Best of Show: There was some serious crudware at Comdex this year, but also a few really interesting things we loved.

One was a new kind of MP3 player shaped like a regular audiocassette. Korean companies such as DSC and Unitech were showing these things off. They held 32MB (expandable to 64) and you can stick them directly into your cassette player and play back MP3 files!!! DSC quoted us at $130 for the 32MB model--with voice recording built in. The big question, as always: When and where can we get these? They say December, but based on broken promises from other companies, I wouldn't hold my breath.

The prototype players using Iomega's clik! memory also were intriguing. At $10 for 40MB disks, we're on board.

Sony's stuff, as one might expect, looked, operated and sounded awesome during a brief demonstration. Prices--for both hardware and Memory Stick--were the only deterrents. Check out the 64MB, $300 VAIO Music Clip. It rocks.

Letters:
Q: Sir Wolf, I would like to record my O-L-D LPs (yeah, there are still some of those out there) to CDs. I see many programs that will take the .wav file from HD, but so far I have not been able to figure out how to get them from LP to HD.

I just bought a new PC w/CD-R, and internal audio card. It has Adaptec software but it does not seem to have a recording feature LP to HD (or to CD).

If possible I would also want to record the LPs thru some sort of equalizer to reduce noise, scratches. etc. (I said the LPs were old).

I would appreciate it if you could point me in the right direction.

Thanks!

A: Lemme guess, you still drive an Edsel and tell time with sundial, too, right? Actually, we know a bunch of vinyl-fetish types who have experimented with different ways to get the digits off that rotting, funky plastic.

Here's what they say: (You'll probably need to get a mixer). To record the records directly to the computer--connect the turntable to a mixer and connect the outs of the mixer to the audio in of your computer. To really knock out those pops and hisses, you will need some sort of sound recording program (Mac users, try Soundmaker). Using the program, you record the tracks into either .wav or .aiff files.

MusicMatch also will allow you to record from any source, including vinyl, using a line-in recording feature. After downloading the player, open your recorder screen by clicking the record button. From Options/Recorder/Source, you can specify line-in (for recording from vinyl or cassette), mic-in (for recording from a microphone), or external mixer (to record from more than one input, like an actual mixer). Go to Options/Recorder/Quality and select WAV.

Q: Hey there, your site is very informative. I'm using a Mac to encode MP3s and to move them onto my RIO. I would like to burn a CD full of MP3s also--you're supposed to be able to fit hours of music on one CD, right? I'm using Media Cleaner Pro, which does allow me to convert files from MP3 to AIFF or WAV format, but it makes the files huge.

Isn't there a utility that will allow a Mac user to convert MP3s in a way that hours of music will fit onto one CD?

-Writeman

A: Well Writeman, that's kinda the trade-off, brother. MP3 is compressed audio, and when you convert back to .wav, you cannot maintain the small file size associated with the MP3 file format and still play them on CD players.

That said, there is some good news on the horizon. Net Drives makes a home stereo component that plays MP3s and CDs. Companies such as Tagram and Pine are working on portable players that play MP3 and regular CDs.

http://freeamp.org

Blame It On: Emusic & Friends

Quite frankly, dearies, FreeAmp is the shiznit. This open source player is available for those of you running Linux 2.0, as well as Windows 95/98/NT 4.0. In the works under the GPL license are Macintosh, BeOS, and Solaris. Though it still has some kinks to work out, the small footprint, M3U streaming capabilities and user defined prebuffering make FreeAmp a winner.

Hats off to Emusic, which originated this project and has been an active sponsor, and moreover, all the cool developers that have been building this puppy.

(Because it's open source, it's also destined to be far less buggy than many of the system-crashing, commercial pieces of crud you're running now.)

From The Site:
FreeAmp is an extensible, cross-platform audio player. It features an optimized version of the GPLed Xing MPEG decoder which makes it one of the fastest and best sounding players available. FreeAmp provides a number of the most common features users have come to expect in a clean, easy to use interface.

This section is dedicated to the thinkers, tinkerers, geeks and geniuses doing the true pre-alpha work in the wonderful world of MP3 hardware and software. No corporate backing--No three hour lunches--just a bunch of mad scientists hammering out code at 3:00 AM and attacking circuit boards with garage sale soldering irons. You people are twisted. We salute you.