Computer music server setups?

[MarkA]

Just curious how many people use their computer as a music server? If so, how is it setup?

Personally, yes.

I rip all my CDs when I buy them to MP3 using CDex, VBR (quality depends on the type of music and how often I plan on listening to it), using the LAME encoder and the CDParanoia ripping library and the high LAME quality setting. Results are excellent. CDex is configured to automatically drop the songs into subfolders of My Music named by artist, and to name the songs Artist - Track Title.mp3

I track and play this library using Voyetra Turtle Beach's AudioStation 5 (an EXCELLENT program) to output through a Voyetra Turtle Beach Santa Cruz sound card (again - EXCELLENT, Turtle Beach makes excellent home music products) to my computer speakers and/or my stereo.

Currently, I have 563 songs in my AudioStation library, totalling 37 hrs, 0 mins, 41 secs of play time.

What about the rest of you?

[gcutler]

What do you mean "Music Server"? One that is available to other PCs (inside/outside your LAN) or just have TONS of MP3s on the machine and will use it an alternative to listening to CD player in Entertainment Center.

I use it like the 2nd description. I have all my Billy Joel, Rush and Pat Benatar (and some soundtracks) MP3ed and have them sitting on my hard drive. Probably about 300-400 songs total. I use MS Media Player for XP to manage the library. Did Audiostation 5 come with the Santa Cruz or is it an add-on (I blew away the OS when I got my Dell and rebuilt it from scratch may have ignored reinstalling of the program>) I use Roxio Sound Stream to Rip the MP3s. I use it with my Turtle Beach Santa Cruz card and Monsoon 501 speakers to listen.

[MarkA]

Either choice. I mean a computer setup (either dedicated or shared with other tasks) to be the primary source of pre-recorded audio in your house.

AudioStation 5 demo (really a free limited edition) comes with the SC, and used to be available from the TB site. Now only AS6 demo is available from the TB site, and it truly is just a demo. It's a great program! (easier to control, and far better sound quality decoding than WiMP). Of course, almost ANYTHING sounds better than wimp. While this is purly conspiracy theory, I think Microsoft may intentionally use a poor quality MP3 decoder (or at least they don't go out of their way to use a good one...) Afterall, they have to have a basis for the claim that WMA sounds twice as good:) Of course, it could just be that someone at Microsoft does an exceptionally BAD job at picking an MP3 decoder.

[Richard King]

I have about 1800 mp3s on a the Dell computer that I got with the Starband beta system. They feed an item that I described here earlier, an X-10 "Big Picture" which transmits the VGA monitor and audio outputs wirelessly to my home theater system. Nothing fancy for a sound card, just whatever came with the computer. When I upgrade my surround receiver (probably next month) I will probably mount the Dell with the rest of my home theater system. The Dell is currently networked (with a crossover cable) to the one I am using to send this message.

[gcutler]

I have a real Santa Cruz CD, but it only contains drivers, no AudioStation, perhaps Dell saves money that way???

But here is a web page to Audiostation 5

http://www.turtle-beach.com/site/kb_ftp/116ftp.asp

[raj2001]

My setup isnt as fancy as you guys here but I do have a DELL Dimension 8200 with all of my CD's ripped into MP3's plus some I have (legally) downloaded from emusic.com. I have a SB Extigy and connect it to my home theater. The PC has DVI out so when I buy my HDTV I'm all ready to go.... :) For control I also use the X10 MouseRemote with Max10.

I am thinking of building another PC specifically for home theater. I'm gonna get one of those HT cases so it will fit nicely into my setup.

And oh yeah, I have a Linksys WLAN router and an Orinoco gold card so I can move around my apartment with my laptop and PocketPC. Devices I hope to be able network soon:

PS2
HTPC
Series 2 DTiVo (hopefully :)
UltimateTV (fat chance but what the hey)
Refrigerator http://reviews.zdnet.co.uk/review/28/2/1600.html

The last one is for when I move into my house. I would have liked to have ICL's e-fridge

http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,17872,00.html

(I used to work for ICL) as it was supposed to work with an online grocery store. But I havent seen any being sold in North America and I don't know if it ever got off the ground in Europe.

[MarkA]

"he PC has DVI out so when I buy my HDTV I'm all ready to go..."

I hate to tell you this, but HDTV doesn't usually use DVI. HDTV sets usually aren't even digital, just high-res analog. So, it's component video RCA connectors and OCCASIONALLY RGBHV through an HD15 D-Sub.

Thanks for the link gcutler, I was wondering if it was still hidden on there somewhere:)

[Steve Mehs]

Don't really have a specific set up, just a Winamp play list of around 250 MP3s organized by genre and artist blasting out my Klipsch 4.1 system. In all reality, *cough* *cough* I'd rather go out and actually buy my music if on DVD-A. Even though I'd have to live with DD5.1 until I get a real DVD-Audio Player. For me there is very little conent I like on DVD-A. I went to the Best Buy here and the one in Erie and a few Media Play's and have yet to find that other Metallica DVD-A.

[MarkA]

Steve, you have 250 MP3s and are using Winamp? LOL Winamp is an okay occasional file player. But that's INSANE! Check out Voyetra Turtle Beach AudioStation 5's free edition (the "free" AS6 is just a demo, the demo AS5 is really a completely free limited edition). The free edition of AS 5.6 is available here: ftp://ftp.voyetra.com/pub/tbs/as5/aud_sta5.exe

Plus, it's decoder is a touch better than WinAmp. Other programs are MusicMatch Jukebox and the (no longer available, but you might be able to track iit down) FreeAmp. WinAmp just isn't designed for 250 MP3s or even good sound quality (though unlike older versions, the sound quality isn't bad at all anymore). It's designed primarily for people who like CPU-wasting visualizations (the purpose of which I've never understood?!?!?!). It has no library functions at all.

[Steve Mehs]

I love Winamp! The visualizations are the reason I started using it over the Napster internal player a few years ago. Plus with tons of plugins and a 10 band equalizer I'm all set. I don't care about library functions, I just have one big MP3 playlist There is nothing wrong with Wimamps sound quality. I hated Music Match, Real Player Plus is okay and I was never a big fan of WMP.

[sjhill01]

Check out the SliMP3 (http://www.slimdevices.com).

I don't own one of these (yet), but I've been following their development since before the first unit was sold; I know a few people who've bought one (or more!) and love it.

[raj2001]

Originally posted by Zac
"he PC has DVI out so when I buy my HDTV I'm all ready to go..."

I hate to tell you this, but HDTV doesn't usually use DVI. HDTV sets usually aren't even digital, just high-res analog. So, it's component video RCA connectors and OCCASIONALLY RGBHV through an HD15 D-Sub.


I know that most HDTV's use component inputs but there are some HDTV sets that use DVI. I dunno if they may be compatible due to HDCP though.

[MarkA]

" There is nothing wrong with Wimamps sound quality."

I said it's greatly improved, didn't I? WinAmps sound quality used to be awful, perhaps even worse than WiMP. (not the really early versions though, somewhere around 2.5 they switched to a really REALLY, REALLY cruddy decoder then improved the decoder later)

[lee635]

We've setup a server at the campus radio station here and are in the process of copying out CDs, LPs and even some 45s out to MP3s. The problem is we have a couple rooms full of just LPs, so it'll take years of volunteer time to get caught up. Plus every day new CDs arrive in the front door. There are also a couple rooms full of CDs that need to be converted too.

Does anyone know of a fast method to record out the LPs? I've been told we have to actually play the records at 33 1/3 to get it into the MP3 software. I'm thinking of setting up 5 turntables so we can record 5 records at a time.

We may try to get an arts preservation grant to cover some of the costs. Anyone know if there is a coordinated effort to archive old LPs already in progress? I searched online but didn't find anything after a cursory look.

[gcutler]

I used Roxio Sound Stream. And it seems that however you want the recording to be heard is how you play it. So it would take 60 minutes of record time to transfer over a 60 minute 33-1/3 album. And then you have to break up the recording. Sound Stream's "Spin Doctor" allows you to "Auto split" the recording into tracks, but no one I know can ever get it to work 100% so it still required manual manipulation to break up the albums into correct several MP3s.

[Neil Derryberry]

I think Zac works for Turtle Beach... he's beginning to sound like an advertisement.

[Richard King]

I used to work in the remastering studio at Pickwick records years ago. Basically I sat there 8 hours a day playing with master tapes of old records and "cleaned them up" for release on the Pickwick label. I used a rack full of compressors, reverbs, parametric equalizers, triband processors, etc. along with 4 high end Studer and Ampex half track master tape machines and an occassional razor blade. All this equipment, including the razor blade, could now be replaced with one tape machine for playback and the computer I am using for typing this message. One thing that isn't solved by computers is the time required to re-record the music source. I am working on some of my father's old post WW-II vintage big band records right now. I did one record over the weekend (The Golden Age of Benny Goodman, a 1956 pressing of music from the mid to late '30's) in about 3 1/2 hours, and am not at all satisfied with the results (yet). Anyone know of a good computer based pop-click filter to remove scratches from old records? I was able to remove a good amount of surface noise using Cool Edit, but it does nothing with the scratches unless I do them by hand one click at a time.

[RichW]

I use Gold Wave. It does a great job of automatically removing hiss and vinyl "pops". My software is about four years old, so there may be even better packages out there (I think there is even a version of Gold Wave that is more enhanced than the one I use). For an overall audio editing package (converting sound formats and sampling rates) and applying various audio "filters" such as the pop/click and hiss filters, Gold Wave does a great job.

I think you can DL a fully working demo which allows you to try it for a certain number of operations.

[Richard King]

Thanks for the tip on Gold Wave. I just downloaded it and have played with it for a few minutes and so far it does a great job of pop/click filtering. I will have to spend a bit more time with it to learn all the tricks, but so far it is just great. And to think that I used to use a professional level Burwen Transient Noise Eliminator worth about $1200 to do a very similar job. Amazing. Count me pleased, so far. I will probably register and buy it. :D

[Richard King]

Well, after using the program for a while, it seems to work very well for pop/click repairs on a majority of items, BUT, it can't handle strong transients well at all. One song that I was working on to test it is Benny Goodman "And the Angels Sing" (my father's record mentioned above). The song fell apart on the drum and horn duet in the middle of the song. All other songs I have done are quite good. I don't know if it is going to become a permanent resident in my computer yet though. On the above song I even tried to compress before filtering, but that didn't help either. Off to play some more.