Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with music and mac

What's the best wireless audio bridge / networked digital audio receiver that works on the Mac?

nitsuj — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 08:27:10 -0800

What's the best wireless audio bridge / networked digital audio receiver that works on the Mac? I'm looking for a simple hardware solution that will allow me to bridge my Macbook Pro's audio-out source to my home theater amplifier. Many products like the WMB54G and Sirocco either have no Mac support at all, or have very poor reviews and cost way too much.

The Airport Express seems decent if I only wanted to stream iTunes, but I'd also like to stream from other sources, like Spotify, which it won't support.

Is there a simple, under-$100 (or close to it) solution out there?

Music-making: Suggest a capable laptop, please!

Cantdosleepy — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 03:33:57 -0800

Which laptop computer for making music? It's PC vs Mac with the usual provisos... I'm going to be getting a computer in the new year for making music. I'll most likely be using Reaper on it, perhaps Reason as well if latency isn't a killer, otherwise with a variety of VSTi and VSTs running simultaneously.

It'll be my main computer for my other roaming surfing listening to music needs so it has to be a laptop.

So the first question: Windows or Mac? I'm not interested in the ideological war - I have owned and used both in the past and am happy with both systems, so not interested in design or useability arguments. The software I'll be using is available on both, so that's not an issue, either.

Macs are A LOT more expensive - firewire (is that a must these days for musical stuff?) doesn't start on a Mac for less than £1000 (that's for a refurbed Macbook Pro with a poky 13.3" screen). Also if I get a refurb I can't choose my spec, so might have further costs there - if I'm recording audio I'll need a 7200rpm drive (presumably external). £1000 is the absolute limit to what I can spend, really.

But if I get a Windows computer will I have to spend a couple of hundred on an ASIO card/breakout box to deal with the horrible latency issues?

I could get a Lenovo for 2/3rds the MBP price with what seems like a pretty good spec: http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/controller/e/gbweb/LenovoPortal/en_GB/systemconfig.runtime.workflow:LoadRuntimeTree?sb=:000000F0:00000082:&smid=2BD61D210D4B420DB4A05F15220AEEF7 which includes a faster HD and the same amount of RAM.

I realise that this won't be as fast as the Pro, but I'm not interested necessarily in system-wide speediness. I want something that can handle simultaneous recording of audio and MIDI, and that won't fall over and die if I want to play with delay and reverb on four or five audio tracks with a couple of drum machine VSTIs and softsynths, as well as lasting as my lug-around-town regular computer for the next five years.

Any advice greatly appreciated - and if there are issues I've forgotten don't hesitate to flag them up!

If it makes a difference, I'll most likely be picking it up in the January sales.

Cleaning up messy music folders

1024x768 — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 10:11:46 -0800

Help me clean up my messy music files I am embarking on a clean up of my enormously messy MP3 folders. After several computer switches, and crash+restore jobs I have approximately a dozen different folders containing between hundreds and thousands of MP3s each. The issue is each folder is at least a partial duplicate of several others. Each of these dozen folders contains subfolders in various organizational formats. There's far too many files for me to devote the time to manually eliminating duplicates. Confounding matters slightly is that many of the MP3s have woefully inadequate tagging/ID3 data.

This motley collection lives on a Macbook pro running 10.5. I'd like to find an app/script/method that does the following

1) Eliminates all the dupes
2) Cleans up the ID3 info

The cleaned up collection will then be put into an iTunes library which I will let keep things from getting too messy in the future. I would prefer to use iTunes due to ease of syncing with my iPhone, but if there is a truly compelling alternative that will take care of everything, I am willing to consider it.

I'd prefer a free method of doing this, but would shell out a little bit of scratch if there were an app out there that did exactly what I wanted.

soulSuX: I need music!

ElmerFishpaw — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 06:10:23 -0800

Its been a couplefew years and there is still no decent music sharing solution for mac? Theres got to be something, right? This is the only headache I have from switching to mac. Ive been told they search the same database but I dont buy it, soulSeeX on mac does not return anywhere near the results slsk does on PC. Same deal with solarseek and nicotine. Whats the secret?

One Image, One Audio Clip: One Movie?

furtive — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 15:59:06 -0800

How to make a video from an audio track for Youtube? I'm on a Mac, I'd like to make a video for Youtube that just shows an image for the duration of the video. iMovie is not playing along (limiting video to 4 seconds, wtf!)

Feed my iPhone

doift — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 11:48:32 -0800

A desktop, a laptop, an external hard drive, an iPhone, and me. How should I sync my iPhone? I've got a 16GB iPhone arriving tomorrow, my first one. Now I need to figure out what to do with it. Our household consists of an iMac that's primarily my husband's and a MacBook that's primarily mine. I'd prefer to manage music, apps, etc. on my laptop. However, the external hard drive that houses all our music is usually connected to the desktop, and it would be impractical to switch it back and forth between the two computers. With my old iPod, which after tomorrow will be my husband's iPod, I didn't have a problem just syncing it with the desktop, but apps and calendars and contacts complicate matters and I'd rather use my own machine.

I'm sure there a few different ways to do this. The best strategy I've been able to come up with is to get a $30 16GB USB drive and point iTunes on my laptop to the USB drive, so apps and podcasts save there, and periodically swap out the music. That seems sort of clunky. I can access the iTunes library on the laptop over our wireless network, but that doesn't help with syncing, right?

What other options should I consider?

Best jump-in-and-go software for n00b composer on a Mac?

hincandenza — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 11:49:42 -0800

Looking for good composition software on Mac. No actual recorded tracks- it'd be all Kurzweil PC-88 inputted MIDI. Must-haves include fairly easy ability to just jump in and start composin', a music score notation interface, very realistic quality of the instruments (i.e., that my midi inputted keyboard can still sound like a darn good bass guitar), and decent ability to refine the sound quality. [more inside] I ran this question by songsmith extraordinaire cortex and the Music Talk group, and figured- what the heck, lets ask the teeming hordes one last time before I run out and spend $500+.

I've been wanting to start doing some composition again. Often I'll just improvise some random stuff on my (real) piano, and occasionally think "Ooh, that sounds nice!", and then my brain will start looping that, building up, adding in parts. I can't really control that- it just plays without me being able to stop it, but it gets too many instruments coming in to really manage currently. I'd like to take the ideas in my head and get them out in a way that lets me build up the layers quickly while I can remember and control them, and then tinker/edit as needed.

My basic needs as noted in the main question are:

Relatively easy learning curve to at least start crafting music
Notation interface, among others
Good quality sound fonts for fake instruments
Good post-processing when I mature my skillset, to refine and polish the sound to be passably good for MeMu posting

I currently have a Mac Pro 8-way with tons of RAM and a Kurzweil PC-88 with a midi-to-USB connector. I don't like the built-in sounds (the keyboard's probably 10 years old, but sturdy, weighted, full-size) so it'd be strictly a far quicker interface for playing than clicking on a score sheet with my mouse. For what it matters, the type of music I'd be writing would vary highly. It might be some classical or Michael Nyman repetitive bullshit nonsense using chamber instruments one day, and a Muse-inspired sonic wall the next.

From my asking of cortex and then the Music Talk group, it sounds like Logic Studio/Pro is the clear winner at present, largely because of it's notation interface along with competitive editing/sound manipulation features. A notation interface would at least initially be my preferred way of creating music, although with the option to then used to make decent sound adjustments/mixing/spatial creation so that the music doesn't sound like crap (I mean, beyond of course my not-a-lent-assclown compositions being teh suck).

I'm all ready to run down the street to the Apple store on my lunch break and buy Logic Studio- unless someone has an even better suggestion- but my concerns are this:

1) The reviews by users on Apple's own site suggest that Logic 8 (which is still 32-bit) is sluggish, buggy, and not well supported by Apple like previous release. People seem to prefer Logic 7!

2) How does it sound, really? I mean, I won't be a cortex inputting yukele strumming from an actual instrument; everything I use- guitar, bass, violin, piano, drums- will be entirely in software starting from MIDI. My only previous experience with MIDI years ago is "it sounds like total shit". I'm hoping the technology has improved significantly, if not perfectly. :)

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?

How can I make a rad Stop-Motion animation in Final Cut

andromache — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:31:33 -0800

How can I make a stop-motion animation in Final Cut Pro from a series of many photographs? Details inside. I have a bunch of pictures that I'd like run in time with Grieg's "In the Hall of the Mountain King." I want to end up with a sort of stop-motion animation of these hundreds of pictures. Ideally, they'll play in time with the percussion (which speeds up--another headache).

When I drop a photo into my timeline, it automatically plays for 10 seconds, which is way too long given A. how many pix I want to show in a two-minute song and B. I want the project to have a filmic quality, and ten-second long frames don't give the illusion of motion. I can shorten their duration manually, but I'm dealing with more than a hundred shots here, but I'm guessing there's an easier way. So my question is:

How do I change my settings so that once I figure out how long (say, 14 frames) I want each picture to play, I can just drop a hundred or more of them into my timeline and they'll play for the proper duration?

Also, any tips on dealing with jpgs in FCP generally? I've played with them a bit in the program, but I've never done a project dealing exlusively with stills.

(My source files are over 100 jpgs, 1200x800px, and I need to end up with a 480x853 aspect ratio. I think I'll just have pillarboxing in my frame so as not to distort my images.)

Please ask for clarification if my query's not clear--I'll check the responses often. Thanks very much.

Adobe Audacity vs Logic Express

treepour — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 22:04:40 -0800

Switched to Mac, looking for Adobe Audacity replacement. Should I go for Logic Express? I used Audacity primarily for two things (in order priority):

1) Splicing existing recordings together as seamlessly as possible. Here I used the "Echo Chamber" effects quite extensively. These helped create the sense that the musicians stopped playing and then started playing something else -- the ambient echo of the previous section carried on into the next.

2) Severely warping recorded sounds via a variety of filters/effects, combining them together via the multitrack interface, mixing the multiple tracks down to single tracks then continuing the process.

Can I do these kinds of things with Logic Express? Or would I be better off using Audacity via Windows vmware? Learning a new piece of software isn't a problem, I just want to make sure that the software will enable the kinds of things I want to do. Also, any other similarly-priced Mac recommendations for this sort of thing besides Logic Express would be appreciated.

Best Mac DJ software?

kdern — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 11:28:35 -0800

Best Mac DJ software? What OSX software do you recommend for a newbie? I'm looking for something that does enough to DJ a dance party, nothing too complicated.

Would like to know about the best free and not-free options.

I've seen these but haven't tried them yet...

Mixx (free)
DJ-1800 ($)
djay ($)
Ultramixer DJ (free and $ versions)

Mac me a music machine

Hali — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 02:52:06 -0800

A family friend recently gave my kids a first generation iMac G3 (the bondi blue one). We've got loads of PCs around the house, but this is our first Mac. We also have a Yamaha P-120 digital piano. The kids are away for Spring Break and I'd love to surprise them by connecting the two so they can compose, experiment and generally mess around with music on the computer. The problem? Despite strong geekish tendencies, I know nothing about macs, midi or music. And googling isn't leading to anything particularly helpful for someone who knows zero about this stuff. I'd be grateful for any pointers to beginningers guides, resources, software, hardware, etc that will get the two pieces of gear currently sitting in the family room to make beautiful music together. Or horrible music. As long as they can do it together.

Learning to read music on my Mac?

toastchee — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 10:31:48 -0800

Great learning-to-read-music program for the Mac? I just bought a great old antique piano that my kids and I looooove. I personally would like to improve my reading skills with a little midi keyboard I have and my newer iMac.

What is the best music software to help me learn to read? Bonus points if it's something my kids would enjoy also.

Is there a Mac app that will let me draw (and listen to) a waveform?

itchi23 — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 16:33:16 -0800

Is there a (hopefully free) Mac app that will let me draw (and listen to) a waveform? I just switched to a Mac 4 months ago, and I remember there being all sorts of little audio tools that did stuff like this, but now I need one that will allow me to simply draw a waveform. Now, ideally I'd like to paste in graphical or vector shapes (photoshop or illustrator) and use those as the waveforms -this is really what I'm looking for - like a line to waveform ability. Would an oscilloscope-type software be more what I'm looking for, and would that allow me to "dial" between the drawn waveforms? Thanks!

Not Getting Famous on YouTube

tmcw — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 13:24:55 -0800

I have a song I composed / recorded / etc. I'd like to make simple video by cutting together fragments of public-domain films with this song. I have a MacBook. How to get to point B? iMovie is crashing on every import. iMovie seems to crash every time I open the "Import Movie" dialog. Not a sign of quality software.

I don't want to spend much/any money on this. I've tried writing a quick app in Processing.org to do this, but the movies I'm working with are 100-200MB mpg files, and that fills up Java's heap very, very quickly - I can't imagine throwing FFT analysis on top of that.

Are there are any open-source or cheap applications that allow fairly basic video editing capabilities like this? Anything possibly designed for VJs or very nonlinear editing like this will be? I'm a little miffed that there hasn't been an obvious, slick answer to this like there has been for 99% of my mac artsy-software needs.

Thanks for any help!

Which speakers should I get for my Mac?

OmieWise — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 18:17:32 -0800

I'm going to be relying on my iMac and the music stored on it for a while. I would like to get a set of speakers so that the computer sounds better. What reasonably-priced powered speakers have folks had success with? I'd rather not get a separate subwoofer. I'd be willing to get a small amp and use my small stereo speakers if all the other options are too crappy. Thanks.

Researching going legit with dubiously sourced music collection

superfurry — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 03:55:59 -0800

Legitimizing iTunes Library. I have *ahem* a friend. This friend has a reasonably large digital music collection being managed by iTunes on a Mac. He would like to understand the cost of ensuring this collection is 100% legal, having realized that the vast majority of it is not. Purely out of curiosity, this *ahem* friend, has decided that maybe it would be a worthwhile thing to look into the cost of legitimately purchasing all the music in his digital collection. When this friend thinks about the fact that his largely ill-gotten music is being managed by iTunes, and that the iTunes Store probably 'stocks' a large proportion of this music, there might be a cool iTunes plugin that can do some amazing trick to give him a very good idea what the cost would be of purchasing all this music. Seems like a great opportunity for Apple to develop something like this.

Is there such a thing ? No matter whether it uses the iTunes Store, Amazon, etc.

It should be a plugin for iTunes or some other clever techy thing rather than manually doing an album count and then working it out from there.

Would also be ideal if it were OS X compatible.

Which Macbook for Music Production?

ilumos — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 15:38:10 -0800

Macbooks; I'm going to university this September to study a music technology course, all their computers are macs, I'd like to buy one so I can take my work home. For music recording and production, which macbook is most suitable for me? I'll be using ProTools, Logic, Ableton Live and Reason, and will need a moderate amount of hard drive space. It would be good if the computer has meaty enough hardware for games too (under paralells) but that's not essential.
I don't really want to spend much over £1,000 ($2,000) if I can avoid it.
Which macbook would be best?

Thanks in advance

gc wants to make the bleepy bloopy sounds =(

gc — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 00:22:02 -0800

Tracking software makes me weep. Help me find a simple program for making music on my computer. I've played around with nanoloop, LSDJ, LittleGPTracker, and a couple of Mac trackers. I find trackers obtuse, like I need to have grown up with a Commodore 64 as my only means of communication with the outside world. But it seems like trackers are the way to get to sound I want. I've read some of the guides online, and I'm sure with practice I'll start understanding the programs (I hope), but there's got to be a better way. Here's what I'm looking for:

* A music program that will allow me make music easily. Something point-and-click is preferred.

* Classic 8-bit sound.

* Mac is my preferred platform (and thus, I know about Garageband), but Windows and Ubuntu are both close at hand.

I have Garageband 08 installed. I don't have a USB keyboard, and using my MacBook keyboard for realtime input is awkward. Otherwise, I'm open to suggestions for GarageBand.

I suppose what I'm looking for is Mario Paint, but you know, a little more flexible. And something that doesn't make me feel like I'm 13.

Whats a good streaming source for Leopard?

DJWeezy — Wed, 21 May 2008 23:23:16 -0800

What is a good icecast source client for leopard? So I have recently begun trivia contests on some irc channels where i will host whoever wants to play some music and people will guess the song. I host these on my vps that runs icecast/shoutcast right now. Unfortunately i have yet to find a good program that will take the sound from my sound card on my mac and send it to my server for other people to listen too. When i was on windows i used oddcast. Anyone know of a good program for this? Also it need to not tell everyone what song is playing.

bonus: i was having trouble googling this, if you find one that way let me know you search terms.

PC iPod + New Macbook = Headache

Hollow — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 14:30:06 -0800

PCtoMacFilter: Is there an easier (faster) way to get my 37 gigs of music stranded on my PC formatted iPod onto my new Macbook than copying it to a PC with 3rd party software, burning it to dvds, and then ripping the dvds onto the Mac? Apple says "no," but please tell me they are wrong.

Mac music notation composer?

sjuhawk31 — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 08:24:13 -0800

SheetMusicFilter: Is there a program on Mac similar to Noteworthy Composer? Noteworthy is a bare-bones music notation software that plays back as midi that actually lets you input notes onto a staff. In my working with Garage Band, it doesn't work the same way...how can I get a mac-ready program that does the same things as Noteworthy?

Cheap options preferred...I'm not professional, so it's not worth my money to get something too expensive. I just want to take notes from my part of a multi-part chorus number and put them on the screen to play back.

Beat Detective wanted

Jon Mitchell — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 21:40:31 -0800

Are there any free realtime osx beat detection plugins or applications? I have a Roland Jupiter 6 synth - it has a very basic MIDI implementation, but no way to set the arpeggiator clock via midi, just via the knob.

A realtime beat detector would at least let me tune the arpeggio clock manually to the desired tempo, or at least let me know there's no way I can coax the required tempo out of it, and change the tempo of the track accordingly.

All the Google results I've come across are for beat detecting pre-recorded tracks, not live, which isn't really what I'm after.

What tools exist for OS X to manage my music library?

Loto — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 11:17:27 -0800

What tools exist for OS X to manage my music library? My music collection is a huge mess, and I would like to fix this. I use iTunes to keep track of everything but there isn't really a way to make sweeping modifications to tags, to check the validity of the tags and titles, or to remove doubles.

My question is this: Are there any programs available for OS X (preferably free) to manage a music library? To remove multiple copies of the same song? To fix ID3 tags and song titles? Album art?

Thanks!

So, a keyboard is like a metaphor for...21 guitars?

evariste — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 14:53:27 -0800

How can a keyboard represent a guitar?! As a total musical novice who has never played an instrument and knows absolutely nothing about how music is made, I decided to open up GarageBand on my Mac and try to make a song for fun.

The first thing that's blowing my mind is that you start off with a clickable piano keyboard, and can switch modes to a computer's keyboard for "musical typing". But when you change instruments to, say, a guitar or a flute, the metaphor remains a piano keyboard! And the "musical typing" thingie still has the same number of usable keyboard keys, ASDFGHJKL;' plus the black keys WETYUOP. That's like 17 keys, and if you click the thingy on the top you can move the blue focus thing and make all the keys sound different...I assume this means you're moving to a different part of the full piano or something.

Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but a guitar has like four or six strings. A piano keyboard has, oh, more than a hundred strings, right? Isn't there way more information here than a guitar is actually capable of expressing? So what the hell? I was thinking I would only get maybe six keys I can push on my keyboard if I switched to guitar, but I get the same number of keys and they all still work and make sounds. Furthermore, if I switch to the "picture of a piano" mode, I can drag my mouse across the entire keyboard of 100+keys, and they all make guitar-ey sounds.

I feel like I'm missing some very basic concept. Can you help me understand what's going on?