OK, this topic was last formally covered in November of 1999. As we approach the 5-month mark, I was wondering if we were ANY further along with ID3 v2.n support?

Like many, I've got tons of CD's, all ripped, all have 2.X tags, and it was kinda a bummer this morning to shove over my newly-ripped "Is There Anybody Out There?" Pink Floyd CD only to find the Artist listed as "Unknown" and having none of the carefully-prepared Album/Release-Year information also included.

When last we left it, the Empeg boys had downloaded the ID3 library and were going to look into it. Any further updates on that? Can we maybe (please please please) expect it in the next software upgrade? That's GOTTA be in the software before you can roll out the MkII anyway, or it'll be a huge support nightmare, so why not get it out to us now to debug?

D

Well put. Two unrelated questions:

1) Tell me about that Pink Floyd album.

2) Do you know if there is a standard for embedding lyrics with time codes into an ID3V2 tag? Having the Empeg scroll the lyrics on the screen would be so incredibly cool my head would friggin' explode.


Tony Fabris
Empeg #144

1.) The CD, so far, is awesome. Got it from CDNOW, immediately ripped it, sync'ed it over and listened to part of it en route to work this morning. It's a recording of The Wall, live in concert, somewhere on the 80-81 tour (they say, but I can't remember where). It's actually released by Pink Floyd (but NOT "Pink Floyd(1987)", which means that Roger Waters is the main guy involved in its creation/distribution). (Insert lengthy legal history of Pink Floyd vs. Pink Floyd(1987) here.)

2.) I was thinking JUST that the other day actually. I suspect that's "a comin" in a future ID3 spec, but to my knowledge doesn't exist today.

D

Thanks. As you were typing that reply, I was looking at the customer reviews of the CD at Amazon. According to their database, it just came out three days ago- no wonder I hadn't heard about it yet. The CD will arrive at my work address on Monday. I also clicked on a reciprocal link that led me to a recent Aimee Mann album that got raves, so I got that, too. I sure love internet shopping.

Did you spring for the "Special Edition" version of the CD with the book and everything? That's the one I got.

Tony Fabris
Empeg #144

Yeah, I got the book version. (Which when I ordered it was actually CHEAPER than the regular version, check it out it might still be the case).

Anyhow, it is pretty cool, but my only annoyance (as always with special editions) is that it requires somewhere "different" to put it (the CD shelves designed for jewel cases won't handle it whatsoever).

Ah well, the price we pay for good music. :)

heh; i think this is proof that mp3 players and music piracy don't necessarily go hand in hand:)
-mark

...proud to have one of the first Mark I units

i think this is proof that mp3 players and music piracy don't necessarily go hand in hand

It's not proof per se, but I will say this:

I've bought more albums since owning the Empeg (four months) than I've purchased in the entire prior two years. Knowing that I can have the albums with me at all times without swapping is encouraging, giving me more confidence to make the purchase. Plus, it allows my wife to use the original CDs in her car whenever she feels like it.

Interestingly enough, the Empeg also encourages me to use places like Amazon.com instead of going to local record stores. Since I know I can't stick the CD directly into the car on the way home, I'm not motivated to go shopping for music in a physical store. Plus, I'm rarely in the car long enough to hear an entire album in a single sitting, so I often wouldn't get to hear an entire CD right after I bought it. But having the CDs delivered, I know I can stick them right into the computer and have them ripped and uploaded to Emma within the hour. I can listen to some of the album at my desk, then stick the Empeg in the car and have it pick up right where I left off. In this way, I can hear a new album from beginning to end, regardless of whether I'm going to and from work or not.

I have tried downloading music from the internet, but I don't like it very much. Mainly because I can't control the quality of the rips, the encoding, or how accurately the ID3 tags are filled out. The few songs I have downloaded are characterized by bad rips (skips and pops, or even aux-in dumps of LPs or tapes), bad encoding (too low of a bitrate, lower quality encoding methods, swishy/gritty high frequencies), and incorrect tags (incorrect year, "greatest hits" album name instead of original album name, or no tag data at all). I much prefer to control that stuff myself.

So, all in all, I'd definitely say that I prefer to buy my music rather than pirate it. Eventually, we'll reach the point where the CD is no longer used as the interim transport medium. I'll be buying the MP3s on the internet straight from the artists (who hopefully will care enough about their music to encode and tag the files properly).


Tony Fabris
Empeg #144

It's a recording of the No.2 show (of 6, Wembley, November, 1980).

I was there (truth!) , and I still have the autographed program sandwiched in the album cover.

And before you ask, NO, it's NOT for sale.

So... the next obvious question... how'd you get the autographs?

Did you get to meet the band? I'd give my left nut to meet David Gilmour. That man is The Business.

Tony Fabris
Empeg #144

I'm sure this has been answered before, but I still have questions about preparation for the empeg.

Does the empeg read only the id3 tags? If not, how does the file name work into it? If it requires a specific format for the file names, what is it? All my mp3's have only the song name because I keep them in genre>group>album directories. I'm going to have to rip my collection again anyway, but how do I name them? Thanks ahead.

Insert Roger Waters vs. David Gilmour flame war here.

B)

Corby
SN#320,6-Gig Blue

Here's my typical music habit:
Hear the name of a song from a friend,
search for it, and download some similar songs (in the case of napster..) - I generally download random songs from people's collections, songs I've never heard of from groups I've never heard of...

Like a song? go out and buy the album..

I probably did most of my cd purchasing in my high-school days - I used to buy 2-3 cd's a week; but I've probably purchased the most legitimate cd's since I've gotten the empeg and had the incentive to download mp3's...
-mark


...proud to have one of the first Mark I units

Does the empeg read only the id3 tags?

Correct.

If not, how does the file name work into it?

The file names are not used by the Empeg, so you can name them whatever you want. I do recommend making your PC file names and directories in a similar fashion that you would expect to organize playlists. For instance, I like to have my playlists in Artist/Album format, so my PC's files and directories are in that order as well. Empeg doesn't need that, it just simplifies the task of dragging and dropping the files onto Emplode.

If the order of the songs on a given album is important to you, I recommend naming the files with the track number before the song title. Like so:

Rush- Moving Pictures- 01- Tom Sawyer.mp3
Rush- Moving Pictures- 02- Red Barchetta.mp3
Rush- Moving Pictures- 03- YYZ.mp3
(etc.)

Again, the Empeg does not use these names, it just simplifies the task of dragging and dropping the files onto Emplode in the correct order. You can rearrange the song order in Emplode, and it's pretty easy, but having your files listed in order in Windows ahead of time saves this step. (Although you have to select them in reverse order in Windows Explorer to get it to send the names to Emplode correctly. Darn Windows.)

Another thing... if you're filling out your ID3 tags right now, it would be a good time to choose the proper ID3 song titles for items in your collection that have the same name. The Empeg doesn't have any trouble with duplicate song titles, it's just nice when you're searching the playlists to know which one is which. For example, I have two versions of Depeche Mode's "Personal Jesus": the original one from the Violator album, and the Acoustic version from the single. If I hadn't added the text "(Acoustic)" to the end of the single's song title, then I wouldn't know which one to select when performing a search. Likewise, I have many live concert albums as well as the corresponding songs from the studio albums. Adding the text "(Live)" to the end of the song titles helps immensely when I'm performing searches or scrolling through the Now and Next list.

Finally, you might want to go through your files and make sure they all feature the correct Year and Album in the ID3 tags. Although this is definitely not required, it's nice to have if you're proud of your music collection. Many rippers do not fill out the year automatically (since the CDDB doesn't store that information), and many soundtracks/greatest-hits albums have the compilation name listed instead of the original album listed. For example, when I encoded the soundtrack to "The Sopranos", I didn't want the Frank Sinatra song to list "1999" as the year, or "The Sopranos" as the album. I wanted the correct original information in those fields. If you ever have trouble looking up this information (for instance, if the album sleeve doesn't list it), you can use the database at Allmusic.com to look it up.

Tony Fabris
Empeg #144

I just answered my own question regarding lyrics with time codes.

This page says that not only is it already a defined standard, but there are standards for both synched and unsynched lyrics, as well as exact tempo indicators and event timing indicators (useful for vis programs). You even get to choose whether to use milliseconds or Mpeg frames as your timing reference. Not only that, but you could even store the chord changes right there along with the lyrics, so us guitar players could play along.

Like I said, that would be so cool as to induce cranial combustion. Now, if only the CDDB could start storing that data for us...

Tony Fabris
Empeg #144

For example, when I encoded the soundtrack to "The Sopranos", I didn't want the Frank Sinatra song to list "1999" as the year, or "The Sopranos" as the album. I wanted the correct original information in those fields.

I disagree. There are often subtle differences between what's on "that album" and what makes it onto the collaborative effort, and often they are undocumented. (For example, my friend tells me the "In Your Eyes" on the ...Say Anything soundtrack is mixed differently than when it appeared on the album, but there is no "edit" or "mix" associated with it.

I'm a firm believer in saying "This is the copy of title as it appeared on album in year"

But that's me.

For example, my friend tells me the "In Your Eyes" on the ...Say Anything soundtrack is mixed differently than when it appeared on the album, but there is no "edit" or "mix" associated with it.

You're right, of course. When it's a different version of the song, then it makes sense to name the album where that specific version of the song originated. I'd also go the extra step of adding "(Say Anything Mix)" to the song title in that case. But I would still put the correct year that the song was originally recorded. Peter recorded that particular performance of "In Your Eyes" in 1986, but that soundtrack came out in 1989. In my book, that makes it an '86 song, not an '89 song, regardless of whether it was re-edited for the soundtrack.

(It just so happens that you used one of my favorite songs/movies/artists as an example.)

But most soundtracks and compilation albums are just collections of unaltered older material (perhaps mabye remastered, digitally restored, or re-eq'd). In those cases, I much prefer to tag my MP3's with the correct original recording date and original album. It'd just seem silly to punch in "1999" on the Empeg and have it start spouting 70's and 80's tunes from movie soundtracks.

There's some gray areas in there, though. How much does a recording need to be altered before you call it a new recording? There's a particularly bad butchering of Tom Sawyer on the Small Soldiers soundtrack. Every note of that recording was originally made in 1981, some DJ just sampled and re-spliced it into more or less a new song.

Fortunately, the ID3v2 tag can handle this. There's room for all of those parameters in its data: Original writer, original recording, remix, remaster, etc. Much better than the single "year" and "album" fields of the ID3v1 tag. (See? It all fits together! Ha!)

Tony Fabris
Empeg #144

Plus, it allows my wife to use the original CDs in her car whenever she feels like it.

Ooh. Isn't this the music piracy that you are talking about?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but when you purchase a CD you are purchasing the rights to listen to *THAT* particular CD? (see My.Mp3.Com/RIAA Lawsuit) Now, it's completely legal to make the MP3s and listen to them for yourself, but when you give the original CD to someone else to listen to (without destroying the MP3s that lie on your machine) isn't that piracy since technically there are two copies of that same album now, and only one was paid for?

I know this is nitpicky, but I'm just wondering. It sounds like exactly what the RIAA is using in many lawsuits (on a much broader scale than you giving the CD to someone else, of course)...

Just curious...

(O|||||O)

If he's giving them to his wife to use, it SHOULD be fine... husband and wife, community property, etc. .. from an "ownership" perspective, they both jointly own the commodity.

hehe, it would probably only be piracy if he and his wife were listening to the same album at the exact same time. :)

thanks for the id tag info. yeah, I've been using allmusic.com for years now. great site. tons of info.

forgive me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't it be incredibly difficult to write out the lyrics for every single song in the CDDB? it would have been nice to have started when the CDDB was just starting, but it might be a little late now. I don't know, maybe not. anyway, who's to say what the correct lyrics to some songs are? I don't want someone else's interpretations of what the lyrics are. I probably wouldn't include that info, but I see how that might be an interesting feature.

anyway, who's to say what the correct lyrics to some songs are? I don't want someone else's interpretations of what the lyrics are.

Yeah, it would be difficult to trust a third-party transcription of the lyrics. I'd hate to have Purple Haze scrolling by on the screen saying, "scuse me while I kiss this guy".

But if the MP3s were made by the original artists instead of ripped at home, then the process of transcribing, proofreading, and inserting the lyrics into the tag could be handled just as carefully as they do for printing the album sleeve. Many bands are very careful about making sure the lyrics on the sleeve are accurate, I'm sure they'd feel the same way about the lyric fields in the tags if it became an accepted standard.

There are a lot of advantages to having the artists sell the MP3s directly to the consumer. This is one of them.

Tony Fabris
Empeg #144

True...true

Here (Germany) it's legal to copy a CD you legally own and give it to a friend. To many friends if you like. You can also compile your own CD's out of many CD's you own and give it to someone as a present. Or give it to your wife/friend/dog. In the end, it's 'just' music.

So for some parts of the world, this debate is useless, and I never understood why h/w manufactor don't realize that and make it possible to copy stuff back from the portable device to the PC... :-)

I assume this will change sometimes in the future but who knows. Noone can control it anyways. J.

Noone can control it anyways.

Don't count on it. One of the CD manufacturers has already come up with a technique which effectively stops you ripping audio CDs with current CD-ROM drives. As I understand it this involves putting lots of extra errors on the disk which modern CD players will just ignore when playing it, but will totally screw up a CD-ROM when it is playing it or ripping it.

I could be that this is all lies to scare us, but you never know.

For more information click here

__
Unit serial number 47 (was 330 in the queue)...

One of the CD manufacturers has already come up with a technique which effectively stops you ripping audio CDs with current CD-ROM drives.

We had an interesting discussion about this subject already. The thread can be found here. Enjoy!



Tony Fabris
Empeg #144