mp3 players

Jason these no name products usually work on the premise of a harddrive. That is to say you goto 'my computer' and it will appear as a drive. Drag MP3s onto it to have them go over.

in future buy a ipod shuffle and get itunes, you will find the whole experience a lot more fulfilling.

how do i convert my cd's to mp3 format then?

quote:

Originally posted by jason.g:
how do i convert my cd's to mp3 format then?

With software. You need windows media player or another like Express rip! You need to rip the cd audio!

looking at my programmes, i think nero express is part of nero 6. if i have it, can anyone point me in a good starting direction.

http://cd-to-mp3.audiolaunch.com/cd-ripper/

and download CDEX ...

If I already have wmp 9 and Nero 6, do I need to download extra programmes? My computer is slow enough as it is without clogging it up with duplicated programmes.Do mp3 players normally come with relevant software?

Ever wondered if you should have bit the bullet and bought an iPod ?

FFS - we spend countless thousands on audio equipment but debate endlessly on a portable player.

They ARE crap - buy the easiest one to use and the one with the best PC interface to use.

Choose colour and disk space - simple.

won't it come with proprietary software?

Bob

The best software combination for producing MP3 files under MS-Windows is Exact Audio Copy with LAME, both of which are free software. EAC uses multiple passes to produces errorless audio files in WAV format and then calls LAME to compress them as MP3 files.

http://www.exactaudiocopy.de

http://lame.sourceforge.net

Nick

quote:

Originally posted by long-time-dead:


They ARE crap

The iPod has a beautiful sound!

Atta boy, Nuno, give it to them straight.

How easy is the Exact Audio Copy & LAME to set up, ans does if have the some sort of management system as per iTunes ?

I have been told that Winamp also have a high end conversion programme for MP3 files, does anyone have any experience with it ?

quote:

Originally posted by Nuno Baptista:
The iPod has a beautiful sound!

Glad you like your iPod. Did you buy the manual? Next step is upgrade to an Apple computer

Rotf

quote:

Originally posted by ROTF:
[
Glad you like your iPod. Did you buy the manual? Next step is upgrade to an Apple computer

Rotf

The rough guide to the iPod & iTunes is excellent, its based on the Apple products, but has a lot of general information, applicable to MP3 players in general.

"How easy is the Exact Audio Copy & LAME to set up, and does if have the some sort of management system as per iTunes ?"

From memory, download each and unpack the zip files into their respective directories. The questions asked by EAC during the installation were straightfoward as it worked out my drive and correctly callibrated the offset. The file management software will depend on your mp3 player, but ID3 tags can be generated.

The advantage of using EAC is that you can make error-free copies to CD-Rs as well.

For file management, I just use the file directory structure: genre\artist\album, which I find makes it easy to maintain and add new albums. With iRiver players the access time is faster using file-trees rather than the music database.

Nick

Idon't doubt the quality of these players but i,m only dipping my toe in the water to see if I like the idea of them. I already have a sony portable minidisc , portable cd player AND portable dvd player. Unfortunately none play mp3 and as technology moves on, I find myself in the possesion of many cd's with multiple mp3 files/albums, of which I only have to copy onto individual cd,s to enable me to listen to them on the move. Portability is the way ahead and i,m sure its impossible to hear music in full clarity whilst riding my bike to work on a windy day, or going for a jog. If it turns out I like the concept then bring on the big guns.

Got my mp-3 player/fm radio shipped from hong kong and yep, it's cheap, fiddly and the earphones have gone straight in the bin for what they're worth but it,s neat and does what I ask. I downloaded a programme called express rip (http://www.nch.com.au) and it,s so easy to copy cd files and rip them to mp-3. it downloaded in about 80 seconds.

A problem with most of these players (including the iPod) is that the standard earphones are crap. When used with decent headphones the sound quality can be pretty good if a high sample rate is used.