Shop Tunes: moderninzing the system (CD to MP3?)

[thollandpe]

Wade, +1 on Blue Jean Blues. Fandango and Tejas are good stuff.

I scored a 1-terrabyte hard drive for $70 and all my CD's, as well as the kids' iPods, are going in that little box and then out into the garage away from the interwebs where the R!AA's lawyers might think I stole that much music. And they're not getting a dime outta me until they pay me for the 45 of "I Hear You Knockin" by Dave Edmunds that I bought at Caldor for 79 cents, and it always skipped.

[Craig Ryan]

I'm going through the same problems, sortof, as Wade. I have a receiver and XM in the shop, but would like to expand my system so I can play off of itunes or my computer. My old Airport wasn't strong enough, so I bought another one, Cisco, and got it going. Now my Airport Express isn't being recognized, so I'm working on that. I think it's the way to go if I can get it running. Then I can leave my computer in the dust free house, set it to play and pick it up out in the shop.

[WadePatton]

went and retrieved a free stereo system with limited capabilities yesterday, because my wonderful old Akai has a dead channel. hooked up the new sys, plumbed in the super Pioneer tuner, moved my speakers apart-to accentuate the _stereo_ recordings...mmmm tasty.

then found my old Clockhammer CD! (nashville band, nashville studio, saw 'em play in m'boro once)

also located a mini-stereo to RCA jacks cable...going to give the PC a whirl just NOW. (the 2nd shift of me reports next).

[TMB]

I have a 1 TB drive that I back up music on. It currently has in excess of 100K music tracks on it.

For when I am in my workshop, I have an old set of computer speakers ( so two stereo speakers plus bass woofer ), I picked them up for about $15.

They plug into the iPod with a mini jack, and that's all there is to it.

An iPod holds enough music for days before it repeats, and then I have lots of music choices (!) to change it up.

I use iTunes for everything since it really could not be simpler.

[Craig Ryan]

Do you have to charge the ipod every night then? Sounds like an easy solution.

[edoz]

If you use an iPod dock, it will have the usb connector that you can plug into the wall, plus the line out for running to powered speakers. Music and charge at the same time.

[WadePatton]

great, we've corralled some good info in here-maybe it'll help others as well.

first run didn't work. i tried a three way conversion cable and only need stereo (i found it in my hoard of cables). it caused a heavy 60hz hum and underpowered audio. so while i'm not sure that the stereo jack to "cd" in jacks on my amp is going to work at all, i will try it. just having a cd player and stereo sound is plenty for now. when i started this thread i had mono-am or mono-fm broadcast the end, and plus 42 horny roosters crowing all day across the fence.

i say i say i say boy listen up here now boy...foghorn says to the miniature chicken hawk.

hey that'd be shop toons.

[rwsaunders]

Wade...if you have an IPod and ITunes, you might enjoy podcasts as much as music. You subscribe to the podcasts and they download to the IPod when you sync.

[gjuffer]

Wade...if you have an IPod and ITunes, you might enjoy podcasts as much as music. You subscribe to the podcasts and they download to the IPod when you sync.

That's the way to go. Then every time yer hankering for some Guy Noir to cleanse the palate after all that Kilmeister, just cue him up and go. You can also download subliminal language tracks and learn Esperanto in as little as two weeks! Useful for communicating with those UN type guys like Dazza.

[justinf]

software: iTunes
purchases: Amazon mp3
storage: external hard drive
network: airport express, attached to your power and speakers of choice

done.

[rec head]

Ripping: If you are going through the trouble off ripping CDs then you might as well save the whole thing somewhere better than a thumb drive. As it has been said hard drives are cheap. Then you will have tons of room and no need to throw stuff out.

Acquiring Music/Ripping: I still buy CDs. I don't listen to them but I buy them and RIP them lossless. Only occasionally when I only want one song will I buy an MP3. The main reasons are A) I will always own those discs and B) CDs sound better than MP3 on my stereo. As for ripping quality more is better but it depends on what you are going to play them through that makes the big difference.

Apple products: Great simple solutions that suck for everything that they aren't specifically designed for. Before I get flamed I should state that I use the hell out of my airport express and have been for years.

[Craig Ryan]

It looks like my airport express won't be recognized by my Linksys/Cisco WRT400N. Or if it will, I can't get it there.
I found one of the kids old ipods from '04, loaded it up and plugged it directly into my shop receiver. Works like a charm. Worried about the battery life so I may hardwire it to an outlet. Screw the network, when I set that router up I was on the phone for over an hour and had major communication problems.

[maunahaole]

Craig, try this with the router if haven't yet. It looks like you have a router that can handle N speed. There are different speeds of wireless, each has its own letter. Your router may be set to communicate ONLY with N speed devices, and the airport may be running a G speed or a B speed. You may have to hit the correct switch in the router software to let it talk to devices of different speeds. Just thinking out loud on this one.

[WadePatton]

Ripping: If you are going through the trouble off ripping CDs...As it has been said hard drives are cheap.

as far as OP and my progress goes: "ripping" is file copying it's no more trouble than downloading. i'm thrilled to have the p/c (via WMP 10) salvage some of my beat up discs. won't fix 'em all, but i was blown away when a few "skipper/scratched" tracks came out clean.

right now i can't spend "cheap".

i find the playback quality from the thumb is fantastic. and later i'll jam that onto a real player. right now i'm still cd'in it in the shop as i don't have the stereo plug/rca splitter yet. thanks for the info yall.

carry on.

[giordana93]

if you are going to take the time to rip the songs, it makes most sense to do it in a lossless format on the computer hard drive or if you have a readily available external hard drive; if you are satisfied with the mp3 quality playback, make mp3 versions for the thumb drive. but it's not best practice to rip directly to the thumbs (you only want to do this ONCE)), and if you actually want to preserve some of the older, damaged discs, you must use lossless--mp3 format will flatten and take life out of original formats--the Apple lossless is bigger than mp3, but much smaller than original encoding. I'm a mac user, so this is all pretty simple in ITunes, and I assume that Itunes for windows would be the same. maybe WMP is ok these days, but after using the apple stuff for years, every time I have to deal with windows stuff, it's just no fun. so to summarize, using ITunes:
1.import cd to library using a lossless format. this will be your archival quality, backed up recording
2. create mp3 versions of songs that you copy to a smaller device like an old ipod or thumb drive; if they have limited space, you can always dump and write over since you have the archive saved somewhere else
3. an RCA to mini stereo jack should be cheap--not at best buy or walmart, but online at somewhere like parts express
3.5mm Stereo Male to 2 RCA Male Cable 5 ft. | Parts-Express.com


you could always splice up your own too (and do a really long run directly from your computer,for example)