Saturday, 2 February 2008
coverPlay
http://labs.beffa.org/coverplay/Write Up.
This is an experiment to bring the nice covert art of albums while played digitally. Such as
found on Ipods and other MAC media. Some months ago, I run into CoverFlow and it appears that it was exactly what I wanted since ages. However as I’m neither a Mac user, nor using iTunes, I had find one thats works on windows.
As an alpha release, there are still many glitchs. Installation is manual (not much to do anyway). It hangs a bit when mipmapping the covers. Usability isn't much polished. But that better than nothing.
USB Stuff Verdict: Excellent (when you have worked out the options)
A must for anyone who wants that amazing MAC coverart thingy on their Windows PC, took me awhile to figure it out, is a bit tricky but have given instructions below. Will run from any USB Device (but not really portable as you have to change Drive Location and Options when using another PC.
How To Use.
Download and unzip coverplay to a folder.
Put all your MP3s by same artist in one folder then goto Amazon.com and locate a photo of the artist/band/etc, save this photo by right clicking your mouse. Add this to the folder and put folder where your keep your music. (Example - I have "Numb" and "In The End" by "Linkin Park", I made a folder called "linkin Park Favourites" and put the mp3 files in it, then went to Amazon.com and found a photo of the band I liked and could refer to. I right clicked on photo and saved to desktop. Added photo to the folder with the mp3s then added the folder to my MP3 Player/USB stick in location "F:/My Music") do this with all your music if you wish, or better with a few first then try it out, then you can see if you like it or if not working.
Change "C:/Music" to "(location folder of your music - I.E. "F:/My Music")"
Change "C:\Program Files\foobar2000\foobar2000.exe" to "(location of favourite music player - I.E. "C:\Program Files\Windows Media Player\wmplayer.exe")"
Change "true" to "false"
Finally add the coverplay unzipped folder to your USB Stick/MP3 Player
When running to Coverplay window should open and load your cover art. follow the instructions in the "READ ME" file. Once you get the idea - you can edit the photos and change options and so on and really exploit this program.
Sunday, 13 January 2008
Virtual DJ 5.0 Pro
http://rs92.rapidshare.com/files/51298339/Virtual.DJ.Pro.5.rarWrite Up:
VirtualDJ is the hottest MP3 mixing software, targeting every DJ from bedroom DJs to professional superstars like Carl Cox.
With its breakthrough BeatLock engine, your songs will always stay in the beat, and you can work your mixes incredibly faster than any other DJ could.
The automatic seamless loop engine and the brand new synchronised sampler will let you perform astounding remixes live, with no preparation at all.
The visual representation and the cues allow you to clearly see the song's structure, and never be surprised by a break anymore.
The vinyl controls will let you scratch like on a real turntable, except that with the beatlock engine your scratches will never end out of the beat.
Add to that an infinite number of cue points you can save for each songs, a bunch of wonderful effects automatically beat-synchronised.
Add also several interfaces to suit everybody from the beginner to the professional DJ, the possibility to record your mixes to burn them on CDs, to broadcast on the Internet and have your own radio station, to save your CDs directly in MP3, to use a headphone to preview the songs or an external mixtable to perform in a club.
USB Stuff Verdict: 9/10 (I'll live with the probs)
Yet another great DJ mixing product from Atomix - I use it all the time for mixing and just playing my music library when working, many inprovements on 4.3, still has problems accessing your music stored on same USB in XP (works fine on vista for some reason) - occassionally crashes but dosent cause to many problems (keep version 4.3 if probs persit) the ipod type scroll screen is a joy to use.
Works anywhere on USB (Single file..does store another file of your local database when closing -but can be deleted if not wanted) can struggle to find your music and loses file locations when using another PC. Vista to 2000 compatable. P.S. Been told you may need to upgrade your codecs if using an old PC.
Reaper 1.0
Write Up:
REAPER is a powerful but sensible Windows application that lets you record, arrange, edit, and render multi-track waveform audio. It provides an extensive set of features, but is a very small and lightweight application (the installer is less than 1 megabyte, and includes many effects and a sample project).
REAPER supports ASIO, Kernel Streaming, WaveOut, and DirectSound for playback and recording. It reads WAV, OGG, and MP3 files, and records WAV files. You can arrange any number of items in any number of tracks and use audio processing plug-ins (DirectX and Jesusonic). REAPER also supports volume, pan controls and envelopes per track, multi-layer undo/redo, and user creatable color themes.
USB Stuff Verdict: 9/10 (every day finding something new about this app)
Fanastic Audio editing/producing program, use the demo file to quickly produce your own music in minutes - when confident then Google "music loops" to start making and producing your own songs.
Crosses local and portable drives without a problem, you need to keep "media files(mp3)" together in folders for it to work, works from any where on USB (truly portable), vista and below compatable.