Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with computer and music

How to make the Mac play nice with my Sansa?

reenum — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 14:44:49 -0800

How to sync Macbook with a non-iPod MP3 player? I have a Sansa e250, and I love it. I also love my new Mac. However, I've been having a small issue with syncing music onto the Sansa.

On my old Windows machine, I used to have a Sansa folder on my hard drive and then would just sync both folders each week using a program called Allway Sync, which removed listened to MP3's and added on the new stuff I'd downloaded that week.

With the Mac, I can't find a similar program, possibly due to the dominance of iTunes.

So, Hive Mind, is there a program or method I can use to get this functionality on my Mac?

Open Back Headphones On A Budget.

nam3d — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 15:54:35 -0800

Could someone please reccomend me some comfortable open back headphones with decent enough sound for under £40? Prefebly they should have a short cable (as I keep triping over my Sennheiser's). I'll be using them in conjunction with my mac, mostly listening to a lot of spoken word audio (tv shows, etc) and for light music listening.

Here's hoping you can help.

How do I get my files from Point A to Point B?

reenum — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 15:10:14 -0800

I need to move several gigs of music files from one external hard drive to another. But, there are a few problems... I have a 250GB WD HD in an enclosure and recently bought a WD Elements 640GB drive. I now want to back up all my music files from the 250GB to the 640GB drive. They total about 33GB.

Problem is, my computers do not have USB 2.0 drives. Every time I begin the backup process, it goes for a while, and then terminates due to an error in writing from the 250GB drive.

Is there an easy way to do this backup?

Software to generate notated music from singing?

Flunkie — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 15:41:57 -0800

Can I sing (or hum or whistle) into my computer and have it produce notated music? I would like to sing (or hum or whistle) into my computer and have it produce some form of notated music - sheet music notation, MIDI, or preferably both. I figure there might be some software out there that would let me do this, given the existence of games like Rock Band (which detects the pitch you're singing at).

Assume (as I do) that I am not tone deaf, and that I have a halfway decent singing voice.

Windows, please; freeware is preferred but not required.

Thanks in advance.

Best home karaoke solution?

jeffmshaw — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 12:48:56 -0800

Help me create the ultimate karaoke room in the finished basement of my house. Reading over the karaoke posts in the archives, it seems there are numerous ways to go about creating a karaoke room: buying a dedicated karaoke machine, using a computer, using one of the games available for a console or modifying a DVD player.

I'd like specific advice about the best way to create an awesome karaoke den, from scratch. Money is a factor, but not an overwhelming concern. I don't mind spending to get it right.

The basement already has a large TV with gaming consoles and DVD player attached. I also have 3 gigs of songs on my PC, so I wouldn't be averse to using the computer as a solution. My main criteria for an enjoyable experience:

* A wide variety of songs, with easy ways to add more
* Multiple mikes
* Lyrics are a requirement, with effects and visuals a bonus

I'm looking for:

* General advice about the best way to do this (I'm leaning toward a PC solution, but could easily be swayed. I'd love it if you'd tell me how YOU'D create your perfect karaoke room)
* Specific equipment recommendations (what speakers? what mikes? Any great accessories?)
* Links to articles about creating your own karaoke room that you find helpful. There's a lot of chaff out there and I'm having a tough time finding the wheat.

Thanks much in advance. I'm in Durham, NC, if that matters.

Accessible playlists

miss_scarlett — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 12:46:22 -0800

How would one go about creating a playlist akin to a mixtape (ie with specifically ordered songs), to share with a friend via thumb drive/zip file? I know this is possible using iTunes, but what if the recipient doesn't use iTunes?

I want to make a universally accessible playlist, which can be 'zipped' together with notes and images...Is there a software program that will do this for me? Some way I can attach data or formatting to a list of individual files?

Music for Home Movies

passtehbrainz — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 18:25:04 -0800

I'm looking for a website to get ideas for music that would match the theme of home movies that I put together on my Mac. In other words, if im putting together our trip to the beach home movies, 'Surfing in the USA' might match the theme, etc. I understand there might be legal issues, but that should be up to the end user.

help me find a piece of classical music

Foam Pants — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 11:59:38 -0800

I am looking for a piece of classical music that was featured as a teaching tool on a computer program about 15 or 20 years ago. It was written by an Englishman, I think sometime between 1900 and 1950. It was based on an English hymn or a piece of folk music. It was intended to serve as a piece to educate kids about classical music and the components of a classical composition. I encountered it as a program that came on a CD. It played the music as it explained what was going on in the orchestra/music with a written narrative. There were other educational parts to this whole program but I remember listening to the entire piece of music the most. I know this may not be much to go on but I have been longing to hear this music again as I really liked it.

Help Me Rebuild My iTunes Library

grumblebee — Thu, 08 May 2008 07:39:45 -0800

My Macbook Pro was stolen. Just about the only non-shitty thing about it is that I keep my huge iTunes library on an external drive. All the music files are on the drive, but the data files (library.xml) were on the stolen Mac. I have another Macbook. What's the simplest way I can rebuild my library on it? I don't use playlists or ratings. All I want is the ability to see all my music in iTunes.

The music is now in two places: On the external usb drive and on my iPod.

On the new Macbook I'm using, I have an empty iTunes. Should I add all the music? Plug in my iPod and download from there? Something else?

(By the way, my stolen machine was a 17" Macbook Pro. It has a missing S key on the keyboard and is in generally bad condition. It takes forever to boot up. If anyone sees someone selling it online, let them know they can make more selling it to me. No questions asked. The machine isn't worth much. But there are chapters on it of a book I'm writing.)

Nasty noises when recording to a computer?

sleepy pete — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 15:57:20 -0800

Recordingfilter: Why do strange buzzing noises and "zzzt"s appear when someone isn't touching the guitar strings while recording on a computer. I've had this happen in several studio setups (all recording to a computer with different software) in several houses in different locations with several guitars/basses.

In a former house that was old with some iffy wiring in places, I noticed that sitting in front of the computer could cause it (which I figured was the monitor, and was right), the heater coming on, or sometimes even just a glitch with the computer. This was going direct and with a mic/amp setup using an older SG. The SG is a little noisy anyway, so that was easy to understand and fix.

A few months ago in a basement studio, however, I noticed that the same problem would happen in a mic/amp situation and the computer was in another room. Recording bass (Rickenbacker) through an amp with a mic was the worst with many strange "zzzt" noises when the bassist's fingers moved from the strings. I chalked it up to weird wiring in the house, but it turns out that the owner of the studio had an electrician come look at the wiring (for a separate reason) and the electrician said that all of the outlets were grounded and in working order. Also, recording guitar in a mic/amp situation, the pickups on the guitars I was using (an older Epiphone hollowbody, a newer Ibanez hollowbody, a tele, and my SG again) would buzz if I was facing the computer, which was in another room separated by a wall with some of the outlets on the same wall and a few on another.

Has anyone ever had this problem or anything similar? Is there a way to fix it without rewiring an entire house? Would a noise gate work to get rid of the strange noises when a hand moves from the strings? Is it old pickups vs. computers?

All I know is that it drives me crazy and once I think I have it fixed, it comes back or we switch locations. Please let me know if I'm not clear enough on the noises that I'm hearing and I'll try to find some examples later.

Thanks.

Distortion is cool, but not always...

DMan — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 16:09:26 -0800

What's the best way for me to record music with my computer for under $100? This question reminded me of something I've been meaning to ask.

I own (and can somewhat play) an electric drumset, electric bass, and an electric guitar. I've also think I can sing, somewhat. I'd like to experiment with recording music from these various instruments onto my computer and turning them into a song.

I thought, well, this is easy, I'll just plug a cable from the line-out on the amp to the line-in on the PC, and be done with it! As you guys probably know already, that didn't work well at all. I haven't tried it with the guitar, but when I did it with the bass, the resulting recorded sound was very distorted. Definitely not a good solution. I don't think it's the amp or the instrument--the bass sounds fine when I use headphones with the amp or the amp speaker.

So I need something else. I was originally considering a USB-based solution like this, but recently realized that a small mixer might work as well. Here's what I see to be the pros to each:

USB thing:
- Built in effects (are these useful?)
- Small size

Mixer:
- XLR inputs for a better mic
- Ability to plug more than one thing in (if I wanted to play with others, maybe?)

So, which of these is a better solution? I'm not even sure if the mixer would fix my distortion issues, but figured one of the musicians here might be able to help me out. I realize that there are $300+ devices that are made to do this stuff, but I'm a college student and not really sure how serious I am about all this yet, so I want to start small. If it's relevant, I have a Crate amp that has a 1/4th inch headphone out and a 1/4th inch output with a speaker icon by it.

Thanks, any help would be great!

Sometimes I wish you could ask a question over at MeFiMu...

Cheapo way to plug piano keyboard into a mac

singingfish — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 20:30:15 -0800

What's the cheapest way of plugging a piano keyboard into my mac Nope, not interested in sound quality/keyboard quality or anything like that. I just want to know my cheapo options for plugging a keyboard into my mac.

A poem/tune: Possible to publically perform?

umbú — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 18:22:29 -0800

What is the easiest way to have one program running in Mac OS X while another displays keystrokes in real time? I'll explain the details inside... I've been playing around with the Native Instruments B4 II Hammond B3 organ simulator on my Powerbook G4. It allows the user to play the computer keyboard as a piano keyboard. Zxcvbnm,./ and qwertyuiop[]\ line up as rows of white piano keys, while sdghjl; and 2356790= serve as the adjacent black keys. Typing into the organ, it turns out that certain words, such as 'something,' can be made into catchy, albeit fairly dissonant, melodies.

So here's my question. If, using this system, a song was written so that typing the 'lyrics' would simultaneously provide the song's melody, what would be the easiest way to display the letters being typed on one monitor/digital projector while the NI B4 was running on another monitor?

Booting to SOLID and STABLE mode for live performance?

Alabaster — Sun, 08 Apr 2007 14:55:41 -0800

Looking to do live music performance with my laptop, how can I make sure it's rock solid and stable during performance sessions? This laptop is also my general-use everyday PC with lots of software and accessories running. I would like to boot to a "performance mode" which automatically disables all but essential software, drivers, and processes. I'd also be interested in considering:

-A solid, STABLE shell replacement that requires bare minimum resources
-Dual booting options? (how?)
-Any other suggestions

I'd like to do this all in a simple, 1-step way if possible, so that I can switch between "general" and "performance" modes with a few clicks and a reboot. Any tips?

(I already use Startup Cop Pro but am interested in considering alternatives)

Thanks

P.S. I have invested a few thousands of dollars worth of professional music software and am NOT looking to switch to linux at this point.

Help me move my playlist across the file structure divide.

gergtreble — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 14:27:06 -0800

I have 2 installations of iTunes. I want to transfer a play-list from one to the other. Both have identical libraries. However the file paths of the two libraries is different on each computer. Is there a way to do this? Theres The Music files on computer A, have the file structure:

\Artist\Album\*.mp3

Where * is whatever the filename is, i.e. Its a mess (years of P2P natch).

Computer B has a much cleaner file-structure

\Artist\Year - Album\Tracknumber-Trackname.mp3

All ID3 tags on all files across both computers are correct and virtually identical.

I have a large (6000 song) playlist on computer A that I want to have on computer B. Is there a way to do this?

Ive tried exporting the song list from A then importing it to B but due to the differing file paths It doesn't work.

I was hoping that there would be some way of using the ID3 tags to make this work.

Thanks Metafilter.

Cables cables everywhere, and not a stereo 1/4" to dual mono 1/8" to be found

Eothele — Sat, 06 Jan 2007 16:24:08 -0800

Solutions for organizing lots of different kinds of cables (xlr, 1/8 in, 1/4 in, rca, usb, firewire, ac) for easy access where space is at a severe premium?

How can I pause Windows Media Player with my keyboard, without the default media player shortcut keys?

angryjellybean — Fri, 24 Nov 2006 04:04:02 -0800

How can I pause Windows Media Player with my keyboard, without the default media player shortcut keys? I know that when you actually have Windows Media Player open or selected in the taskbar, Ctrl + P pauses it, but when I'm browsing in Firefox occasionally I want to just pause my music instantly with the keyboard, maybe with F5, F7, etc, whatever, I just want to be able to press one or two keys and have it pause straight away.

I've downloaded Winkey but that doesn't actually help unless you can give it the exact route to what the shortcut is supposed to do - what is the route for the command to pause??

Also I know it's lazy because I can easily just select the Media Player window, but I'm just wondering if there *is* an easier way.

GUI Music video

fungible — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 13:23:53 -0800

Does anyone remember the name of a music video where the band is playing, and they keep getting moved about and assaulted by a pointer, as if they were part of a computer's GUI? And, if possible, where to find it online? Or, if you know of any other videos along that theme?

Sound Output problem with Alesis MultiMix 8

RustyBrooks — Wed, 11 Oct 2006 08:52:52 -0800

I bought an Alesis MultiMix 8 the other day, which is an 8 input firewire interface. It works OK but the main problem I have is that the stereo out (from the computer to the mixer) cuts out very frequently. It will go anywhere from 1s to about 10s with no cutout, and then it'll cut out for anywhere from a short period of time to about 5s. It does this whether I am monitoring what I am recording or just playing something back.

It records fine, I can listen to the tracks with another audio out and they sound normal. At first I was worried that it was missing data while recording but it's not.

At the moment I am using my US-122 as an output soundcard and the alesis as an input sound card but this sucks, why should I have to use 2 products?

All the drivers are the new ones from the web site (March 06) and I've upgraded the firmware to the most recent version. I have fiddled with the settings to no avail (latency settings, etc).

I'm using Cubase SX if it matters... The computer is oldish, a 1.5ghz athlon, 1gig ram, VIA based firewire card.

My main suspicions thus far are:
* crappy drivers
* crappy computer
* crappy firewire card (everyone recommends the TI based ones...)
* crappy firewire cable (recording works fine though, and that's much higher bandwidth)

the is what we call the zip zap rap

Kifer85 — Mon, 10 Jul 2006 07:05:09 -0800

Is there a way to play my ipod through my computer? i have 40 gigs of music on my ipod, which is backed up on my external harddrive. Is there a way to make these files playable through itunes?

Using Notebook Computer as CD-Player

ParisParamus — Tue, 26 Jul 2005 14:23:46 -0800

Sound output of notebook computer (Powerbook) too low to drive Bose Wave Radio input; inexpensive solution? A few years ago, I was delighted with the sound quality achieved by running a CD Player into the input of my Bose Wave Radio. A few minutes ago, I just discovered that the same does not obtain when I connect my Powerbook through good audio cables (and a stereo miniplug to RCA plug converter) to the Wave Radio. I didn't know the output of a conventional CD Player was so high (as compared to my Powerbook). Short of going to amplified speakers that won't sound as good as the Wave Radio, any other solution?

Computer World cover

donth — Tue, 10 May 2005 10:00:22 -0800

What computer is on the cover of Kraftwerk's Computer World album?

Death of the Living Room Stereo?

seawallrunner — Wed, 30 Mar 2005 16:59:48 -0800

Does the wired home spell the end of the living room stereo system? I was in Montreal for a few days and returned home with an armful of CDs (despite participating in two MefiSwap music groups!). Despite having a lovely 5-CD player in my living room, I slapped each of these CDs, one by one, into my computer so I can later play each song on my various MP3 devices.

The expensive stereo equipment in my living room, which I last upgraded some years ago, hardly gets any more play. Instead, I use my computer, some nice HK speakers that connect into the desktop, and am very happy with the results.

My next upgrade will involve a computer - with WiFi across the house, how could it not? Which stereo component brands can I still count on? Currently I have NAD, Denon, Linn Science and Mac in the living-room setup.

Is the non-networked stereo system going the way of the phonograph?

Computer Software for Recording

derekislost — Fri, 18 Mar 2005 06:59:58 -0800

I'm looking to record on my PC ( I have adequate Hardware) some music using guitars, bass, vocals, and some other instruments. I need suggestions for a good software program to use (money is not a problem) for the basic recording/tracking and a good program to create drum tracks from scratch. Please see extended explanation for more details. I have a pretty good understanding of recording software (mostly from video fields) so I don't need a beginner program. Something for intermediate to advanced. I also don't like pre-programmed beats. I'd like to create my beats from scratch and have them easily incorperated into the recording software. I hope the details I've provided are adequate.

Winamp lowers the volume after every song.

FunkyHelix — Tue, 21 Dec 2004 22:06:43 -0800

Winamp lowers the volume after every song. So, I'm constantly turning it all the way back up. How do I get it to stop that? They may be trying to save my ears, but my headphones are dying and I have a slight hearing problem. I listen to a song, and the next one is suddenly just a whisper. So frustrating.