRn. Let's just say the whole crowd was "in tune" with each other ;) Although Primus is close ... could be a tie. I'll never forget when Les Claypool yelled, "Where you goin, Lobster Boy?" (The concert was in Maine.) Sigh. Those were the days.

Who is who? Michael Ball or Michael Crawford or some else?

Both ... I could Google, but alas, I'm lazy!

Forgive me for digressing to a digression (I hit this party too late). Brokeback mountain was pretty good. The pace was a little slow but most of Ang Lee's movies are a tad slow paced. The movie was sad. It was really about people following their heads and not their hearts. Hope that isn't a spoiler. I recommend the movie to everyone.
-Mimi

Maryanne, you seem to need an iMic to burn your old records to CD/computer/iPod. I just quickly looked at the description and it claims that's one thing it's made for. Are you saying you are trying to capture your daughter's voice between the mic and computer? I think the sound should go directly to the computer where you then use software to emulate a studio. Haven't tried it but that's my understanding. At any rate, again, the iMic seems to be what your daughter needs. If I'm not mistaken it's inexpensive ~$50 tops.

Here's a link to Apple and iPods and everything else. More info than any person needs. I find it's often easier to go into 'support' and read the discussion forums to find what I need, or need to do, in order to max out the capabilities of my Apple gadgets or find info related to using the stuff.

Griffin Technologies makes all kinds of cool add-ons for iPods and computers. Some of the stuff is downright inexpensive for the benefit derived.

www.griffintechnology.com

I find some of the product descriptions and uses rather vague at times for these products. They hint at what they do, rather than come right out and say anything. Finding a person with the answers is difficult. I've gone into BestBuy hoping for some clarification and usually know more than the sales people.

Another cool thing about digital music is that the price of decent speakers is cheap. For about $50 you can get dual wired speakers with a subwoofer that kicks. I actually find my big, bad Bose speakers that I have hooked up to my home stereo and then run the iPod or Squeezebox through, aren't always so great with digital music (they can hum or make other noises that you don't get with wired speakers due to the amp, I guess).

You do not need those pricey iPod docking stations as speakers. The headphone jack works just fine to plug your speakers into the iPod, or any other soundbridge device and/or buy a $3.00 Y-connector at Radioshack to plug into the back of your amp/receiver to use your stereo speakers. RP1 seems to be in the minority when it comes to thinking the headphone jack sounds "tinny". That's a big pet peeve of mine, and I don't find it to be true. But, I also admit due to having gone to a few too many concerts in my life, my hearing isn't what it should be. Mowing the lawn with my headphones cranked to the max isn't helping either.

Now look RP, Bill Gates made a mess of computers and OS and probably set back technology 10 years due to proprietary BS, and you think Apple is misbehaving? At least they've continued to move forward and improve their products and technology for the benefit of everyone due to knock offs. Think GUI if nothing else. If it were up to Bill, we'd still be using DOS as an interface. And even, for instance, MS Word. Word is a powerful program but it screws up simple formatting. What's with that?

Ki, you can fade between songs on an iPod. The setting for it isn't on the iPod so I guess it's done via iTunes. Or you can put in 1 or more second breaks if you want. I don't recall at the moment.

And for those of us on PC's that aren't wireless, this pulls it all together.

http://netgear.com/products/details/XE102.php

Or a new one with more ports but I don't have it.

http://netgear.com/products/details/XE104.php

For under $100 you can turn every electrical outlet inside and outside your house into an ethernet outlet and hook up all your gadgets that run off the internet (streaming music devices and wireless transmitters).

It's all very simple once you know what you need. Yes, Shady, I think even you can handle it. The netgear devices are literally plug and play. They find your internet addresses automatically and connect. Just plug them in and wait a minute for them to sync and voila.

One caveat,iTunes is way, way too easy to use. You don't even have to verify your credit card info to buy music once it's in system. Just search and download. Gotta love it.

Here is a link that might be useful: iTunes/iPod

"Yes, Shady, I think even you can handle it."

LOL, but fortunately I don't have to handle it! It's funny that we're talking about this now, because my partner has just purchased some new audio equipment and just a while ago he was playing his iPod through the main system. I still need him to get either the main CPU or the server hooked up to it and then I'll be able to play my music!

Michael who, arthur? :) He may be, but monster magnet are ok. Wouldn't rate them alongside in flames/yngwie though.

The line out on the ipod was reasonable(not the headphone jack), but it's still not a patch on the headphone out of the archos av series(700's, 500's) or the irivers. Fact is, if you use earphones and not headphones, you wouldn't notice any difference, because earphones are just a wash of distortion. If I remember correctly, the ipod didn't even go that loud either, but an archos with a pair of senns, well that would blow your eardrums.

I'll admit windoze does have its irritating bugs especially when combined with microsofts propietary software, but at least there's very few compatibility issues. I like DOS, it was stable, unlike everything else these days. I still don't like being told what to do by a corporation, I'll buy what I want, when I want, where I want, not on the basis of what the corporation tells me to do.

I also don't like the idea of itunes or these pay for mp3 services. The whole point of paying for music is that you have a hard copy of it which isn't in some ridiculously lossy format.

Personally if I didn't want to listen to music on the move it would either be through a pair of large floorstanding speakers(monitor audio) with an integrated or power/preamp combo(krell would be nice, more realistically cyrus) hooked up to a cd player(say, rotel), or through a set of senns.

HT setups are good for dvds, but nothing else unless you have a sacd player. Try one of these for bass:

http://www.genelec-ht.com/products/hts6/hts6.php

It'll easily put out 130db+ at around 30hz, close to 100db at around 15hz.

RP1

i've let that one go through to the keeper.

right-o, Arthur.

The music situation here has boomeranged. I can't figure out how to adjust the downstairs volume. Last night I couldn't find the DVD audio at all. At present moment the toyboy is playing something I don't like so I'm leaving the house.

We used to have a downstairs neighbor who was a wife-beating alcoholic who was obviously trying to (over-) compensate for some inadequacy with his ***Ten Thousand Dollar*** stereo system he liked to boast about. It was a common occurance to have some gawd awful music playing from 10PM to 8AM. Insane. One morning after a night like this, I discovered a lawnful of 30 or so Keystone Light beer cans scattered about. Apparently he had had a one-man patio party the night before. Eventually he confronted DH and I about OUR noise--What are you, moving furniture?--and we did our best but couln't figure the source of this noise that alegedly was causing problems between him and his wife. He was acting like he wanted to fight DH eventhough we were being as nonconfrontational as possible. We complained to the appartment management, and they just told us to call the police next time that happens--yeah, good way to settle grievances with the neighbors. Sigh. That's just the start of the story, but I'll stop here. Argh, gets me mad thinking about it all!

Interesting, no one has mentioned British Progressive (Yes, ELP, Genesis, Gentle Giant, Starcastle). Saw Renaissance live in 1979, Annie Haslam got as much attention then as the singer mentioned above. Then again so did Tom Jones or Engelbert Humperdink in their prime, so equal time? Then there are the Jam Bands: Grateful Dead, Phish, String Cheese Incident. Back in the day I had sub-woofers before the Home Theater people did. RP, remember Dual turntables? Advent Laureate speakers? Its all still on vinyl in a E-Z Storage in Livonia, MI. Never heard of Cake. What is their sound?

H

Howard, how old are you? Englebert and Tom Jones? If my parents hadn't had some of their albums, I'd probably have no idea who they were.

The problem with some older bands like ELP, Genesis,as well as Led Zep etc., is their music has been overplayed. I don't want to listen to anything that is more than a few years old and/or a band that's been around more than 10 or 15 years, since that's when commercial radio really went downhill (in my world) so some bands that have been around even 15 years haven't had much commercial airplay. After 4 or 5 years of listening to nothing but internet radio, but not 70's or 80's rock, I actually enjoy hearing a Stones song again.

I like Cakes cover of "Strangers in the Night" better than "I will Survive". Tne alien getting smacked with the disco ball doing "I Will Survive", did it for me. Nothing else will ever compare.

Old Tom should hang up his tonsils or do whatever old singers should do.

RPI knows very well who Michael Ball is. He is like a young Tom Jones only much better and he has an army of female fans who would/do follow him to the ends of the earth.

I know that i am dated, but i thought K D Lang with that other old guy was rather good.

Of course, i have nil musical knowledge but just because something is loud does not make it good.

Must listen to something by cake so you can get an 85 year olds slant on them

I didn't know KD Lang did guys.

K D Lang and Tony Bennet, a strange combination. But some lovely singing.
Passing that one through to the keeper to. Lol

Arthur,

Email me privately if you want a Cake mp3. My very musical grandmother is 76 and she actually kind of likes them.

;)

Nope howard, wasn't born yet for that.

Still have no idea who michael ball is.

Only a few I like which were before my time, e.g the moody blues, patti page, aretha franklin, deep purple, judas priest, van halen, zz top(just about in their timeline), joe walsh, some cream and even ac/dc. I'm afraid you just can't overplay any of them.

So no, I don't like just loud music either. Even a little classical(rheinberger and dupre).

Can't stand tom jones or any pop.

Louder is better, when it's a subwoofer. If you don't feel dizzy, it's not loud/low enough.

RP1

I guess I really date myself if I admit I saw Elvis in person. The only time he did a concert in Canada. I also saw Sonny and Cher live - a marvellous show.Thanks for the info about the Ipods. All my grandkids have them and I like to pretend I know what they're talking about.

I can't stand AC/DC's vocals. I saw a stand-up comedy routine that talked about how he sounded like a sheep. "BAAaaaAaaAaAaaaahhhh!" I wish I could remember the context...

Not sure how they get to a sheep with ac/dc?

RP1

"I'm BAAaAAAaAaAaaaa BaaAaaa! Yes, I'm back. I'm back in black!"

I knew context would be helpful :)

So you yanks make fun of our british accent eh? :)

RP1

Its not his accent RP, listen again. When one is singing into a Shure SM58 in Robert Plant mode it isn't possible to discern a national identity. I'm with Nicole on AC/DC's frontperson but not because I don't like Heavy Metal. Black Sabbath (Osborne), Zepplin (Plant), Living Color (Glover), Boston (???), Pearl Jam (???) all have better vocalists IMO than AC/DC or Judas Priest. At this point Laura is really shaking her head. I don't know how it happened either L, but I'm over trying to understand it. And I'm not talking about Tom Jones. I've never heard a Tom Jones song I just was using a reference I thought would connect across gender, race, national or political lines.

I though I was the only person who could listen to a Rheinberger sonata and appreciate a Heavy Metal power trio. What about C.H. Parry, C.V. Stanford or Elgar, RP? I'm planning to study with Anne Mardsen Thomas this summer at St. Giles, Cripplegate.

Laura is absolutely right about the sad state of FM radio and if the only progressive rock you hear comes from AOR stations then true you've only heard about .01% of what these groups ever put to vinyl but I have the vinyl. And thanks to internet radio I am now hearing more of the unrecorded projects and live shows that never made vinyl that make it so that I rarely listen to the same piece of music twice!! There are simply too many songs, too many compositions to be satisfied with a 'Top 40' kind of format. It just frosts my cookies when one is driving long distance without sattelite listening to some generic classic rock station and hear some listener 'request' a song that they must have heard 10,000 times by now.

H

Here is a link that might be useful: Awesome Prog Rock Internet Radio Station

I can't knock johnson for singing like that, I guess some people just don't like that kind of vocals.

Elgar yes, good, but haven't heard of the others. Haven't heard any of the sonatas, just the concertos.

e.g http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000003CU3/qid=1137662492/sr=1-24/ref=sr_1_2_24/202-8180266-5675059

Talking of progressive, event is maybe a band you haven't come across. Good vocals too.

RP1

My musical taste leans towards electronica mainly but I do like some rock oriented groups.

Some favorites:

Boards of Canada- The new Campfire Headphase album is amazing, all worth checking out.
Kruder and Dorfmeister
Aphex Twin/AFX
Funki porcini
Diesel boy- dark American drum & bass artist
Ninja Tune artists- Amon Tobin, Kid Koala, Cinematic Orchestra
St Germain- Des pres Cafe discs are great, upbeat new jazz
Ween- Quebec, The Mollusk, The white Pepper
The new Foo Fighters album
Garden State sound track
Nine Inch Nails- With Teeth

I do like prog, but I refuse to count Genesis as prog. King Crimson and ELP are where it's at, in that category...

A few prog groups managed to re-invent themselves and/or devolve their music to stay active in the 80's (90's!). Early Genesis is most definitely prog but I agree that their later stuff most definitely isn't. Renaissance, Jethro Tull, Gentle Giant and even Yes made some awful post-prog music in the name of what I don't know. Some, (Yes again) are still progging away even though some of the band members are pushing 60. Steve Howe gives Mick Jagger and Keith Richard's a real fight for the title of oldest looking rocker still standing.

H

Yes is painfully bad, now. Some of their early stuff was good, but 'Owner of a Lonely Heart' has been enough to drive me completely from there; groups should know when to give up. I've heard better prog/composition from Screwtractor.

Ian Anderson from Jethro Tull is still playing, but I can't imagine it being the same as when he was in his prime. You really can't go very wrong with the early stuff, but things aren't the same after twenty years.

Stacy

*digging up a ghost thread*

anything new lately? I've been desperately waiting for kdlang's new one (don't want to go the download route) since I heard the BBC World piece she did on music from the Canadian prairie. Her singing always reminded me of string cheese, but this one is promising.

kd's still around? i haven't heard much about her since I lost touch with that community.

I've been into either bebop/hard bop or Bollywood style lately. I know, kind of a disconnect there.

"Bollywood style"
this would be non-bolly people doing Bollywood? I still don't get it and not sure I ever will.....

Wow, I read most of this before I realised how old the thread was.

I can't beleive no one mentioned the cheiftains.

Nothing makes you feel out of place like being the only person under 30 at a show (not to say that I'm not used to that)

My #1 favorite is black gospel. Anyone else familiar w/ Gospel at Colonus?

I haven't heard kd lang for a few years now, but she had one of the best voices around, when you're talking pure vocal talent. Did anyone see her on the Grammys awhile back when she did Roy Orbison's "Crying"? Blew the roof off.

As for Brokeback (Keith, rest in peace), my theory - a lot of straight guys are comforted by Queer Eye, etc. and uneasy about Brokeback because (shudder) in the movie, YOU CAN'T TELL BY LOOKING if a guy's gay. If that guy's gay and looks like a "regular" guy, and EYE look like a regular guy..... well, we gotta keep that trash away from the young people. :)

DH is in an original heavy rock/light metal band and also in a rock cover band, so I hear loads of that music and like lots of it.

qylliam - The Chieftans - are you talking about the Irish group? I got to hear them one time in concert. They were great.

Anyone else familiar w/ Sweet Honey in the Rock? A capella group that does original music, black gospel, reggae, etc.

Arthur, many of the band names are new to me, too.

What genre is Cake?

"Classic" country is terrific - Dolly Parton, Emmylou Harris, Johnny Cash, Patsy Cline - rarely the crossover stuff. Some bluegrass.

Shady Character - who does Bollywood *style*? I gotta hear these people. :)

Whitecat8

Sorry. I should have said Bollywood and Bollywood style/referenced to mean both the actual film music (mostly contemporary) and remixes thereof.

I think my parents had a Chieftans record (yes, vinyl)

There's a great classic country station I was streaming over the weekend, Whitecat8 that you would probably just love. When I get home I'll see if I can find it for you.

Sweet Honey in the Rock - of course! They're from here!

Komi, that's right, they're from your town. Have you heard/seen them in concert? Do you like their styles of music? They come here about every 3 years, and DH and I are there. WC8

Love them but haven't seen them live. They get a fair amount of airplay on wpfw :)

It's funny scanning back over the earlier parts of this thread.

I'm now a total Squeezebox junkie. Since we never got the main audio system to pipe CDs to the main living area I just burned what I like to the PC and access it that way. I rarely listen to CDs at home, though. What's fun is some folders I've filled with bird song clips. They can provide a little welcome ambience during the cabin fever days. Most of the time I just stream online music. Last weekend I found a station that plays really great classic country. Next step is to get the right kind of access point so I can get a wireless model to have out in the garden this spring!

Hey, Mark - Do you remember the classic country station? I'd like to check it out. The bird songs sound extra nice. When my folks lived on some acreage, they called it Birdsong. Idyllic place. Thanks, WC8

Sorry! I didn't get a chance to look for it this weekend. Oddly busy. I've written myself a note to scrounge it up this evening.

I don't think this is it, but it sounds pretty good so far. I'm kicking myself for not adding it to my favorites. Patsy Cline just finished up and now Marty Robbins is singing "Devil Woman."

Here is a link that might be useful: Hudson Valley Country.