meddlingBanter

Last night I downloaded the new (relatively) Ani Difranco cd for Abby, but it was only available in FLAC, a lossless audio format.  Usually I prefer downloading in this format, so I can have more control of what I do with the audio at a later time, be it burning it to a cd, making MP3s, ect.  It’s obviously better to start with something like FLAC to burn Audio CDs, instead of what most people do, downloading MP3s and burning Audio CDs from those, but that’s another blog post.  My burning software of choice is Nero.  By default though Nero doesn’t burn FLAC files directly to cd, and converting FLAC to WAV is just one extra step I’d rather not do.  In the past I would download the Nero plugin’s to burn FLAC and then install them manually.  Today I found a nice little program, Nero Plugin Pack, that will install the FLAC plugin, and many more, exactly where they need to go, nice.  So whether you work with MP3s, AAC, FLAC, OGG, SHN, ect, you should be able to burn things directly in Nero, no questions asked.  Now this is good for quick burning, but for simply the very best/accurate burning software around, you should probably check out EAC.  

On a side note I last posted about my troubles deleting audio off my Razr and the fix I had for that.  Well it turns out you can delete audio files off your Verizon Razr, they just put the option in the most retarded (for my lack of a better term) place.  Instead of putting it in the sound settings, some genius put it in the download music section….WTF?  Since then though I’ve been able to connect directly into my Razr and even uploaded a couple of new ring tones.  In fact there’s a pretty good tutorial on how to do this over at Lifehacker.  The easiest way I’ve found to make them actually comes from the comment’s of that same tutorial. I’ll post it here so I can find it easily at a later time.

From poster Debijit:

Here’s an easier way to make a ringtone:

(iTunes does a good job — which all Macs (and most Windows machines) have — so you already have all the software you need)
Pick a music file, and here’s what we need to do in a summary:

(1) Find out which part of the song you want — typically the first 20-30 seconds or so

(2) Downsample it. (Gina, I think you could mention this)

This converts your song into a lower bit-rate.

Why? Well, typically, mobile phone speakers are a little tinny, so a 128-kbps sound sample of an MP3 and a 96-kbps sound sample will sound almost the same on your phone. Also, you’ll end up with far smaller files on your mobile, saving a lot of memory.

Here’s what we do:

(1) Play the song in iTunes, and note the start and end times for the part you want for your ringtone.

(2) Right click on the song and select Get Info. In the Options page, enter the Start Time and Stop Time accordingly. Click OK.

(3) Open iTunes Preferences (Command + , on a Mac, Edit -> Preferences on Windows I think). In Advanced -> Importing, change “Import Using” to the encoder you want (MP3 encoder or AAC encoder, or if you’re phone can’t play these formats WAV is fine but will result in significantly large files. I use AAC, my Nokia supports it). Now, change the bit-rate in Setting to whatever you want — I use 96kbps — the higher the bitrate, the better your ringtone will sound and the more memory it will take (I’ve heard friends’ ringtone’s that were 48kbps MP3 and sounded fine). Click OK.

(4) Right click on your song in iTunes, and click “Convert Selection to XYZ” where XYZ will be whatever encoder you selected in step (3). Your ringtone will now appear on the iTunes library.

(5) (Generally your song will have the same name as the original song — to know which is which, right click on columns and select “Bit Rate”. Now we know that the downsampled song is the one we need)

(6) Drag the audio clip we just made from iTunes onto the Desktop or any folder you want.

(7) Now from the Desktop or folder, send your ringtone to your mobile.

(If you use Bluetooth and a Mac, the easiest way to do this is to select the file in Finder, and hit Command+Shift+B to send to a Bluetooth device)

(8) Now, on your mobile, you’ll simply need to set your new clip as your ringtone.

Simple

In other news, the Super Bowl is coming up.  I heard on NPR this morning Go Daddy’s stirring things up……AGAIN, with a racy commercial.  They do this every year though, probably on purpose for all the free publicity they get for it.  You can view the two rejected videos here and here.  Read more about it at Bobparsons.com.  I’m heading out to Grand Rapids for the weekend, and obviously for the game as well. 

Next week should be fun as I start Physical Therapy for my shoulder surgery I had a month ago.  Then next Thursday after work I’m heading up north with my brothers and friends for the Tip-Up Classic.  Should be lots of drinking, and some ice fishing thrown in for good measure.  Should be a good time.  Ok, this is getting to be too long of a post so I’ll end it now.  So long.