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Even though we are accustomed to having silent gaps between each song in an album or playlist, you can use an audio mixing technique called Crossfading in Windows Media Player (WMP) to eliminate this. Crossfading which is built into WMP is an enhancement feature that blends the end of one song into the start of the next; this creates a smooth transition between the two and effectively removes the silent pauses between songs.
DJ software typically makes extensive use of this to make professional sounding mixes, but you can do the same thing (albeit on a more basic level) without any fancy DJ hardware or software. If you've ripped your own audio CDs for example to create a digital music library, then you can employ automatic crossfading to enhance your listening experience. Any previously created custom-made playlists you have (for tracks purchased from online music services for instance), can also have crossfading applied to them which can make your mixtapes a lot more interesting to listen to.
If you like the idea of having professional sounding crossfaded songs, then these Windows Media Player tutorials go into more detail on how to achieve this:
- How to Automatically Crossfade Music in WMP 11
- Windows Media Player 12 Crossfading: How to Eliminate Gaps Between Songs
- More Windows Media Player Tutorials
Crossfading in Windows Media Player: Create Smooth Transitions Between Songs originally appeared on About.com Digital Music on Wednesday, February 8th, 2012 at 12:00:32.
According to an article published by 9to5Mac, a bug in Apple's iTunes Match platform is causing certain explicit songs to be cleaned up! Instead of the exact version appearing in your iCloud storage space, a clean version from Apple's iTunes music catalog is incorrectly pulled -- effectively censoring your music collection. Rumors in the blogosphere point to the problem only affecting certain songs that haven't been purchased from the iTunes Store -- i.e. other online music services, ripped songs from CDs, etc. For some reason Apple's subscription iCloud add-on can't always identify an explicit version.
In the 9to5Mac article, a reader who contacted Apple via email to report the anomaly, received a response from an Apple engineer who allegedly said, "Apple is currently investigating the issue and working on a fix."
For more information on iCloud and iTunes Match, here are some articles that go into more detail:
- iCloud FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions About iCloud
- What is iTunes Match?
- How to Subscribe to iTunes Match
iTunes Match: Bug Causing Some Explicit Songs to be Censored originally appeared on About.com Digital Music on Friday, February 3rd, 2012 at 12:00:07.
A new report by market research company, IE Market Research Corporation (IEMR), predicts that over the next 5 years Mobile Music will be the fastest growing sector in the mobile entertainment industry. Mobile Music is fast becoming a popular way to enjoy digital music on the move. If you've got a smartphone (iPhone, Android based, etc.) or other type of mobile device that connects to the Internet, then you may have already test driven some of the digital music services that offer this facility.
In a press release via BusinessWire, Nizar Assanie who is the Vice President of research at IEMR said, "Among different categories of mobile entertainment, we expect that Mobile Music will see the biggest growth in revenues over the next five years. We forecast that global mobile music revenues will increase from $9 billion in 2011 to $18 billion in 2016". Commenting on total overall revenues which includes mobile Gaming, Mobile TV, and other media content, Mr. Assanie said, "We think that the global mobile entertainment market will see significant growth over the next five years. Globally, we are expecting mobile entertainment revenue to rise from $39.6 billion in 2011 to $53.9 billion in 2016."
For more background details on mobile music, why not read our dedicated article on the subject that goes into more detail.
Related Articles:
- MOG Review: Unlimited Streaming With Mobile Support
- Top Mobile Music Services: Store Your Music in the Cloud and Listen Anywhere
- Free Internet Storage Sites: Backup all Your Music Online
New Report Forecasts Mobile Music Growth to Double by 2016 originally appeared on About.com Digital Music on Tuesday, January 31st, 2012 at 12:00:09.
If you're not sure what an MP3 CD is, then it's simply a normal data CD with digital music files stored on it -- most commonly in the MP3 format. Even though the compact disc is an aging format, it is still a very popular way for music fans to enjoy listening to their favorite artists.
There can be times when creating an MP3 CD is far more practical than using a portable (MP3 player, smartphone, etc.) for carrying around your digital music library. For example, you may have several hardware devices around your home that are capable of playing MP3 files -- some DVD/CD players, home stereo systems, etc. You may even have a car stereo that can read MP3 CDs too. You can then have your favorite digital music tracks in different places without having to worry about carrying around a single portable player with all your music on it.
But why not just use regular audio CDs? One of the best reasons why you might want to burn CDs full of MP3s is that you can get a whole lot more music on it than a regular audio CD -- on average, 8 to 10 albums depending on the audio format and encoding method used.
For more information on MP3 CDs and the advantages and disadvantages on using them, check out our MP3 CD definition article that goes into more detail.
Related Articles:
- How to Make an MP3 CD Using iTunes
- Top Disc Burning Software Programs
- How to Create a Multi-session Disc: Burn a CD or DVD More Than Once
Boost Your CD Music Listening Time by Creating an MP3 CD originally appeared on About.com Digital Music on Wednesday, January 25th, 2012 at 12:00:15.
The compact disc may be getting long in the tooth now, but many computer users still use optical media as an inexpensive backup solution for digital music. For ease-of-use, burning a collection of songs to an audio CD can also be an easier way to enjoy a compilation on a wide variety of consumer electronics that sport a built-in DVD/CD drive. However, creating audio CDs doesn't always go to plan. You may have already unsuccessfully burned CDs that had music drop outs or ended up being completely unreadable -- they make great coasters though!
There can be many reasons why a CD burning session goes south. One of the most common being the quality of the blank media used. This can vary considerably and so burning at a slower speed could be all that is needed to fix your problem. Luckily many software media players come with the ability to change the speed that CDs are written to. Windows Media Player for instance has several settings ranging from fastest all the way down to slow -- this can be invaluable if you've got an inferior batch of blank CDs that can't be written to at top-speed.
For more information on how to change the CD writing speed in Windows Media Player, consult these short tutorials:
- Changing CD/DVD Burn Speed in Windows Media Player 12
- Changing CD/DVD Burn Speed in Windows Media Player 11
Related Articles:
Creating Audio CDs: Are Your Discs Good Enough for Burning at Top-speed? originally appeared on About.com Digital Music on Friday, January 20th, 2012 at 12:00:48.
Creating and saving playlists for your digital music library is essential if you want to enjoy listening to your collection time after time without having to repeatedly select individual songs to play. However, to get the most out of Windows Media Player (WMP), you can leverage playlists for other tasks too.
For example, do you get tired of manually updating your custom playlists all the time as your MP3 library grows? If so, then Microsoft's popular software media player offers a smarter way. There's a facility in WMP called Auto Playlists which can be used to intelligently update your mix lists instead of the usual standard playlists -- you simply set a criteria for WMP to keep an eye on such as an artist or genre type. Any changes that take place in your music library that match the criteria that you've set in your Auto Playlists will then be automatically synced, saving you the hassle of doing it manually. By creating Auto Playlists rather than standard ones, you suddenly have a very smart way of keeping the contents of your MP3 player in sync too.
For more ways, check out our guide on the best ways of utilizing WMP playlists.
Related Articles:
- More Windows Media Player Tutorials
- Solving Sync Center Conflicts
- Duplicate Cleaner Tutorial: Quickly Remove Duplicate MP3s From Your Music Library
Smart Uses of Playlists in Windows Media Player originally appeared on About.com Digital Music on Tuesday, January 17th, 2012 at 12:00:17.
If you've got a collection of old MIDI files, or have downloaded some from the Internet recently, did you know that you can turn them into MP3s? If you haven't come across MIDI music before, then it's simply a file format that contains musical information such as notes and types of instruments. This type of file is normally only readable on your computer by specialized music software applications, but you can easily convert them into MP3s. Doing this will enable you to use them on your iPod, MP3 player, or other type of portable for example too.
Another way to recycle MIDI files is to use them as ringtones. If you've got an older phone that supports polyphonic ringtones, then you may not even have to convert them at all. However, newer smartphones like the iPhone only support digital audio formats and so you'll need to convert first.
For more information, read our MIDI Music Explanation article.
Suggested Reading:
Music Recycling: Turn old MIDI Files into New MP3 Tunes originally appeared on About.com Digital Music on Thursday, January 12th, 2012 at 12:00:52.
The last time we blogged about the MOG streaming music service, the company announced via a press release that it had launched its new FreePlay service. This free account enables you to dip your toes into what MOG has to offer without first having to make a financial commitment via a subscription. However, the most unique aspect of FreePlay when compared to other services with an ad-supported free account, is that you can listen to MOG's 13 million+ song library without the annoyance of advertisements for the first 60 days. This beats many other services out there at present who typically have ads in the music right from the start. When we reviewed MOG, one of its biggest selling points was the quality of music -- this is offered at 320 kbps for its subscription tiers and even for the FreePlay account too.
If you're looking for a streaming music service for quickly discovering new music, organising your library in the cloud, and downloading to your mobile device, then MOG might just be worth looking into.
For more information on this service, read our full MOG Review to find out more.
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- More Digital Music Services Reviewed
- Top Digital Music Gift Cards
- Prefer to Download Music? Top Digital Music Download Services
MOG Review: A Cloud Music Service That Beats All Others? originally appeared on About.com Digital Music on Friday, January 6th, 2012 at 12:00:44.
As we begin another year, it's often the time we think about the future. For digital music, 2012 could well be the best year yet if last year's trends are anything to go on. Even though the global recession is still very much with us, we saw good digital music market growth in 2011. In fact, Nielsen SoundScan's music sales tracking system reported that digital music had a record-breaking year -- especially in the area of album sales -- with an increase of 19% compared to 2010. This was the first time we saw positive growth since 2004.
In 2011, we also saw the trend of digital music services taking cloud storage more seriously as a vehicle to capture more of the market -- especially in the high growth mobile consumer sector. Amazon were first to roll out their Cloud Drive service which featured the Amazon Cloud Player for streaming music to any computer or Android-based mobile device. Google was quick to respond with the launch of their Google Music service -- however this initially lacked a music store. Apple followed later on in the year with iCloud and the release of iOS 5.
This year could therefore see the strongest growth yet for digital music -- especially in the area of mobile music. Now that many of the major players have heavily invested in their cloud platform, they'll want to build on this foundation and try to make significant gains.
For a look back at some of the major events that happened last year, music service reviews, and software/hardware that impressed us, be sure to read our Digital Music Annual Review 2011.
Related Articles:
- Free Cloud Storage for Your Music
- Music Lockers Definition
- How to Use Amazon Cloud Drive Like a Hard Disk
Could 2012 be Digital Music's Strongest Year of Growth Yet? originally appeared on About.com Digital Music on Wednesday, January 4th, 2012 at 14:51:20.
One question that might be on your mind when converting to MP3 is, what software should I use? Or more to the point, what MP3 encoder is the best for producing great sounding MP3s? The choice of MP3 converters on the Internet is huge, but not all of them give good results. One of the best combinations to use if you're on a budget is to use the free Audacity audio editor in conjunction with the LAME MP3 encoder -- this powerful combo can sometimes give better results than expensive software that tries to do it all. Audacity is also multi-platform and is currently available for Windows, Mac, and Linux operating systems.
If you've got some uncompressed WAV files lying around on your hard drive and want to convert them to smaller MP3s for your portable player, then using Audacity is a stellar choice. It's one of the simplest audio editors to use too and can do a lot more than just convert between formats -- a worthy audio program to keep in your digital music toolbox for sure.
If you're interested in using Audacity to convert to MP3, then be sure to read our Audacity tutorial on converting WAV to MP3 -- you can also follow this tutorial to convert from other formats too.
Suggested Reading:
Converting to MP3: What's the Best MP3 Encoder? originally appeared on About.com Digital Music on Friday, December 30th, 2011 at 12:00:13.